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Conversations and Morning Walks

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- October 27, 1968, Montreal, With First Devotees Going to London On Evening of Their Departure:

Prabhupāda: Efficient cause.

Janārdana: That is in the Brahma-saṁhitā.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Janārdana: I have the page.

Prabhupāda: This is Third Canto?

Janārdana: Third Canto. I have fragments of it. Satsvarupa Prabhu gave me some fragments that he had. So I have a couple of books like this. (break)

Prabhupāda: I shall put here. (break) ...and you... The New York boys' opinion is to start a press in New York will be nice because there is so many other facilities for press work. If the press goes wrong, there are immediate, I mean to say, what is called, mechanics to repair it. In other places it is not possible. (break) All right. We shall think over it.

Janārdana: About the press in New York?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Discussion with BTG Staff -- December 24, 1969, Boston:

Hayagrīva: Should your... In the content, should we put in... How many articles can we put in by you? These are the most important contributions we have, and, say, would it be too much material to put in, say, an essay by you and maybe a lecture or...

Prabhupāda: Or whatever it may be. That any article may not be more than two, three pages, printed. That will be nice. And if the number of articles are more, how many pages we are going to print?

Hayagrīva: We're going to print more pages, aren't we?

Brahmānanda: Well, there's some discuss... If we print it on our own press we can print it, we could add eight more pages, which would make it forty pages. But we may continue with Dai Nippon in Japan. So I don't know if we'll increase the pages.

Prabhupāda: So by increasing the pages, what do we immediately get profit? Is there any special advantage we get?

Satsvarūpa: More reading material. More reading material. The customer gets more for his money.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. We should be businessmen. They should get less for their money. (laughter) We are to please Kṛṣṇa, not our customers. So if we are not increasing the price, then why should we increase the pages? Either we print in our own press or Japan, there is extra labor, extra energy. But we are not getting extra money. So there is no need.

Discussion with BTG Staff -- December 24, 1969, Boston:

Prabhupāda: No. No. One. One. Everyone one, not more. One man's article, not more than two, either of mine or anyone. But so far our news is concerned...

Hayagrīva: Not more than two or not more than one?

Prabhupāda: No. Not more than one. Not more than one.

Hayagrīva: You said two or three pages. Maybe four pages would be all...?

Prabhupāda: Four pages, that's all. But not more than four pages.

Hayagrīva: There was an excerpt from, I think, Kṛṣṇa Book...

Prabhupāda: No. Whatever is done is done. Now you follow this policy, that one...

Hayagrīva: What about excerpts from your books? Is that all right?

Prabhupāda: Oh, excerpt from my book or my article, the same thing. The same thing. So there is no difference. That is also my writing. And whatever you are writing, that is also my writing. So everything is all right. (laughter)

Discussion with BTG Staff -- December 24, 1969, Boston:

Prabhupāda: Yes. But they should be divided into different names. (laughter) Just like...

Hayagrīva: I have though of doing Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī's Brahma-saṁhitā. Do you think we could serialize it maybe in three or four Back to Godheads? Or could we print it ourselves in a little pamphlet? Or which do you think would be better?

Prabhupāda: No, if you publish in Back to Godhead, then by portion, similarly, three, four pages. That's all, continually, Bhaktisiddhānta's... So when there will be articles sorted, first Guru Mahārāja's, Bhaktisiddhānta's, then mine. Like that. Yes.

Hayagrīva: Yes. Do you think it would be a good...

Prabhupāda: If you write something, quotation, from Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, that should be first. Just like guru-paramparā, when we offer our respect, first our own spiritual master, then his spiritual master, then his spiritual master. In this way. But when putting article, that should be the opposite. First Bhaktivinoda, then Bhaktisiddhānta, then my, then my disciples, like that.

Discussion with BTG Staff -- December 24, 1969, Boston:

Kīrtanānanda: Yes. Some of us have difficulty understanding Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So if I get time... My time is very limited. So even there is difficulty, let them read over and over and again. Then they will understand. Why should we change it? Let it be presented as Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī has given, and... Then don't give more than one or two pages at a time. Their brain will be puzzled. (laughter) Yes. When Guru Mahārāja was speaking, at least my brain was puzzled. (laughter) Even he would speak in Bengali, it was very difficult to understand. He was speaking from a very, very high platform. But I wanted to hear him. That's all. Even I did not understand it. That he appreciated, (laughs) that "This boy does not go away. He hears." Actually that was my position. In the beginning I could not understand what he was speaking, but I wanted to hear him. That's all. I was very much anxious to hear him. That he marked. And he was kindly pleased on me, that "He wants to hear. He does not go away." That was my policy, that "let me hear. Even I do not understand, let me hear." That's all. Yes. Actually I did not understand in the beginning what he was speaking. So Bhaktisiddhānta's writing is not very easy to understand. Yes. But we should try, read and read again, and simply that vibration will help us. That's all. It is transcendental vibration, not that everyone will understand. But if you simply give aural reception to the vibration, that will make him advanced, not exactly that anyone has to understand it. Yes. Just like a man is sleeping and somebody is calling him. In his sleeping condition he does not understand. By calling, calling, calling, he gets up because that vibration is there. Not that in his sleeping condition he is understanding what is this sound is coming. So similarly, we should give reception to the transcendental vibrations made by Kṛṣṇa and His bona fide representatives. That will make us awakened. Not that we understand everything.

Discussion with BTG Staff -- December 24, 1969, Boston:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That's all. That is printing department.

Hayagrīva: And then Jayadvaita does the composing.

Prabhupāda: Jayadvaita and others.

Satsvarūpa: Pālikā and Arundhati.

Prabhupāda: Now, I heard that you are composing fifty pages daily, altogether?

Jayadvaita: No, not fifty pages. The manuscript pages, yesterday we composed about forty manuscript pages.

Prabhupāda: Correct, all? Complete?

Jayadvaita: Yes. The original... It's done twice. So those first pages, the first time, they'd already been done.

Prabhupāda: No, no. These forty pages, they are complete?

Jayadvaita: Yes. They are complete.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. That is encouraging. So even if you complete thirty pages daily, that will be very nice.

Discussion with BTG Staff -- December 24, 1969, Boston:

Pradyumna: They'll get faster because Śyāma dāsī and Arundhati were just typing fourteen hours a day in Columbus and they were getting at least twenty manuscript pages done, and now it's...

Prabhupāda: Anyway, you are the in-charge of this composition. You or Jaya-govinda? Who is in charge of the composition?

Jayadvaita: Mostly I am doing it.

Prabhupāda: Accha. Then you get easily not less than thirty pages daily, complete. That will satisfy. Is that all right?

Jayadvaita: That's all right.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Then our books are, biggest book, four hundred pages. So thirty pages daily means, what is that? Within fifteen days you can complete.

Jayadvaita: Thirty manuscript pages, thirty book pages?

Prabhupāda: Thirty book pages. No. Or what is the manuscript pages? I do not understand.

Jayadvaita: When it's typed out, we've been doing about...

Prabhupāda: I want complete for being photographed.

Jayadvaita: Yes.

Discussion with BTG Staff -- December 24, 1969, Boston:

Brahmānanda: When you say a page, do you mean a page...

Jayadvaita: He means the typed copies. I've been doing forty of those...

Brahmānanda: How many manuscript pages?

Jayadvaita: That's what I mean. Forty of those pages. Forty pages like that. So Nectar of Devotion is about 580...

Pradyumna: Forty of these.

Prabhupāda: Oh. All right. These are forty pages. Such, say, in fifteen days how many pages?

Satsvarūpa: 450.

Prabhupāda: So you take up twenty days, one month for one book?

Hayagrīva: I cannot edit much faster than forty pages a day.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Don't do it, I mean to say, so hastily. But do it slowly and surely. That will be nice. Yes.

Brahmānanda: One book, one month.

Discussion with BTG Staff -- December 24, 1969, Boston:

Jayadvaita: Yes.

Prabhupāda: You say everything all right. (laughter) Anyway...

Brahmānanda: Today, Pradyumna prabhu, you edited how many pages?

Pradyumna: I didn't edit so many today. I edited fifty yesterday.

Prabhupāda: So I think I want... I shall be very glad to see the Nectar of Devotion is finished before I leave this place and you begin some other book.

Jayadvaita: The second part... We've finished the first part. We're now into the second part.

Prabhupāda: Second part, which second part?

Jayadvaita: Where the qualities of Kṛṣṇa are described. We've started that part of the book now.

Pradyumna: How many pages, manuscript pages, composed? 250...

Jayadvaita: 260 manuscript pages.

Pradyumna: 260, out of 574, done.

1970 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1970, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: But the old woman's crying.

Haṁsadūta: Do you want to hear the next letter? This is the second letter. "I do not see why you devoted two full pages to the article on 'Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa,' November 8th. Wearing a plain white sari, applying sandal paste on the forehead and wearing nose-rings do not transform one. Churning milk gopī fashion is no way to attain spiritual bliss. The statements made by the devotees of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement reflect an attitude of escapism."

Prabhupāda: Hm. Anyway, we are getting publicity.

Haṁsadūta: (laughs) They're angry. "How can the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa purify the mind? It only closes it to everything else. Purity of the mind lies in knowing all evil and yet abstaining from it. The escapist attitude of the devotees of the movement is reflected in the reply of Adhikārī when he bypasses the question of India's poverty by giving irrelevant answers. The poverty of our country is known to all of us. I am not an atheist, but I find it difficult to digest the sentimentalism in the article."

Prabhupāda: What is that sentimentalism?

Haṁsadūta: I didn't read the article. That was in the... Which paper? I think this was in a Bombay paper. What paper is this?

Guest (1): This is Times of India.

Prabhupāda: Bombay.

Room Conversation -- November 4, 1970, Bombay:

Haṁsadūta: November 8th.

Revatīnandan: The magazine section. Two page particle with nice pictures. You liked it very much.

Prabhupāda: Oh, oh, yes, yes. I remember. She is envious, that "Why two page advertisement, publicity has been..." That's all.

Haṁsadūta: There's another letter. It says, "Your leading article on the Kṛṣṇa cult makes interesting reading. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the Indian founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON, and his American disciples repeatedly told K.R. Sundarajan, the author of the article in the Times Weekly, November 8th, 1970, during their brief stay in Bombay that theirs was not strictly a Hindu movement. They explained to him that Kṛṣṇa was above all religions, the universal teacher, the supreme man, the purification of the Absolute Truth. If it is so, then why can't they go to Pakistan and China for chanting of Kṛṣṇa's name and ask them to vacate aggression? The soil of this land where the great master was born..."

Prabhupāda: Now, now, we have to serve the political, politicians. Eh? Because they cannot do, so they are asking us.

Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:

Haṁsadūta: But the articles that will be in the newspaper, they will be exactly like other newspapers? Who will write them?

Prabhupāda: No, articles... Daily newspaper means there must be news. News you can purchase from the news collecting company. They will supply it. At very cheap price they'll supply. And you take advertisement. Yes. You'll cover your expenses by getting advertisements and make sufficient profit. Newspaper starting is not a losing business provided you can organize. Just like ordinary newspaper, they give... In daily news... People want to learn daily news, and they supply huge quantity. And those who are advertiser, they are simply concerned how many copies are issued. If you issue 100,000's of copies, then you can charge for each page thousand dollars. They will pay. Two thousand dollars they will pay.

Haṁsadūta: That means in each city we would we have to have our own local press.

Prabhupāda: No, not necessarily. You can arrange with any newspaper place. You simply supply your matter; they will print. Just like we are getting from Japan, similarly, make your own layout and supply them. Immediately, within two hours, everything is complete.

Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:

Haṁsadūta: The best place to start is Boston.

Prabhupāda: Yes, already. Even in small scale we can start from Boston.

Haṁsadūta: Just like one or two pages.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Never mind. Just like I began in that way. You have seen the...

Haṁsadūta: Yes, I saw the original Back to Godhead. A lot of your articles were commenting about current events.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The editorial board must be very intelligent how to talk about Back to Godhead with current politics. Giriraja, you can do that?

Giriraja: I could try.

Prabhupāda: Try. You just try it immediately. You take one newspaper and comment on the current news. Any one of you... Every one of you can do. And show me how you have given. Then you start immediately. We have got many things to do. We have Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa is the bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ sarva-loka maheśvaram (BG 5.29). What these petty politicians and three acres of land? Their stage is three acres of land; our stage is the unlimited. That I have mentioned in the second volume of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So what news they can publish? Three acres of land. We have got the innumerable universes. We can supply so much news, provided people are ready to read it. We have published so many books, they are not even able to read these books. So the other devotees, (laughs) they cannot ri..., come at five o'clock. That is the test. Yes. One who cannot rise early in the morning, he is not spiritually serious. That is test. Brāhma-muhūrta, this hour, one hour before sunrise, is very auspicious moment.

Room Conversation -- December 21, 1970, Surat:

Haṁsadūta: Here, Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: Kiñcid adhīta. (break) ...a thousand pages of this size. This is four hundred pages, but that Gītā will be thousand pages. But we shall use very thin paper. Yes. It is available after some time.

Guest (2): Where?

Prabhupāda: In our center in India.

Guest (2): Is this same?

Prabhupāda: No, it is Nectar of Devotion. Where are our other books?

Haṁsadūta: In my suitcase. Shall I bring them?

Prabhupāda: Yes, bring. (break) Kṛṣṇa, canvassing Himself, says, Kṛṣṇa, Himself canvassing, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). "Give up everything. Just surrender unto Me." How many do it? So we are canvassing on behalf of Kṛṣṇa. He personally said practically. So you don't expect that everyone will be Kṛṣṇa conscious. It is very difficult.

1971 Conversations and Morning Walks

Conversation with Prof. Kotovsky -- June 22, 1971, Moscow:

Prabhupāda: Prohibitive. No illicit sex life, no meat-eating, meat or fish or eggs, no, and no gambling, and no intoxication, including cigarette, tea, coffee. These also we take as intoxicants. So these four principle one has to obey, and let him chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. And by this process only, you'll find, how these boys and girls are improving quickly. Process is very simple. Besides that, we have got books, volumes of books, just like Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā. I have given them. Throughout all these years I have written so many books. And they have got ample stock for reading, the whole life. We have got four hundred pages', big, big books, about one dozen books: Kṛṣṇa in two parts, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in six parts, Teachings of Lord Caitanya, one part, Nectar of Devotion, one part. In this way I am... And these are... We are publishing every month one chapter, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, with this detailed information, giving a heading like this, "The First Step in God Realization." Here is also. The heading is: "Puruṣa-śukta Continued." Puruṣa-śukta is a Vedic stotram. So we are trying to push this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Just like in your country there is Lenin consciousness, similarly, it is also a different type of consciousness. Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa is also historical personality as much as Lenin is also historical personality. So His philosophy... Just like you are trying to understand his philosophy, we are trying to understand Kṛṣṇa's philosophy. In this way this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is going on.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1971, Detroit:

Mohsin Hassan: They tell me that..., the Ramakrishna Mission, they offer all kinds variety of books about every religion.

Prabhupāda: We have got varieties of books.

Mohsin Hassan: Yes.

Prabhupāda: We have got at least twelve books, four hundred pages, different ways we are presenting, but our main aim is, end is Kṛṣṇa, to understand Kṛṣṇa through different philosophical thoughts. We have presented, I think. You have not...? You say you say you have seen all these books.

Mohsin Hassan: Yes.

Prabhupāda: We have got Kṛṣṇa, Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Nectar of Devotion, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Easy Journey to Other Planets, Kṛṣṇa Consciousness is the Topmost Yoga System. In this way we have presented so many.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1971, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: So you try to understand our philosophy from any angle of vision and we shall be able to answer. There will be no difficulty, because we are taking our lessons from Kṛṣṇa. So there is no difficulty to answer any opposite element.

Mohsin Hassan: Thank you again. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...First Canto Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Second Canto Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Third, Fourth, Fifth. These five big, big books, not less than thousand pages each, and Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, eleven hundred pages. So, and each book will cost us twenty thousand, twenty-five thousand. So any amount of money we (indistinct) we can engage in printing books.

Mohsin Hassan: Yeah, it seems to me this is the biggest problem, the cost of operations.

Prabhupāda: Never mind. Kṛṣṇa is giving. You have seen our publications?

Mohsin Hassan: No. I have seen the books. I have most of them.

Prabhupāda: Small Bhāgavata, chapterwise it is publishing. It is very scholarly. (aside:) Bring some chapters of Bhāgavatam.

Devotee: Yes. Prabhupāda, he has almost all of them.

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

Prabhupāda: You know how to do that?

Devotee (4): Yes, Prabhupāda, I got A's in that.

Pratyatoṣa: These terminals have paper tape punches. You can the punch paper tape and then feed the paper tape into a machine called a photon machine, and you get out a perfectly composed page with... You can have any type size you want, you can have any type of, what do you call it, the face, the typeface, and it'll be perfect for publishing. It'll come right out of that. The whole process is automatic.

Devotee (4): Those tapes can be kept, stored, all the tapes.

Pratyatoṣa: Sure, they can be kept stored. And then... Oh, also, you get free storage with this for 300,000 characters, that's about 100 pages at least.

Devotee (4): This is a wonderful idea, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I don't know why no one thought of this before.

Pratyatoṣa: I'll leave this here, OK? I'll leave this here.

Prabhupāda: All right, you read it.

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

Devotee (4): I used to think, Śrīla Prabhupāda, "I wonder when the day is going to come when we're going to be able to use computers in Kṛṣṇa consciousness?" and now maybe it's come. Composing can be eliminated, done automatically, and the layout can be done automatically because the pages will come out perfect. When they're typed out, they will come out perfect. Therefore, there is no need of layout. You simply photograph those pages.

Pratyatoṣa: With a photon machine, you can do a whole book. You could have a thousand-page book done in one night. It would type the whole thing in one night. That's all you'd need is a (indistinct).

Devotee (4): Those machines are fantastic.

Pratyatoṣa: They're so fast.

Devotee (4): They are fantastic.

Pratyatoṣa: They turn out a page in a couple of seconds.

Devotee (4): Electric brain.

Pratyatoṣa: Yeah.

Devotee (4): Big electric.

Pratyatoṣa: And they're always perfect. There's no variation in the characters or anything like this.

Prabhupāda: But as soon as an electronic is a little sick, the whole thing stops.

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 15, 1972, Madras:

Prabhupāda: (reading:) "...Kṛṣṇa can be described, not (indistinct) Him, his mind becomes totally associated with Him. His Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda in his discourse at the (indistinct) Sunday, said there was no rigid rules and regulations for chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, nor does it require formal education. While uttering the name of Sri Kṛṣṇa one should focus the mind on the image and form of the Lord, His auspicious activities, His delightful sport, and His role as Gītā-ācārya. Lord Caitanya, during His visit to a temple in South India, found a man scanning the pages of the Bhagavad-gītā without seeming to read the verses, and inquiring, the same found that the person was illiterate and yet he was turning the pages of the Gītā at the request of his master because as he did so, he had a vision of Sri Kṛṣṇa expounding spiritual knowledge to Arjuna on the Kurukṣetra battlefield. Thereupon Caitanya embraced him in all admiration for his devotion, sincere faith, and guidance of the spiritual master as necessary for God realization." They give very nice article. You have seen it?

Madhudviṣa: No. (pause) He doesn't give the receipt number. He says... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...all the educated men. Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tat tad evetaro janaḥ (BG 3.21). If the, who is called, elite society appreciate, then ordinary people will also appreciate. Before my Guru Maharaja, I mean, Bhaktisiddhānta's..., Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Lord Caitanya's cult was considered by the higher class as it is the business of the low-class men. Even Vivekananda remarked that "It is the religion of sex," because they saw that the sahajiyās, they discussed this rāsa-līlā and have illicit connection with woman. So therefore they took it as the religion of sex. Vivekananda.

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

Prabhupāda: So Vṛndāvana is the breeding ground for such things.

Indian man (2): No, it's not Vṛndāvana. That man doesn't live here, he lives in Calcutta. The book was brought here. It was sent by him to some people, and one copy was directed to me also. Five copies were sent here, and I have the honor to be the recipient of one of them. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: How big it is?

Indian man (2): A small thing, small thing, about eighty, ninety pages. So I was just going through it, I have been, and I will call a gentleman at two o'clock today with whom I shall discuss the matter. He belongs to that party.

Prabhupāda: Which party?

Indian man (2): The author.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Indian man (2): The author, author's party.

Prabhupāda: Author's party. They have got a party here?

Indian man (2): No party here, but this gentleman has given the foreword. He is the author of Ṭhākura Haridāsa, that big volume.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation -- March 12, 1972, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Atonement.

Dr. Kapoor: Atonement, yes.

Prabhupāda: Atonement.

Dr. Kapoor: Atonement. So I was made to undergo atonement, you see. (chuckles) I was coming to Mathurā. I had to drop down some (indistinct) at Mathurā, and I had a trunk and bedding with me. (break) (Hindi), a big volume, about one thousand pages, that he had given to me for revision. So that thing was there, there was one...

Prabhupāda: Bengali?

Dr. Kapoor: Hindi.

Prabhupāda: Hindi.

Dr. Kapoor: Hindi. One more manuscript. And, of course, there was some jewelry also because my son has been recently married, you see, and there was some jewelry also. That was not so material as this manuscript.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

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

Author: Yes, well, I'm not trying to... Because I am not an adherent of... I'm not a Hare Kṛṣṇa movement member. That is obvious. And because I am not a member of the movement, I am therefore not trying to do precisely what you gentlemen are saying, but I'll not try to package an unwholesome product like poison...(laughter) Yes, I appreciate that. But what I am trying to do is to describe what is. Now this requires an exercise of the imagination. If you imagine somebody who is outside, as each of you people were at one stage, you came to understand what this movement was by a gradual process. Now I, in a book of about a hundred pages, am going to trace that process, not in the way you did it, but in a slightly different way. But the things that strikes one immediately are these external, superficial characteristics. And then one he comes to appreciate rather more important things. And it's just a question of stating these in that way. Now in order to understand the highest possible things, it surely is necessary to state the superficial things as well, the less important things. It seems to me to be clearly...

Upendra: What Prabhupāda is speaking tonight is very important and it might appear that he is not understanding you but he is actually speaking to you, like you said, necessary (indistinct) so that if you can assimilate everything Prabhupāda is saying tonight, you'll be able to write the book much more clearly. You might think that he is not understanding you, but he is speaking the most important part.

Author: I am not (indistinct) his understanding. I think he is worried about my understanding, which is why he is... Right. Well, I appreciate this, but I am trying to convince him that I am going to try to say accurately what your philosophy is. And in this I'll have to rely on your help, because I can't do it otherwise.

Prabhupāda: I have already explained our philosophy.

Author: I'm sorry, not explain. Describe, I think, is a rather better word.

Prabhupāda: That philosophy, if you want to know more, then we can speak more. But that is the outlines of the philosophy, that people, without knowledge of his identification, they are misled, being misled. And that is very risky. Risky means that you have got this opportunity of understanding your position and get out of the difficulties of birth, death, old age, and disease. If you do not properly use this opportunity and again you become cats and dogs, then are you not misled? So present civilization is misleading. They are concerned with a few years enjoyment, so-called enjoyment. Suppose you are Australian or American. You have got very nice status in your country, good house, good facility, good money, and that's all right. But after your death, when you have to quit this subtle atmosphere, then after your death what is happening to you, you are not concerned to know? If you are eternal, if you are eternal, then suppose you have got this shirt and coat. When it is torn down, when it is old enough, you have to give it up. Then you have to purchase another shirt and coat. So are you not prepared for that, "What kind of shirt and coat I shall have?"

Room Conversation -- April 2, 1972, Sydney:

Prabhupāda: Now this Macmillan's report is that ours selling more. Therefore, they have advanced to take up this enlarged edition. Otherwise, they are business. In the beginning they refused. They said, "No, no, we cannot publish so big volume. We can... If you minimize..." Therefore, we minimized it to four hundred pages.

Śyāmasundara: They made a study. They know what's going... They want all of your books. In the contract for Topmost Yoga and Easy Journey they have the option to take your next big book.

Devotee (3): In Harvard Library, your Bhagavad-gītā—they have many, many Bhagavad-gītās, about four hundred, many, and Bhagavad-gītā As It Is was taken out of late, since it's been in there, more than any other ones. They all have dust, and yours has been taken out. And Kṛṣṇa book was never in, I could never see it in, because it was always out, from the very first day it was in. In fact, when it was going into the library, the head of the department, he took it right away.

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

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1972, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Unnecessary pride is very bad. "Oh, I have become very advanced in Kṛṣṇa consciousness." That we should never think.

Devotee (1): "We are simply Your maidservants and slaves. Please, therefore, accept us by showing us Your lotuslike beautiful face. Dear Kṛṣṇa, actually we have become very lusty, having been touched by Your lotus feet. Your lotus feet certainly kill all kinds of sinful activities of devotees who have taken shelter there. You are so kind that even the ordinary animals take shelter under Your lotus feet. Your lotus feet are also the residence of the goddess of fortune, yet You dance on the head of the Kāliya serpent with them. Now we are requesting You to kindly place Your lotus feet on our breasts and pacify our lusty desires to touch You. O Lord, Your attractive eyes, like the lotus, are so nice and pleasing. Your sweet words are so fascinating that they please even the greatest scholars, who also become attracted to You. We are also attracted by Your speaking and by the beauty of Your face and eyes. Please, therefore, satisfy us by Your nectarean kisses. Dear Lord, words spoken by You or words describing Your activities are full of nectar, and simply by speaking or hearing Your words one can be saved from the blazing fire of material existence. Great demigods like Lord Brahma and Lord Siva are always engaged in chanting the glories of Your words. (devotees continue reading for several pages) Great yogis like Lord Siva, Lord Brahma or even Lord Śeṣa and others always try to fix their attention upon Kṛṣṇa in their heart, but here the gopīs actually saw Kṛṣṇa seated before them on their cloths."

Prabhupāda: This is yoga. This is yoga system, to see Kṛṣṇa within your heart. That is real.

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

Pradyumna: No.

Prabhupāda: This is published by Macmillan. It is eleven hundred pages. They printed in July fifty thousand copies. That is finished. Now they are going to print second edition. Since 1968 they are publishing our Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, and every year they are getting one edition. From the beginning... I think this is the fifth or sixth edition and their business manager, trades manager's report is that this Bhagavad-gītā is increasing sale, others' dwindling, because it is presented as it is. We present Kṛṣṇa as Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa says, "I am the Supreme Personality of Godhead." We present Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Kṛṣṇa says, "You surrender unto Me." We teach people, "You surrender to Kṛṣṇa." Kṛṣṇa says, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). We say, "You become Kṛṣṇa bhakta. You offer worship to Kṛṣṇa." We don't change anything. And therefore people are accepting. Adulteration, how long it will go on? You know very well. You are from Delhi. There is a Punjabi halwai (?), in the Chowry Bazaar. You know that?

Guest (4): No, I have heard about it.

Prabhupāda: Because he sells, I mean to say, confectionery made of pure ghee you'll find always hundreds of customers waiting. And there are many dalda ghee shop not so crowded. Some cheap men are going there. So anything you present pure, there will be automatic customer. And that is being proved. We are presenting Kṛṣṇa as He is, and He is being accepted everywhere, all over the world. But as soon as you make adulteration Kṛṣṇa, manufacture your concoction—"Kṛṣṇa means this, Kurukṣetra means this," all nonsense talk—immediately lost. Why should we do that, adulteration? There is no business adulterating. So many scholars, so many swamis, they have simply presented adulterated. Just like even Mahatma Gandhi says, "The Kurukṣetra means this body." And where he got this meaning? Where is the dictionary meaning? You should speak something which must be authorized. Where is the dictionary where Kurukṣetra is explained as this body? And Kurukṣetra station is still existing. People are going to Kurukṣetra for religious performances. Kuru-kṣetre dharma-kṣetre. Why should I interpret Kurukṣetra, "the body"? This is going on. So that will not be effective. It may be effective, a few person, somebody's admirer. But it will not go far above that. But if you present as it is, it will be accepted by any real inquirer.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

Prabhupāda: ...trouble to the poor animals. Why the poor animals should be killed? They have got equal rights. But these rascals, they will not give equal rights. (break)... National means one who is born in that land. The animals are born in that land. Man is also born in that land. Trees are also born in that land. But they are not national. Only human beings national. Imperfect knowledge.

Guest (4): In Luton, before eighty years... When I was reading the history of Luton, on the page number 176, it was written that there was a great shortage of food before eighty years, and in some place people were cutting their own children and eating.

Prabhupāda: Huh?!

Guest (4): This is written. If you like that book, I can send you. So the non-vegetarians...

Prabhupāda: Cutting their children?!

Guest (4): Cutting their own children, killing them and eat them. In some private places in Luton, where I am residing now. The history of Luton has been published by the County Borough of Luton. The non-vegetarian food leaved them to such an extent that they couldn't stay without the meat. And they had to cut their own children. Now we are vegetarian. I have never tasted any meat. I don't know the taste of it. Still. we all exist on vegetables, all sorts of vegetables.

Prabhupāda: The same thing happened in Kanpur in a hotel. One man was eating meat, and he found a little finger...

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

Prabhupāda: But their nature is to eat meat. You have to give him. That is different thing. But they can be tamed. But not very trustworthy. (laughter)

Buddhist Monk (1): If they get a little irritated and hungry, they may go to gather.

Prabhupāda: No, if you give them nice food, they'll never attack you.

Haṁsadūta: In the Bible also, in the very beginning page, there's a verse. After God created everything, the animals and the trees and everything, then He gave allotment of food to the human society. It says very plainly that "The seed-bearing plants and trees of the earth shall be your meat, or shall be your food."

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Haṁsadūta: And it says nothing...

Prabhupāda: Vegetables.

Haṁsadūta: It says nothing about... Yes.

Buddhist Monk (1): Yes, but later it goes to add something that "Meat is meat unto you." Yeah. There your difficulty comes in. Well, Isaiaḥ in the Bible, one of five prophets in the Bible, he says: "Peace will come on earth when even the feroci..." (break) May you have long, healthy life.

Prabhupāda: What is your age?

Buddhist Monk (1): I am fifty-nine years.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

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

Prabhupāda: Hm. And here is a verse, the guidance to the guardians: pitā na sa syāt... What is? Gurur na sa syāt.

Pradyumna: (Flipping pages) Is it, is that in Fifth Canto.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Fifth Canto, Fifth Chapter. Na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum.

Pradyumna:

gurur na sa syāt sva-jano na sa syāt
pitā na sa syāj jananī na sā syāt
daivaṁ na tat syān na patiś ca sa syān
na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum

Prabhupāda: Samupeta-mṛtyum. So the idea is one should not become spiritual master. Gurur na sa syāt. Then?

Pradyumna: Sva-jano na sa syāt.

Prabhupāda: One should not become his kinsman. This is negative side, going on. One should not become a spiritual master, one should not pose himself as kinsman... Gurur na sa syāt sva-jano na sa syāt. Then?

Pradyumna: Pitā na sa syāt.

Prabhupāda: One should not become a father. And pitā na sa syāt, jananī na sā syāt. One should not claim to become mother. Then?

Pradyumna: Daivaṁ na tat syān.

Prabhupāda: One should not... Because somebody worships some forms of God. So that gods should also not be worshiped. Then? Go on.

Room Conversation with German and Hamsaduta dasa -- August 9, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Get new light.

Guest: I would say another thing what I was. When I met the knowledge of Omkarananda, yes, I went back quite a long, five kilometers, a farm, I retired in a farm. And then I made this meditation. And then I read the book and I read fifty pages in five minutes without reading that. And then when that was finished, I was in other worlds. I could speak about high, other fields, which never I had seen, but when, when I came back I didn't know what it was what I saw. In other words, it was not dream. Absolutely awake. Other worlds, and then other sciences, higher, and higher and higher. I don't know what it was, but it is no of signification, I believe.

Haṁsadūta: It was not significant he says. He doesn't think, even though he experienced it, he doesn't think it's significant.

Guest: (German) I would ask if in the Christian conscience if it gives anything which resembles to this, which is of some worth. Because in your books sometimes you speak of Jesus Christ. He also said: "What have we to do? We have to love God with all our heart and to serve Him." If it gives any movement in your knowledge in Western Europe or in the world in the Christian side one can read what is what.

Haṁsadūta: He wants to know if Christian, Christian teachings also bring the same consciousness, Kṛṣṇa consciousness?

Prabhupāda: Yes. One has to become...

Guest: (German)

Prabhupāda: ...purified.

Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor, Dr. Suneson -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm:

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa Book. (break)

Professor: ...take you to translate?

Prabhupāda: I am doing in my dictaphone daily one tape. One tape, about how many pages?

Pradyumna: Ten to twelve pages.

Prabhupāda: And he's editing. After typing, he edits, and then it is gone to the press. In this way, our work is going on.

Professor: Do you have the original here of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa?

Prabhupāda: Oh yes.

Professor: Could I see it? Is it any...?

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is only Fifth Canto. We have got... You can bring that book, black bound.

Pradyumna: Here's others.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Pradyumna: Third Canto also.

Prabhupāda: Oh, here is. (break) ...eight commentaries by different ācāryas. So I read all the commentaries and give my own. In this way, we are doing. Yes.

Room Conversation with Dr. Christian Hauser, Psychiatrist -- September 10, 1973, Stockholm:

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) Bhāgavata verse, janmādy asya (SB 1.1.1), asya janmādi (indistinct) concise word but volumes of meanings. Volumes. Each word is like that. Vidyā bhāgavata-vali(?). Therefore one's learning is complete when he reads Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Otherwise he remains imperfect, in spite of all learning. Janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), from where? Now the creation of this cosmic world, from where? But you do not know from where. This is explained in Bhāgavatam. Paraṁ satyaṁ dhīmahi. That is actually true. In this way simply if you analyze one verse, you'll find each word is full of volumes of meaning. Janmādy asya yataḥ, anvayāt (SB 1.1.1). Like the creation, anvayāt, directly and indirectly, itarataś cārtheṣu, in the matter of understanding, abhijñaḥ. Abhijñaḥ means completely cognizant. That is the Absolute Truth. He knows everything—how this universe is created, how it is maintained, how it annihilated, directly and indirectly. Just like, I always, regular, everyday thing, when I am massaged by my student, I see so many veins so I think that I claim, "This is my leg," but I do not know what are these veins. Directly I know this is my leg, but indirectly I do not know how this leg is working with these veins and nerves and muscles. I do not know. But so far God is concerned, He has created. He knows every veins and everything. That is called abhijñaḥ. In this way you analyze every word, you'll find volumes of meaning. The next question, "Where you got this experience?" You say He's abhijñaḥ, He knows everything. To get experience one must have teacher. But the next word is svarāṭ, He's experienced and self-sufficiency, svarāṭ, independent. He hasn't got to go anywhere for experiencing. In this way each word is full of meaning. Janmādy asya yataḥ, anvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ svarāṭ, tene brahma hṛdā ya ādi-kavaye muhyanti yat sūrayaḥ (SB 1.1.1). We have very shortly described this one verse. I think five, six pages. You've got that verse?

Room Conversation with Banker -- September 21, 1973, Bombay:

Banker: She's a clerk in my department.

Prabhupāda: I see. So our philosophy is Bhagavad-gītā. You know Bhagavad-gītā?

Lady: Yes, very little.

Prabhupāda: That is standard. All big, big ācāryas of India.

Banker: Is this the thousand-page book that you're holding?

Gargamuni: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So before leaving India, you can become a member. We have got many books, twenty books like that. This is published by MacMillan Company of New York.

Banker: Oh, this one is. Some of them are printed in New York.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Some of these are. This one is the most popular. It is printed by MacMillan (indistinct) publishing house. They went through already three editions just in the first year. The sales manager at MacMillan reported that while all the other editions of Bhagavad-gītā are declining in sales, ours was increasing. So there is a good a interest there. So many I think there are so many English Bhagavad...

Prabhupāda: 645.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 13, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So you can read.

Guest (4): I am willing to read in the (indistinct).

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.

Room Conversation -- February 13, 1974, Vrndavana:

Dr. Kapoor: I see.

Prabhupāda: So I was taking the stock to the booksellers there or some institution or some friend. In this way, sixteen dollars, the full set sixteen dollars. In this way collecting. (break) ...That gentleman who carried me in his car, he is Mr. Kaśinātha Servan(?). (break) ...Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, a large edition, this size, eleven hundred pages.

Dr. Kapoor: I see.

Guru dāsa: We should let Dr. Karan Singh patronize ...

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Guru dāsa: ...an Indian edition of it. We should let Dr. Karan Singh patronize an Indian edition of it, without, with one photo. As he was suggesting, let him patronize it, the Indian printing.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Guru dāsa: Because there is so much demand. He wants to see it. He wants to see it.

Prabhupāda: So why don't you get the manuscript and let us have an Indian edition. I told Rūpānuga that the difficulty is that the enlarged edition when we are attempting to publish, MacMillan says that "We are publishing your book, why not we, we publish." If we publish, then we save our investment to publish. That has not been decided, so therefore I advised my secretary in New York that MacMillan's permission or no permission, you should immediately print. If they print it is all right, otherwise print ourself.

Room Conversation -- February 13, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: In India, yes. No, by publisher, especially publisher like MacMillan you save so much time and investment also. We are not for profit. We want to see the publication in the market, so in that sense we save so much trouble, but they always look after their business profit.

Dr. Kapoor: Naturally.

Prabhupāda: In the beginning also I requested them to publish the whole, but they said, "No, it will be very big, it will be costly. You reduce it to 400 pages." So that 1100 pages were reduced to 400 pages. Now when people are demanding this Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, people are coming. When our saṅkīrtana party goes in the street many gentlemen comes and demands "Have you got Bhaktivedanta's Bhagavad-gītā As It Is?"

Dr. Kapoor: Hm, yes.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they demand it. In every center it is going on very nicely. Then we have many customer requested the enlarged edition. So, so everything is ready. Now this controversy, whether MacMillan will publish or we shall publish.

Morning Walk -- February 23, 1974, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: All-down-knowing, all-down-knowing.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So He's not a stone. Just like some philosopher says there was a chunk and creation came from that. So here Bhāgavata says, "No. The origin of creation, He's a person—abhijñaḥ. And He knows everything, directly and indirectly." Directly, I know this is my body, but indirectly, I do not know what is going on in this body. Therefore we go to physician that: "Please tell me what is the ailments in my body." So I do not know what is the cause. But the original Absolute Truth, He knows everything, directly and indirectly. Therefore He is abhijñaḥ. Janmādy asya yataḥ anvayāt itarataś ca artheṣu abhijñaḥ (SB 1.1.1). In this way, concludes: satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi.

Dr. Patel: Dhīmahi. Yes. Krishna Shankara Shastri has written hundred pages on this and explained it. And I got lost in it, on this one single śloka. He has, about the last dhīmahi, is also a part of Gāyatrī-mantra.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dr. Patel: What this kuhakam, kuhakam?

Prabhupāda: Kuhakam means this material world is kuhakam.

Dr. Patel: Kuhakam.

Prabhupāda: No, kuhakam means illusion, magic. Something magician showing. So much money. Just like your this, one bābā, what is...? Satya...? He creates some gold.

Morning Walk -- March 29, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda:

na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ
prapadyante narādhamāḥ
māyayāpahṛta-jñānā
āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ
(BG 7.15)

Because they've taken to this asuric principle, they do not surrender. This is the disease, material disease. Here is Kṛṣṇa, the perfect leader, and they're going this side, that leader, that leader, that leader. Why? The perfect leader is there, His instruction is there, in all fields of life, any field of life. And ultimately spiritual realization. But they will not take it. They'll not take. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) Where is your book? You can read.

Indian man (3): Oh, he forgot, and I brought another book. I brought that Siksha-vadri.

Prabhupāda: Ah?

Indian man (3): There is the name of Kṛṣṇa in every page. I told you the other day. It's a quota paṇḍita for all Vaiṣṇavas.

Prabhupāda: Read something.

Indian man (3): I'll read the beginning, and then from the middle. (reads ślokas) That is the beginning, and how it goes, then...

Prabhupāda: So why did that person say that Janardan Swami Narayan is the topmost?

Indian man (2): (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: No, that Buddhism. That is not Vaiṣṇavism.

Morning Walk -- April 1, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: One... Abhyāsa-yoga... You practice this. Therefore we say, "You must chant at least sixteen rounds." This is abhyāsa-yoga. When one becomes attached to chanting, he doesn't require to be under discipline. But so long he's not practiced, he must be under... Just like a boy. He's instructed by the teacher, "You must give me at least four pages handwriting." So four pages handwriting means writing, writing, he'll be practiced. So therefore these are the practice. You must...

Chandobhai: Nānya-gāminā.

Prabhupāda: Nānya-gāminā. Because cetāḥ, mind is very flickering. So unless you fix up your mind under some regulative principles, then it is not possible. (indistinct) Everyone becomes paramahaṁsa: "Oh, I am now advanced. I do not require all these regulative principles."

Dr. Patel: What is paramahaṁsa?

Prabhupāda: Paramahaṁsa means he's above. Paramo nirmatsarānām (SB 1.1.2). That is paramahaṁsa.

Chandobhai: Paramaṁ puruṣaṁ divyaṁ yāti pārthānucintayan.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Paramaṁ puruṣaṁ divyaṁ yāti.

Morning Walk -- April 11, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Therefore they are rascals. Why do they touch of writing books? They are foolish people. Why they should attempt to write books and mislead others? That is our protest. (break) ...Kṛṣṇa's life in two big, big volumes.

Indian Man (1): But these volumes are very short, sir.

Prabhupāda: Yes, no, the lowest. But they have not written even a page about Kṛṣṇa's life. And writing comments on Bhagavad-gītā. Just see how much rascal they are. Not even a page. Rather, they deny, "There was no Kṛṣṇa." Just see how much foolish they are, and they are writing comments on Bhagavad-gītā. That is our regret, that how these rascals dare to write on Bhagavad-gītā? (break)

Girirāja: "...when Vasudeva was born..." (break)

Prabhupāda: ...said, "When there is danger, it is a great opportunity for remembering God." Tat te 'nukampāṁ susamīkṣamānaḥ (SB 10.14.8).

Indian Man (1): And Kuntī.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Kuntī said, "I shall pray for the dangerous position so that You could remain with us." (break)

Girirāja: ...open the snake in the original Bhāgavatam?

Prabhupāda: Yes, Kṛṣṇa is the kāla-sarpa, kāla. The time is Kṛṣṇa, kāla. Therefore you can compare with snake. Mṛtyuḥ sarva-haraś cāham (BG 10.34). Kāla means death. So snake, meeting a snake means death. So therefore He can be called a snake.

Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Yogeśvara: (French)

Prabhupāda: Page?

Nitāi: 235.

Yogeśvara: You have it?

Nitāi: You want to read it?

Yogeśvara:

cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ
guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ
tasya kartāram api māṁ
viddhy akartāram avyayam
(BG 4.13)

"According to the three modes of material nature and the work ascribed to them, the four divisions of human society were created by Me." (translates)

Prabhupāda: Just like by nature there are four division in the body—the brain, the arm, the belly, and..., all of them required... You cannot reject any one of them. Then it is not fullness. But the brain should be the, I mean to say, prime director, managing director. So the qualification of brāhmaṇas are stated. Śamo damas titikṣā? Eh? So at the present moment the society has no brain because there is no person, no person who is qualified like that, samo damas titikṣā.

Yogeśvara: (translates)

Prabhupāda: So their qualification, brāhmaṇa qualification, find out. Page?

Nitāi: It's eight twelve.

Yogeśvara: Eight twelve?

Prabhupāda: 812.

Yogeśvara: (reads verse 18.42 in French)

Swiss Man (2): (French)

Yogeśvara: He says, "Does this Kṛṣṇa consciousness message apply as well to the outcastes?"

Prabhupāda: Outcaste? There are four castes only.

Room Conversation -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Swiss Man (1): Because he's... We know in (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: He does not know better than Kṛṣṇa. So one association is sufficient. There is no need of going this Aurobindo, Saurobindo. We never... Why should we waste our time? We have got sufficient education in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. First of all let us finish these hundred books of four hundred pages. Then we shall see what Aurobindo writes. We don't think anyone can speak better than Kṛṣṇa. That is admitted.

Yogeśvara: (translates)

Prabhupāda: Aurobindo was... Aurobindo, Vivekananda, they started talking something in the Western world hundred years ago. But not a single man became Kṛṣṇa devotee.

Yogeśvara: (French conversation) They wish to thank you very, very much for your kindness in receiving them.

Prabhupāda: And I thank you for your coming. (chuckles)

Yogeśvara: Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Give this flower. Thank you.

Room Conversation with Robert Gouiran, Nuclear Physicist from European Center for Nuclear Research -- June 5, 1974, Geneva:

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Idaṁ hi puṁsas tapasaḥ śrutasya vā...

Prabhupāda: Ah, yes.

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Five, twenty-two, Page 252.

Yogeśvara: So we need the other volume.

Prabhupāda: Which part?

Yogeśvara: First book.

Prabhupāda: That's right, yes. What is the verse number?

Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: 5.22, Chapter Five. Yes.

Room Conversation with Christian Priest -- June 9, 1974, Paris:

Prabhupāda: So in another place also it is said, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65), mām evaiṣyasi, asaṁśaya. "If you want to enter in the kingdom of God, always think of Me," man-manā, "and you just become My devotee and worship Me and offer your obeisances." These four principles, it is not difficult. To achieve the kingdom of God is not at all difficult. It is very easy. Anyone can go. But they are not prepared to accept the process. That is their misfortune. Otherwise, always thinking of God. We are thinking something, but the thinking should be turned towards God. That is our teaching. They are always chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. So by uttering the word Kṛṣṇa, immediately you think of Kṛṣṇa. This is the process. It is not difficult at all. And you can always think of, just like these boys have been taught, walking on the street, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma... Just like we have got this. I am talking with you, but two minutes I talk with you, as soon as I stop, I chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma... What is the difficulty? It is simply practice. No difficulty. And simply by chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa, everyone can see how these young boys and girls, they are not very old, they have taken to it quite young, but they have forgotten everything. They do not go to cinema, do not go to hotel, no dancing. Dancing they have got—Kṛṣṇa dancing, always. Painting they have got, singing they have got, arts, literature. We have got eighty books like this, four hundred pages. Pure life—no meat eating, no illicit sex, no intoxication, no gambling. Finished. And it is guaranteed if you remain in this attitude, Kṛṣṇa says that "Surely you come back to me." What is the second line?

Room Conversation with Professor Oliver La Combe Director of the Sorbonne University -- June 14, 1974, Paris:

Professor La Combe: You can read it in the library, but unfortunately, it is out of print. Yes. It is a complete translation of the first part you see. 850 pages with the text and notes.

Prabhupāda: Oh. I see. Just like we do text and transliteration?

Professor La Combe: The text is in nāgarī.

Bhagavān: There are synonyms in your translation? Do you give the synonym for the word?

Prabhupāda: Equivalent.

Satsvarūpa: His style here. Prabhupāda gives the Bengali...

Professor La Combe: Transliteration? No, no, there is no transliteration.

Satsvarūpa: Translation, purport or notes.

Professor La Combe: No, there is only translation and notes. But some of the synonyms are in the notes. And the purport also comes in in the notes when necessary.

Bhagavān: You are teaching a course now?

Professor La Combe: I finished. The year is finished.

Bhagavān: Yes. You were teaching a course?

Professor La Combe: Not on this...

Bhagavān: What was the name of that course?

Jyotirmayī: He was teaching the Tenth Canto.

Professor La Combe: Comparative philosophy, the Indian branch.

Jyotirmayī: But this year you were teaching the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Professor La Combe: Yes. That was one of them actually, with other courses. But I am retiring, finished, you see. I retire to come...

Prabhupāda: So comparative philosophy, Māyāvāda, that Advaita-vāda, Dvaita-vāda, Viśiṣṭādvaita. Which of them you like? Or you remain simply student? You remain neutral or you like some philosophy?

Room Conversation -- June 20, 1974, Germany:

Guest: Under many influences.

Prabhupāda: No, influence should be only Kṛṣṇa or God. Kṛṣṇa, when we speak of Kṛṣṇa, God, but they have no clear idea what is God. How does He speak, how does He act. Where does He live. What is His form. What is his color. Nobody knows. Ask any religious people, "Do you know about all these?" (tape too faint to hear) (indistinct) If they think about it at all. First of all, generally they think of something impersonal or void. The Buddhists they think God is zero. And others they think God has no form. So, two classes. The Hindus they think God has not particular form, (indistinct). And you can imagine any of them(?) That is Śaṅkara. The pañcopāsanā. But still Śaṅkara is very careful. He has given five particular forms—the Goddess Durgā, Lord Viṣṇu, Lord Siva, the sun. Therefore there are sections—the sun worshipers, the fire worshipers. Originally, (indistinct). That is Vedic culture. Their Vedic culture means many demigods. But the original God is accepted, Viṣṇu. And original to Viṣṇu is Kṛṣṇa. īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). Kṛṣṇa also says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (BG 7.7). "There is no superior form or authority than Me." That is confirmed by Lord Brahmā, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇah (Bs. 5.1). Kṛṣṇa is controller. There are different grades of controller but the supreme controller is Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa says mām ekam, "Unto Me, no one else." Now our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to convince people to give Him our attention, therefore we have published so many books only about Kṛṣṇa. On every page you'll find Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa. Either in Kṛṣṇa Book or in Caitanya-caritāmṛta, or in the Bhāgavatam or in Nectar of Devotion, Teachings of Lord Caitanya. The word(?) is Kṛṣṇa, that is simply explained in the (indistinct).

Room Conversation with Pater Emmanuel (A Benedictine Monk) -- June 22, 1974, Germany:

Prabhupāda: He is my disciple.

Pater Emmanuel: Ah, yes. From India.

Prabhupāda: Yes, he is in Cali... His description is there in the last page, his photograph.

Pater Emmanuel: Oh, yes, I see. Vaiṣṇava, Manipur.

Prabhupāda: He (indistinct) his MS from Buffalo University and his Ph.D, chemistry from California University. And he graduated himself from Gauhati University. Very learned scholar.

Pater Emmanuel: Yes, yes, I see.

Prabhupāda: You are coming from?

Pater Emmanuel: Near Passau, say, I think five hundred kilometers from here, with train, yes. I am coming yesterday in the evening to Frankfurt. In the morning I came to here.

Prabhupāda: Oh. You can stay here. We have got place.

Reporters Interview -- June 29, 1974, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: See the contents.

Satsvarūpa: "Teachings to Rūpa Gosvāmī." Then the next chapter is Sanātana Gosvāmī.

Prabhupāda: What is that? There is no pagemark? "Teachings to Rūpa Gosvāmī"?

Satsvarūpa: Yes, there is one chapter. I am looking through the chapter, from the page twenty-one to thirty-nine.

Prabhupāda: That is "Teachings to Rūpa..."

Satsvarūpa: It's called "Teachings to Rūpa Gosvāmī."

Prabhupāda: So you can go on reading it, where it is stated that "In this way, wandering, the living entity by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa, fortunate..." It is on the beginning of the... Why don't you read the chapter.

Satsvarūpa: (reading) "Within this brahmāṇḍa or universe there are innumerable living entities..."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with Scientists -- July 2, 1974, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Oh yes, why not?

Dr. Harrap: (aside:) This stand's quite a complicated contraption here. It makes (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: You can read this, Second Chapter, "Perceiving the existence of the supreme scientist, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa." Read this.

Satsvarūpa: (reads from The Scientific Basis of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, Chapter 2, pages 11 through 19.)

Prabhupāda: So our request is that everyone with his talents should establish the authority of the Supreme. This is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Dr. Harrap: Who was the author of that reading, sir? Who wrote it?

Prabhupāda: This book? This is one of my student. He is also scientist. You can read his...

Satsvarūpa: (reads from The Scientific Basis of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, p. 57)

Madhudviṣa: He is one of our spiritual master's disciples, and he has written this book, this small pamphlet here, from his scientific background.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Rūpānuga: Buddhi-yoga.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Rūpānuga: It will take us some time.

Prabhupāda: It may take, that is... But do it very nicely. How many pages will it be?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: We plan about 500.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. Then we shall immediately publish. What (is) the title you have given?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's called "The Origin of Life and Matter." The origin of everything. When one talks about the life here in the material world, one cannot leave matter. Because the scientists, what they are doing, is the materialists taken it for granted. They do not ask who made this matter. So they've started at... "Oh, matter is already, given by nature." So they'll take the matter and then start life. That is their increasing. So we want to bring it that matter is also from life.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rūpānuga: That's like saying the car produces the driver. That's what they're thinking.

Prabhupāda: The car necessitates the driver's service. Otherwise car is useless.

Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: It is closed, this? Drafty.

Śrutakīrti: Yes, it's closed but it's drafty.

Tripurāri: (break) So when we give them big books, we also give them one Back to Godhead magazine to help them understand. We say, "Read the magazine first. Come to one of our centers when you have questions." So that way we are distributing many big books and many Back to Godhead magazines also at the same time.

Devotee (3): Sometimes we also, I know myself, ask them... We open the page, the front cover, and show 'em the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra and say, "If you simply chant this mantra, you will be able to understand these books in a much higher way." Actually, it's helped.

Prabhupāda: That is fact. His heart becomes cleansed to take up.

Devotee (5): Śrīla Prabhupāda, sometimes we turn the book over, like the Kṛṣṇa book, and we show them your picture, and we say, "This is our teacher." And they say, "Oh, boy, you've got a very..." They like your picture.

Devotee (1): They even say, "I've seen him before."

Prabhupāda: Where they have seen me? Somewhere.

Room Conversation with Tripurari -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: Nikhilānanda was working with Dr. Bose, Bose's laboratory, and before my joining, it was disclosed that I was also... Dr. Bose had one department. He was in charge.

Tripurāri: Śrīla Prabhupāda, you first began to distribute Back to Godhead magazine by yourself, right, in India? You would go to the shops?

Prabhupāda: That was second stage. The first stage I used to publish and distribute as gṛhastha, I did not mind whether one page or not. I was distributing. So spending about four hundred, five hundred rupees, I did not care if one page or not, but I'll distribute. Then, when I retired, left home, I was publishing and distributing myself to get subscription. The subscription was very cheap, two rupees, four annas, I think, for the year. Two copies per month. Just like you published The Harmonist? Like that. Then I published Bhāgavatam. So I was going to libraries, school, colleges, and everyone was purchasing. My Bhāgavata was being purchased by your Congress Library. In Delhi they have got office. So there was standing order, eighteen copies of my book as soon as they are published. The head librarian in India, New Delhi, he gave me standing order. Dallas is very cold? No. Like this.

Room Conversation with Canadian Ambassador to Iran -- March 13, 1975, Iran:

Parivrājakācārya: It is apple juice.

Prabhupāda: So our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is scientific, authorized. People has to give little attention. Then they will understand. Therefore we are publishing so many books, only about Kṛṣṇa. In every page you will find "Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa." Either in Kṛṣṇa book or in Caitanya-caritāmṛta or in the Bhāgavata or in The Nectar of Devotion or in Teachings of Lord Caitanya, the word is Kṛṣṇa. That is simply explained in different way.

Ambassador: What does the word actually mean? Kṛ is the root for "making," isn't it?

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa? Yes, kṛṣ. Kṛṣ means karṣati, "attraction" or "cultivating." "Cultivation." Just like cultivator, he, digging the earth, that is also karṣati. And there is another word in Bhagavad-gītā, manaḥ ṣaṣṭhāni indriyāṇi..., karsati. Find out this verse. Manaḥ-saṣṭhāni indriyāṇi prakṛti-sthani karṣati. Fifteenth Chapter. Karṣati. That is from kṛṣ.

Ambassador: Kṛṣ, then, has attractiveness and it has cultivator.

Prabhupāda: And cultivating, yes.

Morning Walk -- May 9, 1975, Perth:

Amogha: Śrīla Prabhupāda? When people in the street hear Kṛṣṇa's name, the chanting, or they get some literature, does that mean they will not take birth as an animal?

Prabhupāda: No. They'll get birth in a good family. Śucīnāṁ śrīmatāṁ gehe (BG 6.41). If they simply appreciate "It is very nice," then in the next life, human life is guaranteed. In a very nice family. Simply if he appreciates, "Yes, it is very nice"—that's all. Then he'll get another chance.

Amogha: Many people think the pictures are very nice.

Prabhupāda: Anything they say nice, that means it is guaranteed, next life. Or even in this life it will definitely help. As soon as he reads some pages, then it is guaranteed. Those who are enquiring, that means they are liking. Their life is guaranteed.

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

Prabhupāda: This is appreciation.

Room Conversation with Ganesa dasa's Mother and Sister -- May 14, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: Therefore we are going door to door canvassing, "Take this book."

Mother: You're not doing it, your boys.

Prabhupāda: Our business is to sell this book so that people may take advantage of it.

Mother: And that's the only way.

Prabhupāda: That is our movement. We have got fifty books like that, four hundred pages each. This is one thousand pages. We are giving enough knowledge.

Mother: For people to become interested.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Mother: But nobody off the street would go into the temple, would they?

Prabhupāda: Any way, if he comes in contact with us, he is gainer. We are giving opportunity, canvassing, "Come in contact with us." Just now, before you, one big man came. So I talked about first-class men, and he admitted. So he said at the last moment, "Now let me go and engage myself in fourth-class activities." So everyone is engaged in fourth-class activities, and we are trying to make first-class men. That is the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Room Conversation with Alcohol and Drug Hospital People -- May 16, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: If one becomes lusty and if it is not fulfilled, he becomes angry. This is all psychological.

Guest (2): Yeah, well, when a person is attached to that group in the temple, isn't this, become a lust too? You see, being influenced by the group and also attached to the people...

Prabhupāda: We are teaching to be influenced by Kṛṣṇa. Therefore we have written fifty books like that, four hundred pages. You can show some of our books.

Paramahaṁsa: This is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Volume Two, Volume Four...

Prabhupāda: Sixty volumes.

Paramahaṁsa: Nectar of Devotion.

Guest (4): You seem to be placing a lot of emphasis on books. Are you following any particular path of yoga, niyama-yoga...?

Paramahaṁsa: She says we place a lot of emphasis on books, and she wonders if we are following a particular path such as dhyāna-yoga or jñāna-yoga or what?

Prabhupāda: Bhakti-yoga.

Room Conversation with Journalist -- May 19, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: In the civilized human society there is some system of religion. So that system of religion means try to understand God. Religion means the law given by God. So civilized human beings, they are trying to understand God and His laws. That is called religion. Now the difference between dog and me is that I can try to understand what is God, what is my position; the dog cannot understand. Dog means the animals. They cannot understand. So that is the difference between a human being and a dog. If we give up religion or the method to understand God and our relationship with Him, then we will remain dog. Then we remain dog. We are not human being. So at the present moment the so-called human society, civilized human society, is giving up the conception of God, understanding God, especially the Communist party. They are openly declaring that "We don't believe in God." But those who are not Communists, they, lip sympathy, they say that "Yes, we believe in God," but actually they do not believe.

So practically the entire human society is now becoming godless. That is very dangerous position. And we have already come to that dangerous position. There are so many problems, and recently we have heard that New York City, the most important city in the world, they are in a problem, that they cannot keep the city very nicely maintained and clean, and they asked for help, some millions of dollars, and the federal government has refused. In this way the godless society will have to meet so many problems of life, and if they want solution of all these problems, they must take to God consciousness or Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So that is our sum and substance of the movement, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the International Society for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. So we are trying to... It is very simple method. Anyone can accept it by chanting and dancing and eating. And if one does not like this method—he wants to understand the philosophy—we have got fifty books of four hundred pages, you can see all these books.

Bring some of them. It is scientifically, philosophically presented. We have got fifty books, four hundred pages each.

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

Prabhupāda: I have all translated during these ten years. I translated, began translating from 1968, or '9, I was publishing that Back to Godhead paper even from my gṛhastha life, from 1944.

Dr. Copeland: And when you do do the translation...

Prabhupāda: Then I began translating from 1968 or '69. And I published my first book in 1962. Then next was in 1964. And then the third volume was published in 1965. And then I came to America. And then I translated all these books, whatever you see, about fifty books. This is about eleven hundred pages. Other books are not less than four hundred pages.

Dr. Copeland: Oh, yes. I have many in my shelf like these. Where and when did you learn English?

Prabhupāda: In Calcutta. I was educated in a college. My professors were all Europeans.

Dr Copeland: Which college?

Prabhupāda: Scottish Churches' College. You know that? In our time Dr. Watt, he was principal. And I was student of philosophy of Dr. W. S. Urquhart. He was my professor. And our English professor was Mr. Cameron,(?) Mr. Scrimgeour, Mr. Warren. And I was student of economics also. One Mr. Keith, he was also... All our professors were Scotsmen, Englishmen.

Morning Walk -- June 26, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: No, no, that I have already explained. We must be hypnotized. If we do not become hypnotized by Kṛṣṇa, then we must be hypnotized by this television and other. (break) ...pūrṇimā? No. Full moon, last night? No.

Harikeśa: I think the full moon was Monday.

Prabhupāda: Monday? (break) ...how many pages yesterday delivered?

Nitāi: I finished a hundred pages.

Prabhupāda: Just see. (laughs)

Nitāi: Today I will finish the rest of Chapter Thirty.

Prabhupāda: So what is decided?

Brahmānanda: That he will travel with Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: That will be all right?

Nitāi: Yes, yes.

Prabhupāda: Then you can do that. They are composing hundred pages?

Rāmeśvara: Daily?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- June 26, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Then you can do that. They are composing hundred pages?

Rāmeśvara: Daily?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rādhā-vallabha: Not a hundred pages. A hundred verses, each person. Each composer, one hundred verses approximately.

Prabhupāda: Oh. And one verse means one page average? No.

Rādhā-vallabha: Two verses per page.

Rāmeśvara: Two or three verses per page.

Rādhā-vallabha: Two.

Jayatīrtha: So between all the composers a hundred pages a day.

Rāmeśvara: Oh, between all the composers, more than a hundred pages.

Rādhā-vallabha: We are going fast enough so far to do the seventeen books.

Prabhupāda: That's nice.

Room Conversation after Press Conference -- July 9, 1975, Chicago:

Brahmānanda: No, it's a local station.

Harikeśa: They may put that on nationwide. It's such hot news. (laughter)

Brahmānanda: I was seeing in one of these Time magazines. On the rear page they're advertising a cigarette that is especially meant for women. It's a slimmer size. The larger size is for the men; the slimmer size is for the women. And the title of the advertisement, they show one picture of a woman cleaner, sweeper. She is cleaning the floors. This picture was taken in the 1920's. It was taken in Washington D.C. because in the background they show the capitol building is there in Washington D.C. So then they have a picture of a modern woman. She's sitting there looking very nice. And they say that "You've come a long way, baby." (laughter) Whereas in the 1920's you were sweeping the floors and now you're sitting on a throne.

Prabhupāda: "So you accept this cigarette."

Brahmānanda: Yes. "This cigarette is meant just for you to show that you're superior."

Prabhupāda: I think there was some objection, woman taking this objection, why woman's idol should be displayed in the shopkeeper's show windows.

Conversation with Professor Hopkins -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Prof. Hopkins: They see your writings... Some people see your writings as dogmatic.

Prabhupāda: Or "He is dogmatic." (laughter)

Prof. Hopkins: They say, "He is dogmatic," okay. Do you feel that you are dogmatic or...

Prabhupāda: No. You find out any passage in my book dogmatic, then you say dogmatic. Any page you open, where is dogmatic?

Prof. Hopkins: Well, dogmatic, to call someone else dogmatic means to start with that you don't agree with what they are saying. If I agree with you and you...

Prabhupāda: No, you have to agree. You open any passage of my book.

Prof. Hopkins: Well, some people would say to insist that Kṛṣṇa is the only way, that Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the only way...

Prabhupāda: No, no. The only thing that God is one, that you have to accept. God cannot be many. If God has got competitor, then he is not God.

Press Conference -- July 16, 1975, San Francisco:

Reporter (1): Some of the objections are that the followers of the Hare Kṛṣṇa sect are, on the streets or in the airports, are bothering people.

Prabhupāda: The airport itself is a botheration, so much sound, so much accident. So why this little botheration they cannot tolerate? That means intolerance. It is full of botheration, and because we are chanting, they very much disturbed? We don't chant in the airport, but we ask people that "Here is a very good book. You will benefit. If you like, you can take." So what is the wrong there? Tell me what is the wrong? If I give you something very nice, is that, I mean to say, wrong? You read any book. We have got fifty books. You find out any fault in that. If we are distributing something, bad literature which is against the social welfare, then you can object. But you see. Bring all our books here, and you will see. Any page you open and you will find something good. Why you are denying to distribute such literature for the benefit of the people in general? What is the wrong there?

Room Conversation -- August 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: We sell our books.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. So I was thinking maybe we could add a line or two on your books, that the foreign exchange is obtained.

Prabhupāda: Yes. "I have written about fifty books of four hundred pages on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā, Caitanya-caritamrta, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, and these books are very popular in the foreign countries, Europe and America."

Lalitā: Is a biggest seller, I think... (Bengali)

Prabhupāda: There is no record in the whole world. That religious books are selling twenty lakhs now, it is no record.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Back to Godhead alone has done that.

Prabhupāda: So...

Lalitā: You make...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. "And by the sales proceeds I am bringing foreign exchange here." So I came here that she wants to see me, then why you are getting from me write...

Lalitā: (Bengali) Next time after the meeting... (Bengali)

Prabhupāda: Read it. Read it, what I have said.

Room Conversation -- August 21, 1975, Bombay:

Brahmānanda: "His mission is that everyone should become a guru and preach all over the world the instruction of Kṛṣṇa. So we are doing this very faithfully and it is becoming effective. I think in India also if some vigorous activity is done for awakening the Kṛṣṇa consciousness of the people under your leadership, it will be very effective. So we have already eight branches in India, and all development is being done by foreign exchange. It can be continued if I get encouragement by the government. So I shall be very much pleased to see you in this connection. I have written about fifty books of four hundred pages, such as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam..."

Prabhupāda: "Four hundred pages each."

Brahmānanda: "I have written about fifty books of four hundred pages each, such as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, and these books are very popular in foreign countries, Europe and America. By sales proceeds I am bringing foreign exchange."

Prabhupāda: That's all.

Lalitā: (Bengali) ...development India. (Bengali)

Prabhupāda: So you can give this letter to Lalitā.

Room Conversation -- August 21, 1975, Bombay:

Brahmānanda: "When I was in Toronto, Canada, Śrīmatī Lalitā Devi, who is just like my daughter, sent me one intimation that she approached you for a meeting with me and you, and I have come here, postponing all my engagements. I am preaching this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement all over the world on the basis of Kṛṣṇa's instructions in Bhagavad-gītā. Actually this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is called the saṅkīrtana movement and sometimes called the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, which was inaugurated by Lord Caitanya in Bengal and throughout all India. His mission is that everyone should become a guru and preach all over the world the instruction of Kṛṣṇa. So we are doing this very faithfully, and it is becoming effective. I think in India also, if some vigorous activity is done for awakening the Kṛṣṇa consciousness of the people under your leadership, it will be very effective. So we have already eight branches in India, and all development is being done by foreign exchange. It can be continued if I get encouragement by the government. So I shall be very much pleased to see you in this connection. I have written about fifty books of four hundred pages each, such as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, and these books are very popular in foreign countries such as Europe and America. By the sales proceeds I am bringing foreign exchange." "Yours sincerely?"

Prabhupāda: "Yours sincerely" all right, or "Your well-wisher"?

Lalitā: "Well-wisher."

Prabhupāda: "Your well-wisher." (Bengali) Word is already there. Sādhu śāstra guru vākya, tinete karīyā aikya. (Bengali) So immediately type it and give it to her.

Jayapatāka: Where it says that "I am bringing foreign exchange," in the end, "by selling my books I am bringing foreign exchange," it's for India's development?

Prabhupāda: For developing my scheme here.

Morning Walk -- August 27, 1975, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Just see. He advertises. Mahesh Yogi.

Indian man: Mahesh Yogi, yes. Followers, they are taking everything.

Prabhupāda: He says, "There is no restriction, or no philosophy, no faith." (Hindi conversation) Recently one book was published by Professor Judah. He has studied this movement for five years. He came to India. So he has written one book, Hare Kṛṣṇa and Counterculture, but scholarly. (Hindi) He appreciated. (Hindi) ...and the fifty books I have, four hundred pages each. And we

are selling twenty lakhs' worth monthly. (Hindi) (break) ...it is up to that?

Akṣayānanda: Nobody knows your limit, Prabhupāda. Nobody knows your limit.

Prabhupāda: No, generally. Who remembers?

Harikeśa: It was way back there.

Brahmānanda: It was back there by that... (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Huh? No, no. I remember.

Akṣayānanda: I think it was here somewhere. (break)

Prabhupāda: Ants are freely moving. They do not know it is dangerous. Similarly, all these living entities in material world, they think, "It is not dangerous. It is all right." Ant civilization.

Morning Walk -- August 29, 1975, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: What we can also do is... I think we should have some publication for one rupee twenty-five paisa. We can just print a small ten-page or ten or fifteen-page.

Prabhupāda: What you'll explain in ten or fifteen page?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Otherwise all these books, they cost us about 1.40 for printing.

Brahmānanda: That Hanuman Prasad Poddar, he was producing big books at cheap rates.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They were all subsidized by Rama..., all his books. And he had no profit.

Harikeśa: Also the paper is given free by Samani.

Prabhupāda: No... Yes. They were receiving contribution. Besides that, he possessed agency of Titagara paper mill. So mill rate—immediately 33% less.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And I heard all his books were heavily subsidized by Dalmia.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Dalmia and many big, big Marwaris.

Room Conversation with Reporter of The Star -- October 16, 1975, Johannesburg:

Prabhupāda: No, I am going to every country because everywhere the same mistake is going on, bodily concept of life. So I am trying to bring them to the real life and then make their plan. They will be happy. It is not for South Africa. For any Africa, or any country, South America or South India or anywhere. The problem is the same. Everywhere the same conception: "I am South African." "I am American." "I am Indian." "I am this." "I am that." So all these things are on the bodily concept of life. Nobody says, "No, I am not this body. I am different from body." Nobody says. We are simply preaching that "You are not this body. You are different from this..." That is our unique situation. Perhaps throughout the whole world we are trying to preach that "You are not this body. You are different from body." And we have not manufactured this idea. This is the instruction in the Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavad-gītā, the first teaching is,

dehino 'smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati
(BG 2.13)

This is the first instruction. Just like in the body of a child the spirit soul is there. Therefore the child is becoming a boy, and the boy is becoming a young man. Young man is becoming old man. Then what is the next? Then the old man must have next body. This is very simple logic. Now... But I am the same. I was also a baby. I was a boy. I remember. But the body is no longer existing. I am existing. I know that I had such and such body. So therefore the conclusion is that after annihilation of this body, I will exist in another body. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). So who knows this science? And there are 8,400,000 forms of body. What kind of or what form of body I am going to get next, where is that science? So we are teaching, by Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, all these things, not only theoretically, but with scientific knowledge, philosophy, everything. You can see our... We have got fifty books of four hundred, five hundred pages each. We are teaching only about Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Morning Walk -- November 21, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is Aryan culture. Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). That is Aryan culture. But they do not know what is punar janma, how we can stop this birth and death, nothing of the sort. Simply dogs and cats, that's all, jumping, very busy. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Sa eva go-kharaḥ (SB 10.84.13). That's all. Immediately the verdict: "Oh, he does not know anything. He's as good." So? Everything is going nice?

Mahāṁsa: Yes, Prabhupāda. I just came from Bangalore last night. They are having a very big program there and a lot of publicity from the newspapers with pictures and nice articles, big articles on the front page of the newspapers there. And tomorrow the governor is coming as the chief guest for the program. He was... He had that Sunday—that is tomorrow—he was fixed on going to Sai Baba's conference, but when we went to see him he was very pleased because he had gone to our Vṛndāvana temple just ten days back, so he was very much enthused with our activities and he liked the temple very much. So he was very pleased and he said, "Yes, I will cancel Sai Baba's program and come to your program."

Devotee: Jaya. (laughter)

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the governor of Karnataka?

Mahāṁsa: Yes. He was the chief minister of Rajastan previously.

Prabhupāda: Yes, some governor went to our temple, I heard.

Room Conversation -- December 14, 1975, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: "Why he is not silent?" Kṛṣṇa is not silent. Kṛṣṇa is speaking. Why you should be silent when I challenge you like this. He said, he could not answer. This is going on. So many things they are doing, if they are challenged, they cannot answer. You were present? I told him, "Why silent? Kṛṣṇa is not silent. He says continually, Bhagavān uvāca; page after page, and he's saying "Why he should silent?" He gave me the information that Brahman was silent and anyone who would go to him, he would remain silent and the message would be transferred.

Bhāgavata: Rajneesh says the same thing. He says that Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna did not speak, Kṛṣṇa simply looked at Arjuna and Arjuna understood. But in order for Dhṛtarāṣṭra to understand, because he was blind, Sañjaya is speaking and he is explaining everything and Vyāsa has written down what Sañjaya has explained. This is, that is what Rajneesh says like that. So why does Sañjaya say Bhagavān uvāca?

Prabhupāda: No, no. Sañjaya heard, then he said?

Bhāgavata: Yes.

Morning Walk -- December 16, 1975, Bombay:
Prabhupāda: ...Brahma.

Dr. Patel: From Brahmā actually when he learned the Vedas. Prabhupāda: Yes. Dr. Patel: Those four or five, five or four ślokas, original of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, I want to learn from you. I read all the commentary—you have written commentary for four pages—but I think I am little mūḍha to understand it. (laughing) So I'll learn directly if you can teach me. I am now critically studying your, this thing, commentary on this. Prabhupāda: Hm. Very good. Dr. Patel: Once I read it, but now I am doing a critical study of it. Both of Sanskrit as well as your comments. (break) Prabhupāda: ...divided by separate words. Dr. Patel: It is written in purport too much (Sanskrit). The combination of this word is so difficult... 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.

Morning Walk -- December 17, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: ...once. Kīrtanānanda Swami has come, he reported that sometimes these European and Americans, they do not like our version, and sometimes they purchase and tear the books, hm? And still they purchase! (laughs) That is the beauty.

Dr. Patel: Europeans...

Prabhupāda: No, no. In America. Kīrtanānanda was saying. They tear these pages, and again still they purchase. This example is given. Just like hot sugarcane juice. Because it is hot, it cannot be taken. But one cannot avoid tasting it. (laughter) Sugarcane juice hot. Because we speak everything against their so-called knowledge, and still they want to taste it. Hot sugarcane juice.

Dr. Patel: Your this Bhāgavata commentary is really wonderful. I am critically studying now.

Prabhupāda: Thank you.

Dr. Patel: Second reading of mine. On the first reading I just...

Prabhupāda: Yes, they read our books for the purport.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- February 21, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: No, no, no...

Acyutānanda: Twenty-two rupees, we shall pay.

Prabhupāda: We shall print. It will cost not more than ten to twelve rupees.

Acyutānanda: Must be. Then we'll... Many people will take that. It is also... It is about ninety pages' index, which has increased the volume of the book.

Yaśodānandana: Ninety?

Acyutānanda: Ninety.

Yaśodānandana: In India they don't care for index.

Prabhupāda: No, index is liked by scholarly people.

Yaśodānandana: Yes.

Prabhupāda: It will be liked by scholarly men. (end)

Morning Walk -- March 13, 1976, Mayapur:

Satsvarūpa: "It is a work to be treasured. The opportunity to receive the profound teachings of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in the West has been made possible by the devoted labor of Śrīla Prabhupāda. The clarity and precision of his commentaries on the text have rarely been equaled. No one of whatever faith or philosophical persuasion who reads this book with an open mind can fail to be both moved and impressed. The spirit of its message shines brightly from the pages."

Rāmeśvara: Jaya!

Ghanaśyāma: And he's a psychologist. Usually psychologists, they're very much sort of against spiritual life. Śrīla Prabhupāda, this one here, this is one of the biggest linguistic schools in the world, and this gentleman was the chairman of the department, so he's known all over the world for his studies in different kinds of languages.

Prabhupāda: Hm. What does he say?

Satsvarūpa: "It is axiomatic that no book can be expected entirely to satisfy all its potential readers.

Morning Walk -- March 18, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So whatever thoughts are coming, you note it. Keep it. We shall utilize it with reference, with reference to the śāstra.

Gurudāsa: Jaya. (break)

Jayapatākā: This special exhibition building?

Prabhupāda: Bhāgavata. Take every page of Bhāgavata. And I think every year there should be change.

Haṁsadūta: New exhibit.

Prabhupāda: New exhibit.

Haṁsadūta: Otherwise it will become stale.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Haṁsadūta: 'Cause we have so much material.

Gurudāsa: It should be done very easily.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- March 25, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is His mercy.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: That is mercy.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hari-śauri: I just read on one of the pages of that Bhāgavatam where you said in a purport that Kṛṣṇa desires that we go back home a lot more strongly than we desire to go back home.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Therefore He comes. He is very anxious to take back His sons, back to home, back.... Just like father. If he sees, "My son is suffering there, leaving home," he tries to get him back.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Unfortunately we don't even desire.

Prabhupāda: And therefore you are madness.

Room Conversation -- April 23, 1976, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: How it is easy?

Guest (2): Could I read you something out of that?

Prabhupāda: No, no, I can understand. The things are all right. Things are all right.

Guest (2): It's on the other side of the page and it talks about that.

Prabhupāda: But I am giving you the process. You have written, "the glory of God," and I am giving you the process how to glorify God.

Guest (2): Oh, thank you.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Here is the process. You are drinking water, and "Oh, how Kṛṣṇa, God, is so glorified. I was so much thirsty, and just drinking this water, this is quenching my thirst." This is glorification.

Guest (2): I like that. That's good. I like that.

Prabhupāda: So that is the difference. Our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means know how to glorify God, not theoretical-practical. Here is practically example. Everyone drinks water, and while drinking water he can glorify thousand times. That we are teaching. Prabhāsmi śaśi-sūryayoḥ. As soon as you see sunlight, "Oh, we are suffering for want of sunlight. Here is God's glory. He has sent the sunlight." This is practical. So one must know how to glorify God practically. Then his life is successful. God is always glorious. There is no doubt about it. But for us, how to glorify God.... Similarly, when we worship the Deity, here is God. Just offer Him flower. Just offer Him dress. That is love.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: That means the little children's policy. Children, just like imagining so many things, "I shall do that. I shall do." The potter's imagination. You know that? Potter's imagination? You do not know the story? One potter is selling earthen pots, and he is saying that "Now, these two paisā, it has cost me one paisā. I shall make one paisā profit. Then I can make such profit. I shall invest again. I shall make another profit, another profit. In this way I shall become millionaire. Then I shall marry, and my wife shall be very obedient. And if (s)he does not become obedient, I shall give him a kick like this." And he, what was.... One pot was there. He kicked that pot and broke. (laughter) It broke. "Oh, again I am poor man." So this is going on, imagination. Imagination.... "I shall become so great that I shall kick Kṛṣṇa's law," and whatever pot he had-broken. That's all. Rascals, simply rascals. If anyone thinks like that, that "I shall surpass the laws of nature," then he's madman. He's madman. So what is the use of dealing with madmen? And as soon as you challenge them that "Show us that you have surpassed the laws of nature," "Yes, we are trying. In future we shall do." That's all. This is their reply. So it is better to avoid such men. But if you peacefully you can introduce, "All right, you will do. You are wonderful men, so kindly if you read some pages of this, it is not very costly. You can keep. At leisure hour you can read," in this way, imploring, then they will be benefited.

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

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Dānavīr: I'm in charge of the New Bhakta program in Los Angeles, and yesterday one boy called up the temple, and he was seventeen years old, and he said, "Five years ago, when I was coming out of a store, I received this Back to Godhead magazine. So I took it home, I was twelve years old, and I began reading it. I read six pages, but my mother, she was a strict Baptist, and she took it away, I couldn't read it. I never saw devotees again until this time." He called up. Yesterday he came and joined the temple and became your disciple. (Prabhupāda chuckles)

Devotees: Jaya.

Rāmeśvara: Just by reading one word of your books.

Prabhupāda: What is that word?

Rāmeśvara: Any word. (laughter) Surrender to Kṛṣṇa! (break) .... making almost ten devotees, new men, every month. And they're all coming from your books, from reading your books, every one of them.

Prabhupāda: Therefore I am insisting, "Spread books."

Morning Walk -- June 9, 1976, Los Angeles:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In the marriage ceremonies that they have, they make vow before God that "Until death do us part, we will not separate," but so many divorces are there.

Prabhupāda: That is suffering.

Rāmeśvara: If a man can have an affair with many different women, he's considered fortunate. It is his success.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He's on the front page of all the magazines.

Hari-śauri: "Bachelor daddy."

Prabhupāda: Therefore they want to become gopīs. That is the tendency, sahajiyā.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Like transcendental hippie-life.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No responsibility.

Prabhupāda: Other relationship of Kṛṣṇa rejected, take, jump over the gopīs' relationship. This is the meaning. (break) ...this line? Is it not? So as many lines, that means so many years.

Morning Walk -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Oh, you go on reading.

Indian: Adhunika...

Hṛdayānanda: (trying to read something in Bengali) ...jijñāsa... (pause) ...gayi.... haya hi.... mamana.... mana.... gagane...

Prabhupāda: Oh, this is.... (says something in joking disgust, devotees laugh loudly).

Jayādvaita: I can read like that too. (more laughter)

Prabhupāda: (break) ...written these two pages?

Indian: About three hours.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. (break)

Rāmeśvara: ...that to do the book Scientific Basis would take two weeks.

Prabhupāda: Hm? Then let him come. (break) ...so many items, so many books can be translated into English. (Prabhupāda getting into car)

Devotees: Jaya Prabhupāda! (end)

Room Conversation -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rāmeśvara: Purport. "By practice of yoga one becomes gradually detached from material concepts. This is the primary characteristic of the yoga principle, and after this one becomes situated in trance, or samādhi, which means that the yogi realizes the Supersoul through transcendental mind and intelligence, without any of the misgivings of identifying the self with the Superself. Yoga practice is more or less based on the principles of the Patañjali system. Some unauthorized commentators try to identify the individual soul with the Supersoul, and the monists think this to be liberation. But they do not understand the real purpose of the Patañjali system of yoga. There is an acceptance of transcendental pleasure in the Patañjali system, but the monists do not accept this transcendental pleasure out of fear of jeopardizing the theory of oneness. The duality of knowledge and knower is not accepted by the nondualist, but in this verse transcendental pleasure realized through transcendental senses is accepted, and this is corroborated by the Patañjali Muni, the famous exponent of the yoga system. The great sage declares in his Yoga-sūtras: puruṣārtha-śūnyānāṁ guṇānāṁ pratiprasavaḥ kaivalyaṁ svarūpa-pratiṣṭhā vā citi-śaktir iti. This cit-śakti, or internal potency, is transcendental. Puruṣārtha means material religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and, at the end, the attempt to become one with the Supreme. This oneness with the Supreme is called kaivalyam by the monist. But according to Patañjali, this kaivalyam is an internal, or transcendental, potency by which the living entity becomes aware of his constitutional position. In the words of Lord Caitanya, this state of affairs is called ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12), or clearance of the impure mirror of the mind. This clearance is actually liberation, or bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇam. The theory of nirvāṇa—also preliminary—corresponds with this principle. In the Bhāgavatam this is called svarūpeṇa vyavasthitiḥ (SB 2.10.6). The Bhagavad-gītā also confirms this situation in this verse. After nirvāṇa, or material cessation, there is the manifestation of spiritual activities, or devotional service of the Lord, known as Kṛṣṇa consciousness. In the words of the Bhāgavatam, svarūpeṇa vyavasthitiḥ: this is the real life of the living entity. māyā, or illusion, is the condition of spiritual life contaminated by material infection. Liberation from this material infection does not mean destruction of the original, eternal position of the living entity. Patañjali also accepts this by his words kaivalyaṁ svarūpa-pratiṣṭhā vā citi-śaktir iti. This citi-śakti, or transcendental pleasure, is real life. This is confirmed in the Vedānta-sūtras as ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). This natural, transcendental pleasure is the ultimate goal of yoga and is easily achieved by execution of devotional service, or bhakti-yoga. Bhakti-yoga will be vividly described in the Seventh Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā." Should I keep reading Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: Should I continue?

Prabhupāda: There is still there?

Rāmeśvara: There is another page.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda needs a new passport with all the pages filled out. I wanted to get it in Fiji, but the embassy was on the other side of the island. So we'll try again Monday morning. I told him though that we've given our lives to preach the dharma of Bhārata-varṣa, and sometimes we become—I told him in a nice way, not in an angry way—sometimes we become very disenchanted and disenheartened when we see that Indians like yourself, they present unnecessary obstacles to our preaching mission.

Prabhupāda: That is sufficient insult. (laughter) That enraged him. You said Indian-givers. That offended him.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No, that was after he said no. Then he changed his mind a little bit, but I don't know. He said come back Monday morning then. I was thinking maybe he wanted to be bribed or something. Maybe Mr. Battra knows.

Prabhupāda: Indian government is nasty, there is no doubt.

Room Conversation -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Indian government is nasty, there is no doubt.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Unnecessarily. He said "I have to fill out four pages." Four pages of the passport, that takes four days?

Prabhupāda: Everyone in government service, at least it is to be supposed they are all nasty men. Here also, why not? The other day the custom officer, unnecessary. Unnecessarily. He is opening the snuff box, this box, that box. Unnecessarily. Not a gentleman. It is stated there, "snuff," and he is bringing knife to open.

Jagadīśa: Harassment.

Prabhupāda: Everywhere. Rājanyaiḥ, dasyu-dharma. Simply wanting some bribe. They are in power. And that will increase. It will be impossible to deal with. Now it is already. In India, any work you want to be done by government, unless you bribe.... In Africa also. The situation is becoming very dangerous. That Mullik's Thakur, where he...?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In Calcutta, yes.

Room Conversation -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Everywhere.

Jagadīśa: Is it because they are killing the cows that this is happening, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: So many things. In India there is no.... At least gentlemen, they do not eat meat. But the thing is that when there is fire, so everyone will suffer. If there is fire in this building, either you are sinful or not sinful, the effects will be shared by you.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (showing Prabhupāda newspaper) There was one newspaper at the Indian Embassy printed in Canada, it's called The Indian Calling. On the back page they have one supplement they took from Back to Godhead magazine.

Prabhupāda: It is ours?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. This is printed by the Indian community, one man, Anand Singh, and he included part of an article from the Back to Godhead magazine. There's one article in here also, the front page is a whole.... There's a racket they had going, these people, this man. He went to India and he found one widow, and he said, "I am a personal friend of the Prime Minister of Canada. Give me money, I'll take you to Canada. You can come. I'll make sure you get immigration status." So she came with him to Canada, and then he started blackmailing her, "Give me this much money every day, otherwise I'll reveal that you're an illegal immigrant, and you'll be in trouble with the government." And eventually it became such a burden that he simply killed her, cut her into three pieces and killed her. Then they found parts of different bodies like this, and they finally found the man.

Prabhupāda: The woman was killed?

Room Conversation -- June 17, 1976, Toronto:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, this happened in Toronto. Wretched world. (long pause) (break) He writes what appears to be a nice editorial, "Weak Western Educational System"—it's on the second page—in which he brings out how the Indians have taken the worst from the West, namely it's educational system.

Prabhupāda: It is my version?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: No, but I think he has gotten this from you, the idea of Vedic education. You're the only person preaching this in the world, practically. He's certainly read some of your books, Prabhupāda. (break)

Viśvakarmā: He said, "We heard that your spiritual master's coming to town. We'd like to put part of one of the articles from BTG in our paper." Did he put in any advertisement? Oh, I'm surprised. He said, "I'd also like to put an advertisement in the paper." Then he asked, he said he wanted to charge us money for the advertisement. So I told him, I said, "You're from India. You should want to do this for free." He wouldn't do it.

Hari-śauri: They use part of your article to advertise Indian culture. This "Could Plato have gotten his ideas from ancient Indian Vedas?" And at the same time they won't even give a free advertisement when you, the speaker of the article, is here in person.

Prabhupāda: Anyway, you have refused to pay.

Viśvakarmā: Yes, I refused.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Interview with Professors O'Connell, Motilal and Shivaram -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: I write in the night. I get up at half past twelve. I go to bed at half past ten, and I get up at half past twelve. Then I finish my chanting, if there is any balance, and then I begin dictating. And the morning they take it and type it. So this dictaphone is always with me, wherever I go, so my writing book is not stopped. Maybe few pages, but something is there daily. Little drops of water wears the stone. So in that way we have translated so many books. About fifty-four books are already published, besides the small booklets. And, how many we have published, Bhāgavatam? About twenty-two?

Hari-śauri: Twenty volumes, and two more in print now.

Prabhupāda: Therefore twenty-two. I am expecting sixty volumes. Sixty volumes of four hundred pages. The biggest canto is the Tenth Canto. I've already published the Tenth Canto, summarized: Kṛṣṇa. But in detail, it will take at least twenty volumes.

Indian man: It's almost as big as the rest of the book.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Indian man: Tenth is almost as big as the rest of the book.

Prabhupāda: Yes. There are ninety chapters. Ninety chapters. All other cantos, at most thirty chapters. But Tenth Canto is ninety chapters. That is Kṛṣṇa's face, Kṛṣṇa's beautiful face. Everyone is attracted by the smiling face of Kṛṣṇa.

Room Conversation -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This cheating has to stop.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This cheating has to be stopped.

Hari-śauri: And actually, on the same page, what was that, the percentage scientists are engaged in warfare?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Forty percent of all the scientists in the world, the estimate is, are engaged in making weapons. And it said that since the end of World War II, six trillion dollars, which is six thousand billion dollars, have been spent on armament in the world.

Hari-śauri: In the West.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The West, did it say?

Prabhupāda: In India, no money. They can't.... (laughs) They have no sufficient money to eat even. Still they are spending more than fifty percent, fifty-four percent.

Hari-śauri: They estimate there's four hundred thousand so-called scientists working on armament.

Prabhupāda: Working on?

Hari-śauri: Armament. Weapons. Weapon development. Defense. They call it defense measures.

Prabhupāda: Just see. Why defense? Man to man. That means they are dogs. The dogs defend from another dog. Is it not? As soon as they see another dog, (growls) yow, yow, yow. So then where is the defense between man to man?

Room Conversation and Reading from Srimad-Bhagavatam Canto 1 and 12 -- June 25, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Here, the daytime is...

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: We have found, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when the buses are going to many of these cities, they have never seen our devotees, because when we go, we are dressed like they are for distributing the books. So now the boys are going again in the streets with a kīrtana party once a week downtown, and they have all done front-page newspaper articles, because although they have been reading the books, they have never seen the devotees in many years. I think festivals like this...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: ...in all these cities would be very advantageous, and all the book distribution...

Prabhupāda: And therefore I said that introduce Ratha-yātrā every city. At least wherever we have got our centers. Bring Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa. They have received some testimonial from Indian...

Hari-śauri: Oh, yes, Indian reviews?

Prabhupāda: You can open this file. I don't want, but...

Devotee (1): Prabhupāda, how should we have these Ratha-yātrā festivals. Should they be big? Should they be big festivals? Should I plan on having three carts next year, just one, or a small cart?

Prabhupāda: As you can afford. Minimum one cart. Otherwise, three carts. In India the Ratha-yātrā festival is going on, according to rough estimate, for the last two thousand years, and the crowd never diminishes. One secretary of Parliament or something like that.

Room Conversation -- June 28, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: God is always prepared to talk with us in talking, but we don't... He talks through devotee, He talks through scripture—who is caring for that? Sādhu-śāstra. God is talking through sādhu. (break) Sometimes it is sweet; sometimes it is sour. Why?

Hari-śauri: Just the oranges. They have such a big variety.

Prabhupāda: Next, the third part, how many pages?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The third part of Seventh Canto?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Sadāpūta: This slide shows..., these are the laws of nature according to physicists. And the point we make is that this is their understanding of the final cause of things, and it's very limited. Actually, on this one page, these equations describe everything that goes into all the actions and interactions of chemistry according to their present understanding. And, so there are two main points to make about this. Number one, these are very..., these laws describe very simple forces, pushes and pulls between atoms and things like that. And so intuitively it is very hard to imagine why such simple forces should cause anything complex to organize itself together. Now the scientists customarily make the assertion that laws like this are universal, but one thing we can notice is they have no proof of that. These laws which they say are universal are only studied in certain limited experimental situations with inanimate matter, and then they extrapolate and they say that they apply to everything. But actually the equations are so hard to solve even for reasonably simple molecules that they can't actually test out their assertion. So it's actually just a bluffing statement. So in this slide we wanted to point out how limited these laws are, how limited their concept of the laws of nature is. The next slide, according to the scientist's idea, there are two things going on—these laws and also chance. So this is a calculation showing what happens if you just have chance acting to form one of these proteins that Svarūpa Dāmodara was talking about, and you can calculate... Actually here you calculate, suppose you threw a protein together at chance—and here we even allow a ten percent error, you're allowing to get it wrong among ten percent of the proteins—but still chance comes out to ten minus two-hundred-and forty-fourth-power. Now the scientists are always saying if you wait for a long enough time, even something very unlikely can happen; but here we have a calculation of how long you'd have to wait, according to mathematics and the probability theory, and even if you assume an unrealistically high rate of forming proteins at random, still you'd have to wait, according to this, ten to the hundred-and-sixty-seventh-power billion years. And that's a little bit too long. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. That is mathematics.

Evening Darsana -- July 7, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Dr. Sharma: I'll read your book page by page and you do the same number of chanting. (laughter)

Bill Sauer: All right.

Dr. Sharma: Okay?

Bill Sauer: Yes, sir.

Dr. Sharma: And you'll be surprised what happens. I'm a hard-core scientist, and to me, it's a transformation, absolutely. I'll read your book and you read the transformation. I'm sure you'll get ahead much quicker than me.

Bill Sauer: I've talked to your people, and I think there's pretty much agreement on the fundamental philosophical concept.

Dr. Sharma: There's something magnetic about it, something creative which comes from inside.

Prabhupāda: Where is our scientist?

Vipina: Svarūpa Dāmodara-could you get him?

Hari-śauri: I already sent somebody for him, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I don't think he's here.

Prabhupāda: He's not here.

Room Conversation -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Oh, my picture also.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Prabhupāda, ācārya-founder." Tells all about you and your books.

Hari-śauri: It especially mentions your books.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is a whole page devoted about your books.

Hari-śauri: This is the downstairs.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Hare Kṛṣṇa Meditation. Who is Kṛṣṇa?" "The Kṛṣṇa Cut." It tells about the haircut, śikhā.

Prabhupāda: "Kṛṣṇa cut" (laughs).

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Then in the back there's more articles about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, there's the..., here, "Food for the gods, prasādam."

Hari-śauri: Describes what standard we have for making the prasādam, how you can't taste it, you have to be very clean.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Here's that..., remember I was telling you about that meditation on the ping-pong balls?

Prabhupāda: Oh. (laughter)

Room Conversation -- July 10, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Um, hmm.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "The recipes given below, taken from the Hare Kṛṣṇa Cookbook'—another good advertisement, and they give you at least three or four recipes in here. They give recipes for, the recipes are for...

Prabhupāda: Anyway, he has given more pages for our movement.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes, he's given us three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve pages. And the whole magazine, including many advertisements..., actually the nonadvertised part is about fifty-five pages, of which we have twelve. At least one fifth of the book is for Hare Kṛṣṇa. The other groups only have three pages, four pages. And he blasts them mostly. Some of them are really nonsense. Here's one called the Deichman experiment. You stare at a vase...

Prabhupāda: Another meditation.

Room Conversation -- July 19, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: "Fifth Avenue, Where East Meets West." Very good idea. Very good idea. Very nice.

Bali-mardana: The other pictures, I think some are from the Olympics.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very prominent. The center section is, next to the front page, the center section is very..., the most popular page in the paper, because it has interesting pictures.

Prabhupāda: You can send one, this cutting, to Mr. Bhajaj, "Fifth Avenue, Where East Meets West." Very good.

Hari-śauri: Send one to Māyāpur as well?

Prabhupāda: Huh? You can send to many place, but this title is very nice. This is the point, this is the point. East, as I say always, the lame man meets the blind man. Together they do wonderful. And different they cannot do anything. He is blind, he is lame. But they join together, Indian culture and American money, they will save the whole world. Here is the... Money required. (laughter)

Conversation at House of Ksirodakasayi dasa -- July 25, 1976, London:
Prabhupāda: I know the pleasure and pains of my body, you know the pleasure and pains of your body, but Kṛṣṇa knows the pleasure and pains of your body and pleasure and pains of my body. That is the difference between Kṛṣṇa and ourself. Īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati (BG 18.61). Kṛṣṇa is situated... Kṛṣṇa is not stereotyped in one place. Kṛṣṇa, He is in Goloka Vṛndāvana. Goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ (Bs. 5.37). That is Kṛṣṇa. I am sitting here; you are sitting here. I am not in my apartment, but Kṛṣṇa, although He is sitting in this temple, He is present everywhere. Aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-stham (Bs. 5.35). In this way we have to study Kṛṣṇa very scientifically, and the books are there, and we have tried to explain as far as possible. Take advantage of this institution. Don't waste a moment of your life. Take it very seriously. Āyuṣaḥ kṣaṇa eko 'pi na labhyaḥ svarṇa-koṭibhiḥ. Take seriousness... Especially those who are educated, they should take serious consideration of this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Try to understand each and every verse of Bhagavad-gītā, especially, and, if possible, Bhāgavatam. There are so many books. We have got program to publish at least eighty-four books like this, four hundred pages each. So we have already published fifty-four books. So if you want to understand Kṛṣṇa through science and philosophy, read these books. Otherwise—very easy method—come here; chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. That's all. There is no difficulty. Thank you very much. (end)
Room Conversation -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhagavān: This is...

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Bhagavān: This will be Kṛṣṇa book, 650 pages.

Jayatīrtha: This will also be coming out?

Bhagavān: Yeah. This is just the press proof. It needs improvement.

Prabhupāda: Fifty thousand?

Bhagavān: Twenty-five thousand. The translators have been working day and night for the last two weeks to get everything ready. They are now in Italy. We are printing this book in Italy.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Cheaper?

Bhagavān: Very cheap. Very cheap. Including composition, the book cost $1.75.

Prabhupāda: Oh, very cheap.

Room Conversation -- July 26, 1976, London:

Bhagavān: The color has come out nicely.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They like pictures?

Bhagavān: Oh, yes.

Jayatīrtha: The French are much different than the Germans.

Bhagavān: This on the back, this explains the end pages here, so people can see the whole picture, and the explanation is given here.

Hari-śauri: Will that be in every canto? Every book....

Bhagavān: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: Read what he....

Bhagavān: This is another appreciation here. This is from a doctor in the University of Neuchatel. It's in Switzerland. He's a Swiss doctor.

Room Conversation With French Commander -- August 3, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

rabhupāda: Thank you.

Bhagavān: How you can go from two lines to three pages.

Prabhupāda: I can go more. (laughter) But I have made shortcut. Kṛṣṇa is unlimited. So He can be described unlimitedly. But we have no unlimited patience.

Translator: He is explaining that there are so many things to understand about Kṛṣṇa, but we do not have the capacity to understand always. But he feels that at one point, when the soul is pure, these things will be understood automatically, but because we are very far, these commentaries are needed to bring us closer to Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes, this is the first study of Kṛṣṇa. ABCD. When we learn Bhagavad-gītā, then we can have some glimpse of idea of Kṛṣṇa. Then we go further in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Translator: He also admires very much that you have created disciples who are able to be very courageous in presenting your message. And that even though sometimes at first he was opposed to them, they were very peaceful always and always very nice to him, and this way they brought him slowly to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda: That is preaching method. Caitanya Mahāprabhu has recommended, tṛṇād api sunīcena. You can explain that:

tṛṇād api sunīcena
taror api sahiṣṇunā
amāninā mānadena
kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ
(CC Adi 17.31)

This is the method by the preacher.

Room Conversation with Professor Francois Chenique -- August 5, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: This is our translation?

Bhūgarbha: No, it's another one. In 1800 it was translated.

Prabhupāda: And they simply translation, or elaborately like we are doing?

Yogeśvara: Just translation. Sanskrit on the left-hand page, French on the right-hand page, but no commentaries.

Prabhupāda: That is difficult to understand.

Yogeśvara: It was the full twelve cantos, but a very limited edition, and only available in library archives. No one has..., very few people have seen it.

Bhūgarbha: He feels that the French public is very demanding in questions of editing and writing, and he feels that the French that's used in our translations should not, he said, smell of English. Sometimes French translations seem like English written in French. He said those should be in perfect French, and that in the French language there's a need to make things more compact and condensed. He's wondering if we can condense them more than in English.

Prabhupāda: So one of us who knows French nicely, he can do that. But there is no difference. They are taking the ideas from English and translating.

Arrival Conversation -- August 13, 1976, Bombay:

Driver: They distribute about fifteen hundred on Ratha-yātrā day.

Prabhupāda: Fifteen hundred on?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Ratha-yātrā in Ahmedabad. Now we are distributing these books for one rupee each or 1.50 in Vṛndāvana because now we've got the cost of printing down to sixty paisa...

Prabhupāda: Our Ratha-yātrā in New York was very successful.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, I saw in the New York Times. I went to the American Embassy in Delhi and I saw "East Meets West" that was the heading, and there were picture, and Daily News had it on the first page.

Hari-śauri: Middle page.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: First page.

Hari-śauri: Center pages.

Prabhupāda: Three chariots, very gorgeous.

Evening Darsana -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Yaśomatīnandana:

śrotavyādīni rājendra
nṛṇāṁ santi sahasraśaḥ
apaśyatām ātma-tattvaṁ
gṛheṣu gṛha-medhinām
(SB 2.1.2)

Translation: "Those persons who are materially engrossed, being blind to the knowledge of ultimate truth, have many subject matters for hearing in the human society, O emperor."

Prabhupāda: See newspaper? Hundreds of thousands of news. Here they are ten pages. In foreign countries, such a big bundle. Śrotavyādīni rājendra nṛṇāṁ santi sahasraśaḥ (SB 2.1.2). Thousands and thousands news. But no news about ātma-tattvam. That is not to be taken. They do not know. So many newspapers. Therefore they are purchasing our books. They are intelligent. They are seeing something new. That is, they are intelligent man. Because they have never seen such books. There is elaborate science of God. One can go back to home, back to Godhead. You can talk with Him, you can eat with Him. These things are surprising.

Evening Darsana -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: They may read and translate. And why in India where there is Bhagavad-gītā? Apart from all other Vedic literatures, set aside, the gist of all Vedic knowledge, Bhagavad-gītā, there is. And still, people are kept into darkness. How much lamentable. Still, big, big leaders, at least, they want to preach Bhagavad-gītā—without Kṛṣṇa. They have set aside lakhs of rupees for preaching Bhagavad-gītā, but condition is if you preach without Kṛṣṇa. Just see. Bhagavad-gītā in every page it is written "śrī-bhagavān uvāca." Not even it is said "kṛṣṇaḥ uvāca." Because some rascal may take Kṛṣṇa as ordinary human being, therefore Vyāsadeva has specifically said... People know it, "kṛṣṇaḥ uvāca," but he says "śrī-bhagavān uvāca." The bhagavān word. People may not mistake that Kṛṣṇa is somebody else. And they want to banish Kṛṣṇa from Bhagavad-gītā. Even Gandhi did it. So you explain Bhagavad-gītā as it is there in Ahmedabad?

Yaśomatīnandana: Yes.

Press Interview at Muthilal Rao's House -- August 17, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Of course it is a foreign thing for them, but still they are coming and taking it very seriously.

Interviewer (5): Do you think they are taking to it because it is novel?

Prabhupāda: Huh? No, many novel things go from here, but they are sticking to it. They are now seriously taking to it. They understand that this is a great science and we are publishing books. We have already published eighty-four books like that. Eighty-four of four hundred pages. And you'll be surprised that throughout the whole world we are selling books about sixty thousand dollars a day. That means six lakhs of rupees. That is the basic income for our expenditure, 102 centers all over the world.

Interviewer (3): A central minister the Parliament recently said that he will conduct a probe to see if there was anything fishy in this...

Prabhupāda: Therefore I am bringing before you, before probing, you try to understand what is our income. We are selling these books six lakhs rupees daily, and we are spending it fifty percent for reprinting the books and fifty percent for expanding temples all over the world. This is our activities. Now you probe it or understand it.

Room Conversation -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Acyutānanda: Everyone in Calcutta, they were asking how you are. Many people they are anxious to see. We have gotten very good recent publicity there. Three days in a row.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Acyutānanda: Three days in a row of front page news articles.

Prabhupāda: What is they have published?

Acyutānanda: Very good. Many ministers are also coming to Māyāpur. Very...

Prabhupāda: Here also the chief minister, many have come to see me.

Devotee: Yesterday.

Acyutānanda: Yes, he is OK. (indistinct background conversation)

Prabhupāda: Gradually they will appreciate. Everyone, all over the world.

Acyutānanda: This was on the front page of the Ananda Bazar, five lakhs circulation.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct)

Acyutānanda: Front page.

Room Conversation -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Somewhere I saw.

Hari-śauri: New York.

Prabhupāda: Very nice article.

Hari-śauri: Yes, about thirteen pages in the magazine.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Oh, really.

Hari-śauri: Yes, very long, three quarters of the magazine.

Prabhupāda: What is this?

Acyutānanda: That's an income tax form. I pasted these on the back.

Prabhupāda: That C.P.I. member, what does he say?

Acyutānanda: Well apparently they're a little bit envious because Māyāpur is becoming very popular amongst the local people. We get five thousand people now for the prasādam. And even the Congress leaders, they come here and eat with the people. They said, "This is wonderful."

Prabhupāda: Where is that?

Acyutānanda: At Māyāpur.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct)

Acyutānanda: And Jayapatāka is going to the villages, I gave him one bus and he is selling about six to seven hundred Gītār Gāns a day.

Room Conversation About Blitz News Clipping -- August 21, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But now they have requoted what was in the paper about what you know already, that thing that came up in the Parliament.

Prabhupāda: So you quote from all these quotations. Ananda Bazaar and others. You give quotations. They may make a fresh pages so when court case is there this should be presented.

Gargamuni: Yes. Newspaper articles can stand as evidence because the Ananda Bazaar, they sent a whole team there, and the article they wrote was fantastic.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: You have to give me all of them.

Gargamuni: They're here on Prabhupāda's desk.

Hari-śauri: No, Harikeśa has got them.

Prabhupāda: So go and pick up and make arrangement immediately show them. One thing, that we have got this śālagrāma-śilā. So if you like to personally worship, we can keep it. Otherwise I am sending to Bombay. Do you like to worship?

Pradyumna: We can take with us? Yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That is good to take with you.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation About Blitz News Clipping -- August 21, 1976, Hyderabad:

Pradyumna: The courts can take it up also. In Allahabad when they were doing about the Congress Party having the cow, they said this is of the nature... They were discussing what is God in the court to make a decision. Something, what is God, what is religion. We can bring it up in the court. That will make a case celebre. Case celebre, they call it, affaire celebre.

Prabhupāda: Yes. This case must be brought. Challenge them, "What do you know about God?" Explain. And we can prove God consciousness from every page of our books. That will be very interesting case. And we shall continue this unless this man is sufficiently fined.

Hari-śauri: This is a... That bit about... Some of it, there's the front page also. Thought you might like to read.

Prabhupāda: "Evidence of fraud"? No?

Hari-śauri: That's Sai Baba.

Pradyumna: One man is trying to prove Sai Baba is fraud. One professor.

Hari-śauri: He's a scientist. He says he can prove that Sai Baba's making things appear and disappear is just a trick.

Prabhupāda: He is a fraud. What is this paper?

Hari-śauri: This is the same issue.

Room Conversation About Blitz News Clipping -- August 21, 1976, Hyderabad:

Pradyumna: He has some yogic siddhi, but he cannot be God because he does not create.

Prabhupāda: So this paper is against Sai Baba also?

Pradyumna: No. On the front page it says... Because he is doing a lot of educational... He has made all these universities and health centers and everything. So it says that he is doing good to the people. So for that reason they said, "We don't want to see him criticized."

Hari-śauri: They're supporting him.

Prabhupāda: So the case is already in the court?

Pradyumna: No, it is just a challenge. The Bangalore University, some people at Bangalore University want to investigate his things. And then Sai Baba sometimes, he won't submit to be examined.

Prabhupāda: He submits?

Pradyumna: They want to have him come and examine him, that, "Do it and let us see." But he won't admit to be examined.

Room Conversation -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Many Indians. How many orders you booked?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: A whole page on us.

Prabhupāda: Sunday? What is the

Mahāṁśa: Sunday Chronicle. Deccan Chronicle. The biggest distributed English paper in this area.

Prabhupāda: What is this, Ratha-yātrā?

Hari-śauri: In New York.

Gargamuni: The Ratha-yātrā conquering.

Prabhupāda: I told you Ratha-yātrā, it is...

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Conquer the world.

Prabhupāda: ...the eyesore of the Communist party.

Hari-śauri: It says underneath, "Ratha-yātrā in foreign lands." That's the caption underneath the picture.

Prabhupāda: Where is it?

Gargamuni: Ratha-yātrā in foreign lands.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa swamis. Read it. Read it.

Room Conversation -- August 22, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: No, that is another. In Guntur, yes.

Prabhā Viṣṇu: I didn't see.

Prabhupāda: Visakhapatnam, there is one of my Godbrothers, Purī Mahārāja. Did you go there?

Prabhā Viṣṇu: No. But we saw some books which they published and they had your picture in the front actually. Just on the inside page your picture was there.

Prabhupāda: In Guntur you received order from?

Prabhā Viṣṇu: The State Regional Library. It's the most prestigious library in Andhra Pradesh. They took a complete order for all the books.

Gargamuni: Caitanya-caritāmṛta and Bhāgavatam.

Prabhā Viṣṇu: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Standing order.

Prabhā Viṣṇu: Yes, standing order. And Visakhapatnam university also, standing order for all the books. We'll probably go back to Guntur again, and I think we'll make some more orders there next week. But it was Saturday and some of the colleges were closed, so we couldn't see the professors.

Prabhupāda: Keep your health nice, because Indian climate sometimes does not suit. Eat simple things. Fruits, vegetables. Don't be miser in the matter of... But don't eat voraciously. Eat sufficiently, nutritious.

Meeting with Endowments Commissioner -- August 24, 1976, Hyderabad:

Harikeśa: Two hundred thousand dollars monthly.

Prabhupāda: Two hundred thousand dollars monthly. (break) Nobody will be able to check it. He'll go on. That is Kṛṣṇa. Here is dictaphone. I work at night. I get up at half past twelve, one, and I write books. And daytime I'm engaged. And daily either ten page, twenty page written, that is sent to Los Angeles. You have seen our press? And they take care. How our books printed, have you got that film?

Mahāṁsa: I have it in 16 mm only. Yes.

Prabhupāda: Why don't you show?

Mahāṁsa: Just now?

Prabhupāda: Yes. It will take little ...

Mahāṁsa: I don't have a Fairchild. I have it in 16 mm film.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But the Press...

Mahāṁsa: Yes, the Press film.

Prabhupāda: You can show, they'll be... How in the American industrial process we are printing our books. I made the Book Trust, sixty thousand dollars they are selling. So as author, I could have derived from them at least six thousand, ten percent minimum. Six thousand dollars per day. Six thousand dollars means sixty thousand rupees. That could have been my daily income. But I take little khicuḍi from them, that's all.

Meeting with Endowments Commissioner -- August 24, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: So we have got big program. Any amount of money you bring to us, we shall spend it immediately. (pause) (kīrtana in background) (break) There is a logic, andha-paṅgu-nyāya. One man is blind. Another man is lame. Both are useless. When they combined together the lame man was taken by the blind man. So the lame man has got eyes, he was giving direction, "Go this way." So both their work was done. So I say that India is lame and America is blind. Let us combine together. Then we can give a great culture for the benefit of the whole human society. India has no money-lame. And they have got money but they have no knowledge. So let us combine together. This is logic. Andha-paṅgu-nyāya. So by this cooperation they have... When I was in India I published three parts of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam with great difficulty. And now since I have gone there I am publishing every month a book. So on account of their cooperation we are able to publish so many books and organize the sale all over the world. But it is true that this culture is very much welcome all over the world. That is happening. That is real execution of the mission of Kṛṣṇa. Not to keep Kṛṣṇa within the boundaries of certain areas. Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā. Sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya (BG 14.4). He's the father of all living entities. They should know it. We have got many other films also. How we are giving protection to the cows in different farms, how we are getting sumptuous milk. Two years ago there was an article in the Navabhārata Times in Delhi, big article, one full page, first page. And the heading was that New Vrindaban (Hindi). They gave this heading. And they gave all details how to use the land New Vrindaban in Virginia, we have got one thousand acre of land and they are utilizing it. How they are living peacefully. So we want to make an example here with this six hundred acres of land, if it is given to us. Kṛṣṇa's formula is there. Annād bhavanti bhūtāni. Produce sufficient quantity of anna. Everyone will be satisfied. Annād bhavanti bhūtāni. Kṛṣṇa never says by factory bhavanti bhūtāni. Annād bhavanti bhūtāni. Parjanyād anna-sambhavaḥ yajñād bhavati parjanyo yajñaḥ karma-samudbhavaḥ (BG 3.14). Yajñārthāt karmaṇo 'nyatra loko 'yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ (BG 3.9). This formula should be... That is Kṛṣṇa's mission. Kṛṣṇa's mission, what to speak of Kṛṣṇa's mission (Hindi). Kṛṣṇa to carry personally, (indistinct), aham ādir hi devānām (Bg 10.2). (Hindi) Kṛṣṇa nirākāra. He's personally speaking. And Vyāsadeva writes bhagavān uvāca.

Morning Walk Conversation About Bombay -- August 29, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Giving some coverage.

Girirāja: ...good... The Free Press wants to make a two page feature with pictures all about our activities.

Prabhupāda: What about taking action against Blitz?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Well he wrote to me but I didn't have time to discuss with you. Girirāja discussed with everyone and they feel that it's not worth it.

Prabhupāda: All right.

Girirāja: The thing is that it's not very certain that we'll win and if we file...

Prabhupāda: No. It is not a question of winning. It is a question of discussing in the court.

Girirāja: Yes, but that's also...

Prabhupāda: And the paper does not give any publicity.

Girirāja: Well, see, their paper... You see, this man, the editor, he thrives on controversy and notoriety. So he likes cases. And then when the case comes up, he gives the report of the case in his newspaper. So most people felt that he would be very happy if we filed suit because that will increase his...

Prabhupāda: It will be in his favor.

Morning Walk Conversation About Bombay -- August 29, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: It will be in his favor.

Girirāja: Yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I met one, but, I knew the assistant editor of Times of India and I spoke to him about it. He said if we wrote a strong reply, we could perhaps get him to print our reply on third page. We could perhaps get him... He's done that in the past. But it's a risky gamble.

Girirāja: There was a new article this week.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: In Blitz?

Girirāja: Yes.

Prabhupāda: About us?

Girirāja: Yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Another one?

Girirāja: Yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: You have it?

Girirāja: No. I thought you might have it.

Prabhupāda: What is read?

Girirāja: They were very agitated that so many big ministers and people came to our function in Hyderabad.

Prabhupāda: Oh, that's nice.

Room Conversation -- September 4, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: This was published in New York Times.

Harikeśa: New York Times?

Prabhupāda: With picture. The other picture was published in Voice, Village Voice, yes. Yes. Big picture. One page. They felt something; otherwise, why they should publish? Appealed to them, that here is God.

Harikeśa: This is really a historic picture.

Prabhupāda: Underneath a tree I was sitting and speaking. That's all. And when I would come back from the park to my apartment, at least two dozen people will come with me.

Hari-śauri: Like a Pied Piper.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Hari-śauri: There's a story in the West about a man called the Pied Piper. He went to one place and played the flute and all the children followed him away from the village. You're like the Pied Piper who went to the West, took all the children.

Prabhupāda: If you know French language you can read it.

Harikeśa: He knows French.

Prabhupāda: Ah, you know. What is written there?

Hari-śauri: The article is by Hayagrīva, and the heading, it says, "Are you from India?" That was when he met you on the street.

Prabhupāda: Yes, he first of all met me on the street and asked me this question. And I brought him, "Yes, I have taken one apartment here. You come here with me." Then I came back to show him the apartment. And from the next day they began to come, Kīrtanānanda and Hayagrīva.

Garden Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So but Mr. Modi said that we don't bother about this.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, no, he'll reply. So I gave him the point. He wanted me to give him the point and the right answers and then he will reply.

Prabhupāda: What are the points?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Should I read the whole letter you? It's a four page letter.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: "Dear Shri Modiji. Hare Kṛṣṇa. In Blitz issue of August 21, 1976, an article under the heading of "Blitz Tears the Mask of Ungodly Face of Kṛṣṇa Cult" appeared. This article appeared on page 3 of the issue and was written by A. Ragwan of Blitz Delhi Bureau. We beg to state that this was a mischievous article in which the newspaper accused us incorrectly. It is our firm opinion that the purpose of this article was simply to defame ISKCON because it is engaged in spreading God consciousness based on the Vedic scriptures. For your information, ISKCON is a registered society with the government of India. This society..."

Prabhupāda: For your information we beg to submit.

Garden Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Indian man: Real United Nations.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The real United Nations. Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu. (Hindi) Kṛṣṇotkīrtana-gāna. Not otherwise. In some place I said that this United Nations...

Hari-śauri: Oh, in Melbourne. In Melbourne they put it on the front page.

Prabhupāda: Melbourne, yes. It was published in the paper, that "It is a dog's barking association." (laughter) It was published.

Indian man: Published.

Hari-śauri: Front page. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: And he added something, that "Swami is hounding."

Hari-śauri: Yes, the heading was, "His Divine Grace has come here to hound us." And then the article was Prabhupāda describing how the United Nations was a collection of dogs barking. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: My point was that if you bring some dogs and ask them, "My dear dogs, sit down here peacefully. Don't bark. Don't create trouble." Will they do? Will they do?

Indian man: No.

Prabhupāda: If you keep them dogs, how it is possible they will be peaceful?

Indian man: So long as they are dogs it is not possible.

Garden Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: It is not possible. And so long one is in the bodily concept of life, "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am this, I am that," and all of them go to the United Nation assembly... So what is the difference when a dog thinks that "I am dog, I am this dog." And an American or Indian thinks "I am a..." Where is the difference? So as American, as Indian, as German, as Chinese, if they go there, they remain animal, and how there can be peace? That is not possible. And the peace formula is given by Kṛṣṇa. Bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ sarva-loka-maheśvaram, suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānām (BG 5.29). When one understands Kṛṣṇa is suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati. That is śāntim. So if you keep them as Americans, or Indians, or this or that, how there can be peace?

Hari-śauri: That was front page.

Indian man: (laughs) He's here to hound us. (laughs) (Hindi) (reading from paper) "His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the founder of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is here to save us from a dog's life." (laughter) "He's here to save us from a dog's life. For unless we can get some spiritual knowledge, warns His Divine Grace, we are left with a dog mentality."

Hari-śauri: This was the New York Ratha-yātrā. This was in New York Times.

Indian man: The Ratha-yātrā is held on 7th Avenue... (several talking at once)

Prabhupāda: They admitted: "This is the East and West meeting."

Press Interview -- October 16, 1976, Chandigarh:

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) It is your remark. You have seen. Your representative went there and saw it.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: In October '74.

Interviewer: Yes. Along with photographs.

Prabhupāda: In big, whole page article.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: (indistinct) published a series of four, three articles and last year's Janmāṣṭamī. This review from Mr. Baradraj...

Prabhupāda: We are giving cow protection in the country where they are eaten by the people. Their staple food, beef, and they are accepting this movement, giving cow protection.

Interviewer: Which are those areas?

Prabhupāda: West Virginia, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and where? Miami, Canada, Vancouver. Like that.

Interviewer: So if you don't mind, what is bad about eating, people who are eating beef? What is bad about it?

Prabhupāda: Bad means you become bad. That's all. You can see these things are...

Interviewer: But we can eat goat's meat, and other animal's meat.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And the thing is that cow is especially recommended in the Bhagavad-gītā, kṛṣi-go-rakṣya vāṇijyaṁ vaiśya-karma svabhāva-jam (BG 18.44). That you must produce enough food grains by agriculture and give protection to the cows. That means if you have got enough food grains to eat and if you have got enough milk to get fatty substance, then your whole economic question is solved. Annād bhavanti bhūtāni (BG 3.14). If you get sufficient food there is no question of agitation. Everyone is satisfied. Animal and man. So you must produce. That is recommendation in the Bhagavad-gītā.

Room Conversation -- October 26, 1976, Vrndavana:

Devotee: He asks how many pages. Yogānanda asks how many... Because they say that you sent a newsletter to all the GBCs. He asks how many pages was the newsletter. And I said just two lines.

Prabhupāda: Newspaper?

Hari-śauri: Newsletter to the GBC.

Prabhupāda: What is that newsletter?

Hari-śauri: You said, "Please be informed that Nitāi has become a venomous serpent."

Prabhupāda: So this has been sent? (laughs)

Hari-śauri: Yes, to the GBC.

Devotee: Yogānanda asked how many pages, when he heard about the newsletter. He thought that you spoke so long about that. And I just said, "Just two lines." But they never asked me what the letter said.

Prabhupāda: Yes, two lines is sufficient.

Dhanañjaya: Punar muṣaka bhava. Punar muṣaka bhava.

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is exactly the same case. Punar muṣaka bhava, you know the whole story? A muṣaka, a mouse, was made a tiger, and the tiger wanted to eat the saintly person who made him. First of all he was mouse. So he came to the saintly person. "Sir, I am troubled. Give me some benediction." "What do you want?" "Now, the cat always chases." "All right, you become cat so that you'll not be attacked." Then after some time he came. "I am being chased by the dog." "All right, you become a dog." From cat to dog, from mouse to... Then again he came. "Still, they are chasing me. Fox." And then in this way, and ultimately he made a tiger. And after becoming a tiger, he began to look, staring on the... "What do you mean by this?" "I shall eat you." "Oh? You become again a mouse." (laughter) Again he became mouse. That's all.

Room Conversation -- October 31, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Minister, Vṛndāvana. Collect all these and send it that this is a genuine movement because it is great cultural movement. Therefore, Swami Bhaktivedanta wanted to give it to Europe who are in the darkness. So anyway, now they are feeling the action of the medicine.

Haṁsadūta: (laughs) Yeah.

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) So many big, big sign boards, "Kṛṣṇa is coming." "Here is Kṛṣṇa." (sounds of pages being turned) "Here is Kṛṣṇa."

Hari-śauri: Yeah, every heading has a "Kṛṣṇa" written.

Prabhupāda: "Here is Kṛṣṇa." That I... That is our trap.

Haṁsadūta: Yes, the subject matter...

Prabhupāda: That will, that will help us in selling Kṛṣṇa Books.

Haṁsadūta: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: "What is this nonsense Kṛṣṇa, let us see." It is not in our disfavor, it is in favor. (chuckles) But still we have to defend. So as I suggested you collect.

Room Conversation on New York court case -- November 2, 1976, Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Straining, yes, straining yes, straining. If the straining process no, that's nice.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, we can get rid of all the bad publicity (indistinct). Every newspaper in America is covering us Rāmeśvara said.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) better, I was seeing that. And every page Kṛṣṇa. There is Kṛṣṇa. Every page, there is Kṛṣṇa. Similarly that happened in Germany. I told them. "It is very good that Hare Kṛṣṇa." Hare Kṛṣṇa. (laughing) We are known as Kṛṣṇas. They call us Kṛṣṇas. You put yourselves "Kṛṣṇians." They are Christians and we are Kṛṣṇians. And actually from Kṛṣṇian, the Christian has come. Yes. Kṛṣṇa, ah, Kristo, there is Greek word and Kristo, is broken spelling of Kṛṣṇa. In India we say one is, one name say is Kṛṣṇa, at least in Bengali we say Kṛṣṭa. Kṛṣṭa. This Kṛṣṭa word is come Kṛṣṇa. And from Kṛṣṭa, Christ has come. This is original root, Kṛṣṇa. So we have to fight, here is a chance for fighting, so why they're afraid?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, we just have to work hard on getting this altogether.

Prabhupāda: You have to fight. Keeping our principles strictly. Yuddhyasva mām anusmara (BG 8.7). We should not be afraid to fight. And it is, there are Indians... It is not the Indians (indistinct). Now Indians and Americans should join for fighting on behalf of Kṛṣṇa. Then it will be successful. How they can say it is not genuine movement. Other so-called yogis swamis, they may be rascal but this is not the rascaldom.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: About the gosvāmīs it is said, nidrāhāra-vihārakādi-vijitau **, sleeping, and eating, and sense enjoyment conquered. So no sleeping, no eating and no sense gratification, that is perfection. Nidrāhāra-vihārakādi-vijitau cātyanta-dīnau. Hm.

Hari-śauri:

tribhir guṇamayair bhāvair
ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat
mohitaṁ nābhijānāti
mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam
(BG 7.13)

"Deluded by the three modes (goodness, passion, and ignorance), the whole world does not know Me, who am above the modes and inexhaustible."

Prabhupāda: Here is the disease, material disease. They are being carried away by the three modes of material nature. Hm? It is explained further that puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi bhuṅkte... (BG 13.22). Hm.

Devotee (2): Bhuṅkte prakṛti-jān guṇān.

Prabhupāda: Ah. Guṇān. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya.

Devotee (3): Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya, sad-asad-yoni...

Prabhupāda: Sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu. Hm? Puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi (BG 13.22). So, this is a big purport about this? How big...?

Hari-śauri: About one page. Tribhir guṇamayair bhāvaiḥ?

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Room Conversation with Indian Man -- December 22, 1976, Poona:

Indian man: Because he thinks in other ways.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore he cannot understand. Athāpi te deva padāmbuja-dvaya-prasāda-leśānugṛhīta eva hi, jānāti tattvam (SB 10.14.29). One who is fully surrendered... Not fully, even little surrendered, he can understand. (bell rings) Otherwise, ciraṁ vicinvan. He can speculate for long, long years, for long long years. Still he cannot. Athāpi te deva padāmbuja-dvaya-prasāda-leśānugṛhīta eva hi, jānāti tattvam. He can understand. Na ca anya eko 'pi ciraṁ vicinvan. Others, even one of them, simply by speculating they cannot understand.

Indian man: To find śraddhā, or faith to surrender. To surrender, one must have something to surrender to. What is that?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is explaining about Himself. So many pages. At last He says, "Surrender to Me." He is not asking him to surrender all of a sudden. He is explaining all the ways. "You think over," He has explained. Then He says "The most confidential knowledge, Arjuna I am giving to you, because you are my very dear friend, that you simply surrender. That's all."

Morning Walk and Room Conversation -- December 26, 1976, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: Sir, Śaṅkarācārya has made so many abstructs (obstructs?) for this bhakti. And I mean to follow it...

Prabhupāda: No, no, I'm talking of Kṛṣṇa. There are many other talkers. We are concerned because we are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Kṛṣṇa conscious means whatever Kṛṣṇa says, we accept. That is our philosophy. We may be fools and rascals, doesn't matter. But we accept what Kṛṣṇa says, that's all. Like a child, he's a child, he may be a fool. But when the father says, "My dear child, this is called microphone," and if the child says, "This is microphone," that is correct. Because he takes the word of the father who knows things. He may be child. So our business is like that. We don't claim ourself to be very learned, very advanced. We are fools and rascals. (break) "How can I become guru?" One may say. "I am not so learned, I am not so..." "No, no, you haven't got to bother. Still you can become guru." "How?" Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). If you simply repeat what Kṛṣṇa has said, then you become guru. That's all. So our business is that. We are guru not that because we are very learned, so-called Vedāntist. No. We are lowest of the lowest. But we are faithful to the words of Kṛṣṇa. That's all. We have no other business. Caitanya Mahāprabhu has ordered, yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Bas. Very easy. And that is being effective. Now because I am carrying these words of Kṛṣṇa throughout the whole world, perhaps I have done the best service than the combined so much Vedāntists. All the Vedāntists of India could not do that. That's a fact. How it has become possible? Because we are simply speaking what Kṛṣṇa has spoken. That's all. Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa... That's all. I do not claim that I am Sanskrit scholar, I am this big man, that man, no. Whatever books I have written, only about this-Kṛṣṇa. In our book in every page you will find Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa. My Guru Mahārāja, if we used to write some article, so we wanted to show him how it is written. So he was very busy. So somebody would read and Guru Mahārāja would say, "How many times he has said 'Kṛṣṇa'?" (laughter) If he finds that in every page there is Kṛṣṇa, it is all right. That's all. (laughter) So we are making Vedāntist, "How many times he chants Kṛṣṇa?" If he chants always Kṛṣṇa, yes, he's Vedāntist. That's all. Bas. Because śāstra says, kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet (SB 12.3.51). That is being effective. These boys, their forefathers or their father, grandfather never knew what is Kṛṣṇa. But kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet. So unless there is Kṛṣṇa consciousness there is no question of Vedānta.

Room Conversation -- December 27, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Concentrate on viṣṇu-mūrti here, in the heart, and hear... This will immediately give some effect.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Or... Yes. We can have some pictures of people. And we'll publish your Sixth Chapter, like, just like publishing Sixth Chapter of the Gītā with a two-page introduction how this yoga is different from others and this is a guide, the Sixth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā, the most ancient Hindu scripture, Indian scripture.

Prabhupāda: So keep some price for that.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. That will be like a separate book, five rupees, with some illustrations...

Prabhupāda: Make that.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And then like we can have some... People are very much into beads...

Prabhupāda: And dancing.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: So we'll have some neckbeads they'll take with a small statue, Deity, pendant of Viṣṇu.

Prabhupāda: So then there is one artist. He has come to paint pictures. Explain. He will give you. Yes.

Room Conversation -- December 27, 1976, Bombay:

Hari-śauri: We have a proper shelf there which will supply hari-nāma cādara, beads, beadbag, everything.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Yes. Take this idea. Note down. First of all make this brochure.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. That brochure which I made on Vṛndāvana, just one page, I'm taking up, Vṛndāvana and other temple pictures, and putting in a section on yoga.

Prabhupāda: So see how you have done.

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

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

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

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

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

Room Conversation -- December 29, 1976, Bombay:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Eighty-four books of about 400 pages each.

Guest (2) (Indian man): How many in vernacular languages printing?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: About 21 different languages they have been translated.

Guest (2): In India?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, international. French, Italian...

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.

Room Conversation -- December 29, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Each śloka. Each chapter.

Guest (2): No, no. Not inside the book. Different volumes. Like eighteen chapters, but eighteen volumes.

Prabhupāda: No, no.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No. It's in one book. Twelve hundred pages.

Guest (3): And the interpretation is by you yourself?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Not interpretation. I am explaining as it is. You can read one.

Guest (3): Have you tried to compare with Gītā written by Gyaneshvara, or by Vinoba Bhave or by somebody else?

Prabhupāda: According to Bhagavad-gītā, if you don't follow the instruction of Bhagavad-gītā, you may be very learned scholar, whatever you write, it is lost. We follow that principle. As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2). Find out this Fourth Chapter.

Guest (2): Have these books been reviewed in foreign papers?

Prabhupāda: It is very widely read.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

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

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

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

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

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But by the time they find out, we are already in the country. For example, if I would have told them about ISKCON before, when I was applying for my visa...

Prabhupāda: No, no... Anyway they may find, early or later, but how you can stop them finding? It is simply impossible.(?)

Hari-śauri: Anyway, they expect that something coming from India is going to have something to do with God.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We are saying... What I said is Bhaktivedanta Book Trust is dedicated to publishing books on ancient Indian culture.

Prabhupāda: You say like that... Whatever you like, you can say, but when they read the book it is simply...

Jagadīśa: Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa. That's all.

Discussion on Deprogrammers -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: But we don't say Radhakrishnan is authority. We take Caitanya Mahāprabhu as authority.

Hari-śauri: Now we have to prove now that Radhakrishnan was not an authority on the Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He is not in the paramparā system. You talk with Rāmeśvara like this.

Hari-śauri: Actually, by using the Bhagavad-gītā, we can defeat their argument very easily anyway.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That I've defended in every page, that "These rascals have used this." Where is Rāmeśvara?

Jagadīśa: Coming. Śrīla Prabhupāda, we've been talking about... (break)

Haṁsadūta: I shave once a month.

Hari-śauri: Once a month on pūrṇimā.

Rāmeśvara: And our Ādi-keśava, he has also grown out his hair for the court case and all the people. He's meeting the politicians.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But we are famous as shaven-headed. That is already advertised. Shaven-headed means Kṛṣṇas. So why should we relinquish this...

Haṁsadūta: Trademark.

Discussion on Deprogrammers -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: That is Vṛndāvana life. When everything is Kṛṣṇa, that is Vṛndāvana life. Why Vṛndāvana life is so exalted? Because they have no other shelter except Kṛṣṇa. The whole book Kṛṣṇa is therefore center Kṛṣṇa. That's all. But there are many varieties of activities.

Hari-śauri: There's ninety chapters there. That's a drop in the ocean.

Prabhupāda: Every page, the center is Kṛṣṇa. Not only the Kṛṣṇa book. All our books-Caitanya-caritāmṛta—the center is Kṛṣṇa. Bhāgavata, the center is Kṛṣṇa. Bhagavad-gītā center is Kṛṣṇa. Nectar of Devotion, the center is Kṛṣṇa. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Similarly, our, this book, the center is Kṛṣṇa. When we open a temple, the center is Kṛṣṇa. In this way manage, promotion. All spend for promotion. Then the income tax will not be able to touch your hair, what to speak of your body. (laughter) So now our counterpropaganda is going on. The center is Kṛṣṇa. Big, big Kṛṣṇa's name are coming: "These Kṛṣṇa people," "These Kṛṣṇa devotees," "This Kṛṣṇa center"—that is our triumph. What is that?

Trivikrama: There is a letter.

Prabhupāda: Letter from?

Rāmeśvara: I was mentioning it this morning. We intercept their newsletters.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: But wherever you advertise, it must be prominent. It must immediately come to the notice. You can spend little more.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, this advertising will also increase our college orders, because even college professors and librarians read papers. So when our salesmen go there, they'll say, "Oh, I saw your advertisement in the papers."

Prabhupāda: On nice pages(?) you just give your... Another proposal was that, some New York or somewhere somebody is proposing to sell individually. Who was that?

Jagadīśa: Encyclopedia?

Prabhupāda: Like that.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: House to house.

Prabhupāda: Who was speaking about that? You told me? Somebody told me.

Arrival of BBT Manager -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: And Dialectic Spiritualism is published?

Rāmeśvara: This year, after the Māyāpur Festival. Hayagrīva hasn't finished working on it completely.

Prabhupāda: How many pages it will be?

Rāmeśvara: Two volumes.

Prabhupāda: Two volumes?

Rāmeśvara: Two volumes, eight hundred pages.

Prabhupāda: Oh? So, big?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that Harikeśa's book?

Jagadīśa: Śyāmasundara.

Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda explaining the different philosophies of the world. This was something that just appeared just before I left Los Angeles. This shows how they are fighting back. This a four-page article... (break) ...as if it is a very nice thing. And they say in the article that the parents have to pay these professionals $25,000 just to steal a devotee.

Prabhupāda: Heavy tax.

Haṁsadūta: We don't pay them anything. They come to us.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We are getting advertise, publicity, paying nothing. This is our profit.

Morning Darsana and Room Conversation Ramkrishna Bajaj and friends -- January 9, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Sixth Canto, First Part. Veda-praṇihito dhar... Yamarāja's instruction. Er, the Yamadutas explain what is dharma, veda-praṇihito dharmaḥ. Where you found the page? (?)

Pradyumna:

yamadūtā ūcuḥ
veda-praṇihito dharmo
hy adharmas tad-viparyayaḥ
vedo nārāyaṇaḥ sākṣāt
svayambhūr iti śuśruma

Prabhupāda: What is the translation?

Pradyumna: "The Yamadūtas replied: That which is prescribed in the Vedas constitutes dharma, the religious principles, and the opposite of that is irreligion."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Pradyumna: "The Vedas are directly the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, and are self-born. This we have heard from Yamarāja."

Prabhupāda: "This we have heard." This is authority. If you have heard from the authority, that is knowledge. If you have manufactured, that is nonsense. Iti śuśruma. You'll find Arjuna also speaking with Kṛṣṇa-iti śuśruma. And Śukadeva Gosvāmī, he is such a learned scholar. He also—iti śuś..., that... This is our knowledge: to hear and receive the knowledge from higher authority. In the ordinary way also, the students go to the college, they hear from the professor. That is knowledge. He does not go to a pan-walla to hear. One who is authorized, professor, we hear from him. Similarly, we have to get knowledge from the authority. So supreme authority is Kṛṣṇa. So hear from Him. Then it is knowledge. Otherwise tad ajñānam yad anyathā. What is that?

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

Prabhupāda: Naked? Fully naked?

Rāmeśvara: Yes.

Hari-śauri: They would hold the festivals sometimes in the hills with a stream. It was very popular; everybody would go to the stream and bathe naked. And then the TV would come and film. There was one big one that they had in England, and the front pages on all the newspapers was one hippie couple that... Someone had spread some foam everywhere, and in the middle of the foam this hippie couple were naked having sex, and they put the picture in all the papers. This was love and peace.

Prabhupāda: I have seen John...

Hari-śauri: John Lennon.

Prabhupāda: ...naked.

Rāmeśvara: Naked. With his wife.

Prabhupāda: That picture is in his sitting room. I was talking with him in his sitting room, and fireplace and... Of course, that Chandler Place(?), a very big and glorious picture.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Just like emergency.

Rāmeśvara: Yes.

Hari-śauri: In Russia they do that. When they don't like someone, they put him in a mental home.

Rāmeśvara: That was that whole article I brought from page one of L.A. Times, that how they have made this legal. And now they have got tax exemption. So now it's going to increase. For the next year it's going to increase, because they're going to get a lot of money from the families as tax write-offs.

Prabhupāda: Tax invention? What is that?

Rāmeśvara: They call themselves educational organizations. They are educating the public because they do speaking engagements at colleges and different places. So on the basis of that, they applied to the federal government, "Please, we are just an educational group. You must give us tax exemption." So they have been given that. Now people can donate money to them. Instead of paying taxes to the U.S. government, they can donate money to them in exchange for paying taxes. (laughs) So the fighting will get more...

Prabhupāda: Intense.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Gargamuni: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Just see the policy.

Gargamuni: But they, I think annihilated all of the... Anyone who had any education... Just like that boy. He was translating your books? They shot him in front of firing squad. One boy. I printed one book there in Bengali, I think, three thousand copies: The Peace Formula and Who is Crazy, I think. It was about fifteen pages. They gave me some donation. Even the Gopāla... His name was Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Brahmacārī. He also gave me from his pocket. And I printed... We had it translated in Bengali, but then...

Prabhupāda: He was killed?

Gargamuni: Yes, for translating. He was shot in... Not him but this other brahmacārī, young boy, very nice boy. His name was Karuṇāmayī.

Rāmeśvara: For translating it they did it.

Gargamuni: Yes, for translating. They wanted to annihilate anyone who had any literary talent. That was their idea. Or anyone who had any education. So that after they left the country there wouldn't be anything. Because they knew they had to leave one day because of the revolutionary spirit. So they thought, "Let us ravage the whole country and then leave." And that's what they did. Their main attack was the university. When I was there that was their first attack 'cause that university was a very old one and...

Prabhupāda: Yes, Dacca University next to Calcutta University. Just see how human beings are becoming less than ferocious animals.

Room Conversation with Sannyasis -- January 22, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: He has written that "Bhaktivedanta Swami has very convincingly presented." He said that.

Satsvarūpa: Yes. That was the first one.

Hari-śauri: He was writing how you were following strictly in the paramparā.

Rāmeśvara: Some of these scholars write "The message radiates and shines brightly from every page." They're writing like that.

Satsvarūpa: And after describing the whole tradition, he said that the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is the Western branch. So that's a good testimony for our movement, not just the...

Hari-śauri: Not something concocted.

Rāmeśvara: Yes. That's very good.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Rāmeśvara: That's very important. He has given us historical...

Prabhupāda: Place.

Morning Walk -- January 24, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: Well, that is... If you are humanitarian, you are working for humanity, and why don't you teach them? Why do you not give the opportunity. What is the missionary? You have got so many missionaries. Why don't you feed them by giving them opportunity. They want. Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam (ISO 1). That is Vaiṣṇava. Engage everything, everyone, to good work. That is missionary. "We, you..." There is no such question, "we." We combining together, that is "we." We are all Kṛṣṇa's sons. Harer nāma, harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). Their whole philosophy is... Oh, it is very nice beach. All mango trees... Don't think in national terms. That is very heinous.

Satsvarūpa: There is one book on modern religions, and he discusses yourself, Your Divine Grace, on one page, and he says that your politics are naive. He said, "It is naive, too innocent to think that we can unite the world this way under God."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Satsvarūpa: "But it's very complex situation that has to be dealt with."

Prabhupāda: Then why you are trying United Nation, rascal? It may be complex, but we must try for it in the proper way. That is humanity. Why you are attempting United Nation? You know it is complex. But you do not know how to unite. This is my position. Unite on Kṛṣṇa center. Then you'll be successful. You are already trying for uniting, unity, but you do not know how to unite.

Room Conversation -- January 27, 1977, Puri:

Hari-śauri: They'll never be able to prove that...

Prabhupāda: Similarly, we have to say, "We have never tried to brainwash. We have done exactly according to śāstra, authority. Here is the evidence. We have not manufactured anything. The evidence is here." They must read all the books. They cannot reject. The Hare Kṛṣṇas... That is their charge. They'll find in every page Kṛṣṇa at least ten times, that "This is Hare Kṛṣṇa." All the books, there must be Kṛṣṇa's name: "This is Hare Kṛṣṇa." I think you should take defense, in that way.

Gurukṛpā: Should depend on Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: The same argument, "Yes my lord, just to teach you law."

Satsvarūpa: Today is the day that Ādi-keśava Swami is supposed to meet with this Jimmy Carter, the twenty-seventh. We'll get some report.

Prabhupāda: Apart from that, you defend your position like this.

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

Prabhupāda: And not yet finished?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: I have the draft, the manuscript here. It needs to be revised. And then we have to contact with the...

Prabhupāda: How many pages? How many pages it will be?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, it's going to be big. First... It's little too big for the first volume. I have a draft here. (gets out draft-groans as if it's heavy)

Prabhupāda: Oh! (laughter)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's going to be the first volume, but... We're going to put a lot of illustrations.

Prabhupāda: This is wanted.

Hari-śauri: It's like an encyclopedia. (laughing)

Prabhupāda: Three big scientists' working. (laughter)

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

Prabhupāda: Yes. When we bring, present scientific basis, it must be powerful. All right, let us...

Gargamuni: I think in America that we cannot say that the general public is against us, because the book sales are increasing. It is only when the book sales decrease...

Prabhupāda: No... So how many pages these are?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: We plan to print up to at least hundred pages each volume. But this is already about two hundred pages. So we are going to reduce it little bit so that we can print it in next volume.

Prabhupāda: Life From Life, we are already advertising in our BBT list.

Hari-śauri: Yes. It's already listed there.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: We plan to have our book about five hundred pages. And we should finish it by fall. We feel it's major work. The difficult part is that establish from science, comparative study... And we have finished that. Next stage is... It's not very difficult. It's about, they call, fossil, these bones... We're going to say something about it, but that's not much. Then conclusion...

Prabhupāda: So you are scientist, devotee, and kṣatriya. As kṣatriya you'll force: (laughing) "You must believe this, or I will kill you." (laughter) And as scientist, the convincing argument... And as devotee, Kṛṣṇa will help you. That's all Yuddhyasva mām anusmara (BG 8.7). That is Kṛṣṇa's word, "Fight! And remember Me." That's all. Combination kṣatriya, devotee, and scientist. Very good combination. Kṣatriya does not know beyond two things—victory or death. No third thing. That is kṣatriya. In a fighting, if I do not gain victory, then I must die. Two things. That is kṣatriya spirit. Whenever there is fight between the two kṣatriya, one must die. That is last word. No compromise. Jarāsandha and Bhīma, fighting for twenty-eight days, in the evening they were friends, but the fighting went on until one is dead. That is kṣatriya's fighting. Where is that spirit now? I think in Europe also there was the knights.

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

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This book is now very nice because there are many fine illustrations inside, more than there used to be. They've added. The Teachings of Lord Caitanya, I was thinking in particular. I have a copy of that, and there are many color illustrations inside now. Wonderful book, the summary of all of Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Like Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura's introduction gives a whole... It's like all of the pastimes of Lord Caitanya condensed into a few pages.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is there in the Teaching of Lord Caitanya.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, teachings of Lord Caitanya. This is... You remember that...

Prabhupāda: Near Bombay.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bombay, at Rāma temple you stayed at. This was taken by Brijbasi. They took this picture. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...rasāmṛta-sindhu like my other books, word to word. Then Bon Mahārāja began. So Bon Mahārāja could not do it. Only he published only a part of it with gorgeous sound, that, only that eleven hundred or one thousand copies printed forever.

Room Conversation -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: "Your Bible, you take, but we have got our Kṛṣṇa. Dharmāviruddha-kāma. Then why you are taking contraceptive, rascal? You're killing your children. That is very good? Unrestricted sex, and when she is pregnant you kill. Are you human being or rākṣasa demon?" Challenge them like this.

Hari-śauri: I saw a Chicago newspaper. I think Jayapatākā's mother must have brought it. And there was a page, and there was two big columns advertising abortion, so many different places you could go...

Prabhupāda: Everyone knows.

Hari-śauri: ...for quick and easy abortions.

Prabhupāda: Abortion, child-killing. They are civilized?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They're becoming very quickly rākṣasas.

Prabhupāda: And eating fetus. So you are rākṣasas, less then rākṣasas. And they're criticizing us.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's really a question of the demons and the devotees, Prabhupāda, this whole issue. It's polarizing both sides. It's nothing else but that. We are not doing anything wrong. Our devotees should not compromise.

Prabhupāda: No, there is no question of.

Room Conversation about BTG the Moon -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So who has done this? You are asking me?

Brahmānanda: Rāmeśvara Swami's in charge.

Hari-śauri: Another example's like that they put a recipe for halavā in the magazine, two-page spread in color.

Prabhupāda: So the Rāmeśvara should not be in charge. The Satsvarūpa should be in charge.

Satsvarūpa: I'm very eager to take it over again.

Prabhupāda: Immediately do.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That was going to be our proposal. We went through the magazine, Satsvarūpa Mahārāja, Brahmānanda Mahārāja and myself, on the underlying points, and as Hari-śauri was pointing out, just like in the old days sometimes they would give a recipe and it would end with the showing of how to offer obeisances for offering the prasāda. But here that is completely neglected, that part. It simply says, "At the end of cooking, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and it will make the food taste better." There's no understanding that the food is then supposed to be offered to Kṛṣṇa for Kṛṣṇa's pleasure. That whole idea is deleted. Everything is very much simplified with the idea of making it sell more.

Prabhupāda: No, this should be properly done immediately. Who is the editor?

Brahmānanda: They have appointed Śrī Govinda.

Prabhupāda: Who is Śrī Govinda?

Tripurāri: He was the temple president in Chicago for several years. Now he is in Los Angeles with his family, and he's living there, the chief editor.

Prabhupāda: He has no experience of this...

Room Conversation about BTG the Moon -- February 18, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: (laughing) But he admitted. (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The general idea is just like this page, "Chant and Be Happy." But there is practically no devotees shown. The whole idea is that if you show devotees, no one will be able to identify with the devotee. So they're showing persons in material life, and each one of them is giving his opinion of why he chants. "Chanting makes me calmer," "Chanting makes me more perceptive," "Chanting makes me more open-minded." So these are all... (break) ...the ultimate goal of chanting is to instill love of God, but that thing is never mentioned. (break)

Brahmānanda: Then he would approve. That was the test.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This article has changed very much from the original Back to Godhead article. This article here is issue number, I think, 14, many years ago, about the anchor in the water. It was very Kṛṣṇa conscious. Now it has been made...

Hari-śauri: No one's going to derive any Kṛṣṇa conscious meaning from that article. It's two whole pages, with picture and a little bit of writing.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's practically no Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Bhavānanda: In the whole magazine, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we feel that there's very little Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No Lord Caitanya's picture. Lord Caitanya and Kṛṣṇa's picture never appear in the whole magazine. They've taken it out.

Brahmānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, this is your magazine.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No picture.

Ādi-keśava: And even the pictures of the devotees, they're not recognizable as devotees.

Hari-śauri: They put a picture of the devotees this big at the bottom of the page.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Just like you asked that there be a picture of the temple... (break) ...you can't even recognize it... (break)

Prabhupāda: Curb down this.

Room Conversation with Adi-kesava Swami -- February 19, 1977, Mayapura:

Ādi-keśava: Right. Another thing is that this group, they are very organized.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They have got money.

Ādi-keśava: They have big money. I can show you in this book. We made one chart of their organization.

Hari-śauri: Page fifteen, seventeen.

Ādi-keśava: It shows that they have a big organization. See, they have all these committees. And there's a lot of money involved. There are a lot of people with big money. Starting at the top, they've made a national organization. I know all these men. I've spoken to all these people. They're big demons, but they have a lot of money, so they're fighting us in all the different courts. But so far they have not taken it beyond the lower courts. When we take it to the higher courts we always win. For instance, just before I left, we took two cases to the Federal Court. Immediately we won. In one day they gave us the case. My case is in a very low court. If it goes to a high-court we will win. So we are wanting to do this, but that means again that if we were to do it, only certain lawyers can enter into the Federal Court. Not just any lawyer can argue there, because you have to have some...

Prabhupāda: So you have to pay. What can be done?

Ādi-keśava: So if you're willing to do that, I will do it.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Ādi-keśava: I'm hoping that if we can organize some legal office for the society, then we will be able to do this more effectively.

Prabhupāda: What is this?

Ādi-keśava: This is that book we made for the conference, the ACLU conference in New York.

Room Conversations -- February 20, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Now we have got a sound position.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

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

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

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

Prabhupāda: And big heading?

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

Prabhupāda: So my mission is now successful.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: In 1965 I went there, and this is now recognized after ten years ago. Ten or twelve years, eh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Twelve years.

Prabhupāda: Loitering in the street. Nobody cared for me. Alone carrying the books. Now organize Bombay as our headquarter, New York as sub-office. Or headquarter in America.

Evening Darsana -- February 24, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Rādhā-vallabha: Same thing.

Hari-śauri: This is the same one, 9.1.

Rāmeśvara: The back cover is painted by Parīkṣit.

Rādhā-vallabha: This is the verse that you always quote, on the first page.

Prabhupāda:

sa vai manaḥ kṛṣṇa-padāravindayor
vacāṁsi vaikuṇṭha-guṇānuvarṇane
karau harer mandira-mārjanādiṣu
śrutiṁ cakārācyuta-sat-kathodaye
(SB 9.4.18)

Very good. So everything is there. So let me take prasādam. Then we can talk some more.

Rāmeśvara: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Thank you very much.

Evening Darsana -- February 24, 1977, Mayapura:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's cheaper.

Hṛdayānanda: He's printing twenty-four pages only. So Britain House...

Prabhupāda: No, it is very nicely done, very nice.

Hṛdayānanda: He's got a very low price.

Brahmānanda: He doesn't have the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam included.

Prabhupāda: That he should. That is not American or English. (laughter) Next issue, they can add. Where is Jayatīrtha Prabhu? So your South America, there is some trouble?

Pañcadraviḍa: No. No trouble. Just in Argentina. The trouble is finished now. We're out.

Prabhupāda: Trouble is finished?

Pañcadraviḍa: And we're out. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: That is called mora mera gale.(?) To call a man by ill names, the last word is "You die."

Evening Darsana -- February 24, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. So this is very fine, but there is no Bhāgavata?

Jayatīrtha: Śrīla Prabhupāda, it's only being published quarterly...

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Jayatīrtha: ...and we thought to publish one section every three months, people would lose the track of the thing. That's why we... The British economy is so bad that we had to give fairly inexpensive literature. So it's either a question of printing sixteen pages color and eight page Bhāgavata, or twenty-four pages color. We couldn't do twenty-four pages color and eight pages Bhāgavata. We thought that since it is quarterly...

Prabhupāda: That's all right. So you have printed one...

Jayatīrtha: One hundred thousand.

Prabhupāda: It is going on? Hm?

Jayatīrtha: Nicely.

Prabhupāda: So one hundred thousand you'll have to sell within three months.

Jayatīrtha: That's correct, yes. We're also selling many medium books.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Jayatīrtha: We're selling many Īśopaniṣads, and now we're printing also Nectar of Instruction and Perfection of Yoga for distribution.

Prabhupāda: Hm. You have already ordered for printing?

Jayatīrtha: We've already printed Īśopaniṣads, and just now they're preparing Nectar of Instruction and Perfection of Yoga for printing.

Prabhupāda: In London there are very big, big press.

Arrival of Devotees -- February 24, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. He saw me several times.

Rāmeśvara: Franklin and Marshall. He wrote, "I am impressed by Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami's presentation. His initial chapter is one of the best statements available on the importance of the guru in transmitting spiritual knowledge." They have already taken hundreds of orders for this book, and it will be... It's being printed right now. It's at the printer right now.

Prabhupāda: These two books are very important. (chuckles) Everything improved. (leafing pages)

Gargamuni: Keep showing more.

Rādhā-vallabha: More's coming on the truck.

Prabhupāda: Ramakrishna Mission, in the beginning they asked me, "You be in coat and pant." Otherwise nobody will hear me.

Gargamuni: Ramakrishna suggested Prabhupāda use coats and pants.

Prabhupāda: Their sannyāsīs, they dress in coat-tie.

Brahmānanda: Swami Nikhilananda.

Prabhupāda: Yes, you have seen.

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

Rāmeśvara: So that idea, if it's done expertly, can be used...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: ...to convince people.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Rāmeśvara: Now, sometimes in our mantra page in the beginning of the magazine we have photographs of people who are not living in our temples but who have been induced to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa—sometimes parents of devotees...

Prabhupāda: So these things can be discussed. Of course, I could not read. Those who have pointed out the defects, so let them come and then discuss.

Rāmeśvara: No, if there's some defect, it must be corrected.

Prabhupāda: So... No...

Rāmeśvara: But if it can be done without...

Prabhupāda: Whatever is there... They have pointed out some defect, so in the presence of them you discuss. Then I shall give my decision.

Evening Darsana -- February 26, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: (break)...two years ago. (break) ...eighty-one. (break) Oh, very nice. (Bengali) (break) Very nice. (break)...quired, but I remember this movement, the Godbrothers.(?) (Bengali) (break)

Hṛdayānanda: This is from Professor K. D. Vajpay, Tagore Professor and Head of the Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archeology, Director, Excavation and Exploration, Chairman, the Numismatic Body of India... (break) "The poetic excellence of the Bhāgavata has been recognized throughout the ages by eminent critics. It is gratifying to see that A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda has brought out an exquisite edition of this great work in several volumes. He has given the English rendering of the entire Purāṇa and has very ably interpreted its contents. The lucid style of his writing is discernable on every page of the volumes, which have been illustrated suitably. The printing and get-up of the volumes are superb indeed. Swami Prabhupāda has been known to me since his sojourn in Vṛndāvana when I was in charge of the Archaeological Museum, Mathurā. He has been propagating kṛṣṇa-bhakti movement in this country, in USA and Europe. It is to his credit that the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement has been made a worldwide discipline. He has been following the path of the ancient sages in serving the cause of Indian culture. The philosophy of humanity and all pervasive love of Indian culture has been effectively advanced by the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, of which Swami Prabhupāda is the very soul."

Devotees: Jaya Prabhupāda!

Hṛdayānanda: "Besides his commentary on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Swamiji has written on the Upaniṣads, the Gītā and on several other works of ancient bhakti lore. K. D. Vajpay."

Prabhupāda: So when I went to Vṛndāvana, he made friendship with me. The Mathurā Museum. He liked me very much. He remembered me.

Room Conversation 'GBC Resolutions' -- March 1, 1977, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: So that is not Bhagavad-gītā.

Jagadīśa: No. So then we have Kṛṣṇa book. Bhagavad-gītā is not used for the younger children. Bhagavad-gītā is used after they are nine or ten.

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa book also difficult, but there is some philosophy sometimes.

Rāmeśvara: Actually all the time. You have given philosophy on every page.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhagavān: This idea of Yogeśvara leaving... Actually Yogeśvara doesn't want to leave so much...

Rāmeśvara: Let us finish this point. This is very important for the whole BBT.

Bhagavān: Oh. I thought this was about the children's books.

Rāmeśvara: No, no. Yes, but it's a general point. It will tie in later.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, I'm just thinking that in about ten minutes you're going to have to go down. This can be discussed during the massage.

Prabhupāda: All right.

Room Conversation -- March 24, 1977, Bombay:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There may be some investigations now.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Against her son.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, we haven't seen it yet, but we've heard that there's a full-page feature story about our court case in Time magazine. Bali-mardana saw it.

Bali-mardana: One of the first pages, under "Religion."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the most important magazine in the world, Time magazine. What is the circulation?

Hṛdayānanda: In every country in the world.

Devotee: Did I get enough?

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.

Conversations -- April 19, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So they have purposefully avoided and given "His Holiness"?

Surabhīr Abhipālayantam: I all the time insisted on this, that it has to be written down...

Prabhupāda: Your photograph and your name and nothing else.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I mean, one point is this: When you hold a press conference you don't give them a fifty-page booklet and expect that they're going to read any of it. They're not going to read any of it. When you hold a press conference you give one sheet, and on that sheet everything is there in order of importance. Nobody ever gives this in a press conference. This is a book.

Prabhupāda: No, no...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They don't have the time to read. I mean, that's why they won't publish any of this. This is good, but it...

Prabhupāda: No, no, where is mentioned that Surabhī Swami was...? His name? How they have picked up your name and your photograph as everything?

Conversation: Vairagya, Salaries, and Political Etiquette -- April 28, 1977, Bombay:

ePrabhupāda: Lower stage. Vairāgya-vidyā-nija-bhakti-yogam (CC Madhya 6.254). That... There is one verse written by Sarvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya. What page I don't... Śikṣārtham. The bhakti-yoga, nija-bhakti-yoga... Bhakti-yoga means devotion to Kṛṣṇa. And that is vairāgya-vidyā, how to learn, renounce this world. Otherwise why Caitanya Mahāprabhu gave up His gṛhastha life? He's the same person. Why Rūpa Gosvāmī gave up their ministership? By their personal behavior they are showing this is not required. This is vairāgya-vidyā. So under the circumstances, those who have no vairāgya, they cannot live in the temple. They are taking advantage of the temple facilities for their sense enjoyment. Do you understand?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, I do.

Prabhupāda: So that should be stopped. So to live with wife, together as a gṛhastha, and enjoy gṛhastha life, at the same time to live in temple, this should be discouraged. Temple is meant for brahmacārī and sannyāsī, our, mainly, not for gṛhastha, because they have got inclination to enjoy. To live with wife means enjoyment. They'll have sex. This should be discouraged. But one who is absolutely required, they also cannot be allowed to live together. It is badly done(?). Suppose if one is gṛhastha, he is in devotional service, but he has no money to look after his wife. In that case the wife can live in the temple but separately with women, not together. Together living is very disturbing. It is not at all recommended. Give this point. At least, this should not be encouraged.

Morning Conversation -- April 30, 1977, Bombay:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Still looks like there's a lot space.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, that's okay because when it is shot it will be reduced even further. This is... You shouldn't go by the space. It's already bigger than a normal size page. But when it is... It'll be shot by the camera and reduced.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But relatively, it looks like there's a lot of space here.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. You can make it even more, but then it's going to become very small. It is all done proportionately. This is another sample. This is about thirty-five lines. One, two, three, four, five, six...

Prabhupāda: This is better composition than the former.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. I've improved it now. Seventeen, eighteen, twenty... This is thirty-six lines.

Prabhupāda: So this is good.

Morning Conversation -- April 30, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: So this is good.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: So we'll use this print, then.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. Of course, because they are paragraphs, I've also counted this. Otherwise, normally, there would be one line here. So this is better, eh? We're using better art paper, so now, with the reproduction, it will come out better. So this is your decision?

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. So I'm not moving the press because it is very cheap for us for six rupees a page, a plate of forty rupees. I just had one other question on the BBT. Sometimes these... Sometimes the temples don't pay the BBT, and their bills climb up to sixty thousand, seventy thousand rupees, and...

Prabhupāda: Don't pay?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. My... I have told the temples that "BBT will give you as many books as you want, but once you sell, the cost must go to BBT and the profit goes to the temple." But sometimes the temples don't pay. So...

Prabhupāda: Why?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, they take it very easy, like they're doing in America also. So I wanted to stop sending them books or at least threaten them that I won't send them books.

Prabhupāda: No, if you have... Why threatening? You settle up with temples authorities.

Evening Darsana -- May 9, 1977, Hrishikesh:

Prabhupāda: This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's... Every one of you become a guru, not a bluffer, but a guru, real guru. "How real guru? What can be done? I have no qualification." Yāre dekha tāre kaha kṛṣṇa-upadeśa: (CC Madhya 7.128) "You simply take the words of Kṛṣṇa and preach." Kṛṣṇa says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (BG 7.7). You simply repeat, "Sir, Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Being, God." What is the difficulty? Kṛṣṇa says, "There is no superior authority than Me." You simply say, "Kṛṣṇa is the supreme authority." That's all. Kṛṣṇa says, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī mām... You preach, "Come here in the temple. See Kṛṣṇa's Deity and always think of Him." Where is the difficulty? Now, these Europeans and Americans, what I have done to them? I have not given any bribe. I say, "Here is Kṛṣṇa. He is God." They accept it, worship Him. Man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ. Just if you cannot do anything, just offer one obeisances, namaskāra. Any child can do. They have done it, and they are going ahead. (Hindi) Kṛṣṇa-upadeśa is there, perfect upadeśa. (Hindi) As Kṛṣṇa says, you try to assimilate it and distribute it. There is no diffi... (Hindi) Kṛṣṇa says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nān... (Hindi) Eighty-four books, each book, four hundred pages, in ten years. And we are selling, collecting by selling books, five to six lakh of rupees daily in foreign countries. What is that qualification? We have tried to convince people that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Being. Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ (Bs. 5.1). (Hindi) "The Supreme Being is Kṛṣṇa." Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ. (Hindi) Sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ. Sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). (Hindi) Form. Formlessness. Formless is another feature, but real feature is Śyāmasundara. Yaṁ śyāmasundaram acintya-guṇa-svarūpam.

Short Dissertations -- May 24-25, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: I don't think photograph is required.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. Simply a little introduction about what the...

Prabhupāda: Introduction is there. Nothing. As it is.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just as it is. Okay. Little... It'll be a pamphlet for mass distribution. (pause) He did a lot of work, Śrīla Prabhupāda, twenty eight pages long, translation.

Prabhupāda: You can ask Dr. Premyadi to give a suitable heading.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. I'll let him go through it, and then he'll give a heading.

Prabhupāda: That's all. (break) (Hindi)

Guest (1): (Hindi) (Hindi conversation)

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Then why we have to make another tank?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They said that the... If we want water in that bathroom, then we have to have our own water hookup there.

Prabhupāda: Who said?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The electric men who came there, the men from the electricity department. Their point was that there's more parties using the water than just ourselves. So if we do not... There has to be some way of determining who's using what water supply.

Prabhupāda: Talk with the same man.

Conversation Pieces -- May 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Oh, Ninth.

Rāmeśvara: It will be here in about ten days. And the first volume of Tenth Canto, we have just received Chapter Four and Chapter Five, and the artists will be finished in two weeks.

Prabhupāda: Another thing, the Hindi photographic pages, if you send to Los Angeles, the books can be printed there.

Rāmeśvara: Printed in America?

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Rāmeśvara: What language? Hindi?

Prabhupāda: The photographic pages...

Kīrtanānanda: For the photographic pages in the Hindi, the printing of the photography...

Rāmeśvara: The color? That's possible. I can talk with Gopāla to see if it is less expensive.

Prabhupāda: Because Hindi composition is not possible there. So after composing here, if they send you the photography, finished copy, from that copy, whether you can print there?

Rāmeśvara: Oh, yes.

Prabhupāda: I think you can work out.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Print there.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Conversation Pieces -- May 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: I think you can work out.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Print there.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: In America. The art pages?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, everything.

Rāmeśvara: Everything? It will be more expensive because in India they print on cheap paper. If we use the same cheap paper, they'll still have to pay more because it has to be shipped back to India. But I can check.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (pause) So?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Kīrtana, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Hm? Kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ (CC Adi 17.31). Without condition, kīrtana should go on. And that is the panacea of all troubles. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura has given, jāy sakal bipod, bhaktivinod bole, jakhon o-nām gāi. This is a fact. If you always continue kīrtana, there is no danger. You are above all danger. Our Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja knows very well. He has no danger. He's sticking to that New Vrindaban program, improving, very good example. They eat first-class, nutritious food, and in Philadelphia also.

Conversation Pieces -- May 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: At least they are under... Two million people know what is Kṛṣṇa.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You can't read that book and not know Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If you read that book, you have to know something about Kṛṣṇa. Every page is about Kṛṣṇa, every word. One professor complained that the trouble with your books is that everywhere you talk about Kṛṣṇa. Even when Kṛṣṇa's name isn't there, you put it there. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa phobia. And that is my idea. Let there be repeatedly the sounding, "Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa." Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa he. They want to avoid it, and I don't allow.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That reporter in Bombay complained against you that you had a one-track mind.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They say, "Why you are stressing so much on Kṛṣṇa?" And that is the only business.

Conversation Pieces -- May 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And the majority decision should be always accepted.

Rāmeśvara: The last section is called "The Term of the Trust." "This trust shall be irrevocable. In the advent of an inadvertent disqualification of this trust under the laws as they may exist from time to time, which may require a dissolution of the trust, the entire trust holdings shall in that event be distributed to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness." Then, following that, there's a page which says, "In witness whereof, we have executed this trust on this day," and it has a place for your signature as Founder-Ācārya of ISKCON, then another signature of Your Divine Grace as the chairman of the Bureau of ISKCON, and then a signature of Girirāja as a member of the Bureau of ISKCON. Then, on the last page, the acceptance of the trust. And it says, "The trustees hereby accept this trust and the obligations imposed thereby and undertake to hold, manage and administer the trust in accordance with the terms of this agreement." And it has a place for the three signatures of the three trustees.

Prabhupāda: I think it is all right. It is all right. Bring this typed. Make everything. That's all right.

Rāmeśvara: This will make it impossible for anyone to cheat.

Prabhupāda: Yes, as far as I can see, finished. Yes. Jaya.

GBC Meets with Srila Prabhupada -- May 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: This paper was started, one page, this. Now it has developed.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Now it's the biggest paper in this area, Hindi paper, Amara Jana(?). In Agra, Vṛndāvana, Mathurā. They have written about us several times. Even when the road was changed to Bhaktivedanta Swami Marg, we had a press conference—I was there—and they reproduced it that Chattikara Road name had been changed to Bhaktivedanta Swami Marg.

Prabhupāda: What is that photograph?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They have one of your photographs.

Prabhupāda: Which one?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: On the right, walking on the beach, I think.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Transcendental autocrat."

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Lord Caitanya's picture is also there.

Bhakti-caru: (reads in Hindi about "Fifth Avenue Hare Kṛṣṇa Saṅkīrtana")

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Bali-mardana's picture is there. He was leading that kīrtana party then.

Bhakti-caru: Was it written by the same person who wrote this book?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, no, no. No.

Bhakti-caru: I mean, this Caitanya Mahāprabhu Śikṣāmṛta.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No.

Bhakti-caru: Somebody else.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah.

Bhakti-caru: Yet that style of writing is quite alike. (break)

Prabhupāda: When I go to Los Angeles I am in Vaikuṇṭha. When I am got to New York I am in Vaikuṇṭha. Wherever we have got temple, that is Vaikuṇṭha. So why shall I have objection? So do your duty nicely and see what Kṛṣṇa desires. Let it be fulfilled. But you do your duty. It is your duty to pray to Kṛṣṇa as affectionate children, and let Kṛṣṇa decide. And I have no objection, either. So what is the next?

Conversations -- May 31, 1977, Vrndavana:

rabhupāda: (Bengali) (break) Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) Begin. If we make Hindi plate, Los Angeles, and send it to...

Rāmeśvara: We could do it in Los Angeles, but it would be more costly. Gopāla says that the main concern with the Hindi books is keeping the cost as low as possible so it can be sold in India.

Prabhupāda: No, plate-making, we have got all machine, so it will be cheaper.

Rāmeśvara: The price that he is getting in India is very cheap. He says that he can do twenty pages a day, composing. He's got one place in Vṛndāvana that he uses and another place in Delhi. So if each place is doing one different book, two books can be done simultaneously at twenty pages every day.

Prabhupāda: Twenty pages and cost?

Rāmeśvara: It costs about a dollar a page.

Prabhupāda: Where? In...?

Rāmeśvara: In India. To compose.

Prabhupāda: And there?

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

Prabhupāda: "There was..."?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: "There was a blank. There was a void." Everything was blank. And the way he started, the foreword was given by a scientist called Crick, Watson and Crick. Crick is in Cambridge, and Watson is in Harvard. So these two men were the men who discovered the structure of the DNA molecule that they thought that may be life. And they got Nobel Prize for this. And Crick was writing in the first page, saying that "This is the way we have understood about life." But "Everything was started like that, from blank and a blank, blank. And somehow all these molecules get together and then it became Johnny later on." (laughter) And we can make a nice story out of it.

Prabhupāda: No.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They make such a story that sometime they make the little children believe and thought that it might be the fact.

Prabhupāda: Fairy tales.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, so we titled, called, Chemical Evolution-A Molecular Fairy Tale.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.

Room Conversation about Mayapura Attack Talk with Vrindavan De -- July 8, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Very nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Light of the Bhāgavata." It's a lecture by you. These are original illustrations.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, do you see what this says, Śrīla Prabhupāda, on this past page? It says... This is the verse. "The small rivulets, which were almost dried up during the months of May and June, now begin to overflow, transgressing the banks of the river, just as the upstarts addicted to uncontrolled sense enjoyment overflow the limits of expenditure all of a sudden." And then they show a picture describing it. Sense enjoyment. They're going verse by verse and drawing original illustrations to depict. Vedic recipe page: rasagullās. It says, "Agni-hotra on Lord Nṛsiṁha-deva's Appearance Day."

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Sanskrit is given. It's very nice. "Spiritual Psychology: Going Beyond the Sex Impulse."

Prabhupāda: They printed in their own press.

Room Conversation -- July 27-28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It advertises all your books. Plus, Śrīla Prabhupāda, I had signed a contract with the biggest mail-order house in India, called Mail Order Sales. And this week their full-page advertisement on the Bhagavad-gītā is reaching 25,000 households. Their ad wasn't ready, but they are sending it to me in few days. It's a very beautiful ad. They have a monthly newspaper called Mail Order News, and that they've given a whole page. But they pay for it. We give them a straight commission on sales. Just like in America you have Book of the Month Club and selling books by mail. This is very big. Plus we are now doing the Bhaktivedanta Encyclopedia of Vedic Knowledge. We are preparing a brochure just like this. This is a Brittanica Encyclopedia advertisement. So we're going to have your nineteen or twenty Bhāgavatams here. The artists are working on it and this is going to be sent to about thirty thousand households. These are just for households, not libraries or anyone, just as selling to businessmen and executives.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Who's going to do this?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Mail Order Sales. It's a company that specializes in mail orders. This will be very good.

Prabhupāda: Everything you do, it is... Now, utilize. So one book has come only.

Room Conversation -- July 27-28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: You can.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Can I do it?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I have it all ready. So all I have to do is just change the front page, The Scientific Basis of Bhakti...

Prabhupāda: You consult among you. So I want to see simply distribution of books in any language. That I want.

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.

Room Conversation -- August 10, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Our men should not talk with them. That's all right. And then what does he say further?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Then he says, "By September, Śani (Saturn) will enter the eighth house, and it could create further health troubles." September to October does not...

Prabhupāda: But this will not counteract?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, well... See, what I read you was on page six. Now I'm going back to page five. In other words, after saying all of these things about the difficulties, then he said, "Now get a blue sapphire, and that shall counteract what I've already told you before." But you asked me after, so all I can tell you after is what it says here. It doesn't say what will happen after if you wear your blue sapphire. It only says what would happen ordinarily. I was explaining, though, that... When I saw Gurukṛpā Mahārāja, I said, "Gurukṛpā Mahārāja..." Because he was telling me how hard it was in Tokyo. He wasn't eating. Everything was bad. I said, "But you look very strong. How is that?" He said, "One week in Hawaii." That's how. He said, "Simply one week in Hawaii." It is so healthful. The air, the water, the foodstuffs, the flowers... He said just breathing the flowers you can get strong.

Prabhupāda: So if I feel little strength, I shall go to Hawaii.

Room Conversation -- October 6, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Hm. It is very good.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And now we are doing this for the encyclopedia and for the Hindi books. Like our advertisement came in the third page of the Illustrated Weekly of India. It came in Hindustan Times of that Sunday. Plus, we are sending a mail order campaign directly to people's houses. And thousand Gītās in two months is very, very good, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Hari-śauri: It's just the beginning.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Would you like to see those advertisements? Okay. You saw it earlier. It's the same advertisement in different magazines, and this company is paying for it.

Prabhupāda: Not at our expense.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No. I just give them a little higher commission, but we still make lot of money, plus it is giving us so much publicity. So many bookstores are seeing this advertisement and asking us to give them books.

Prabhupāda: Hm. That's nice.

Room Conversation -- October 14, 1977, Vrndavana:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think we'll give you another report later on. It's successful. That's a fact. Only these are suggestions how it can be improved. We'll speak with Svarūpa Dāmodara about it. (break) ...from the devotees in France, Bhagavān's zone. In fact, it's a four-page telegram. Should I read it? It says, "Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda, please accept our most humble obeisances at your lotus feet. Knowing how dear your book distribution is to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, the devotees in France would like to humbly offer you the results of our week-long marathon saṅkīrtana, hoping in some way to please you." Śrīla Prabhupāda? The devotees there, they went out on book distribution for twelve hours every day. All the devotees. They went out every day for seven days in a row, for twelve hours each day. And here is the results of their distribution. This is only for this one temple in France. It says, "We have distributed 25,061 hard-cover Bhagavad-gītās in one week." Twenty-five thousand, Śrīla Prabhupāda. We usually print of a Bhāgavatam 20,000 for the whole society. They distributed 25,000 Gītās in one week in French, Bhagavad-gītās in French. He says, "...to the conditioned souls of this country in seven days. We hope that these results are the biggest in the history of your movement and that they will give you some solace. Our top distributor were Bhakta Richard..." (laughter) Somebody who isn't initiated yet. "...who distributed 1,504 big books in one week." Every day he distributed over two hundred hard-cover books. That's pretty good. (laughter) That means he did about say 240 in twelve hours. He distributed about one book every three minutes for twelve hours in a row, Śrīla Prabhupāda, every day. "Jagad-vaśī dāsa, who distributed 1,125 big books; Ariṣṭa-nāśana dāsa, 864 books; Veśa-kīrti dāsa, 851 big books; Akhileśvara dāsa 835 big books; Kṛpā-siddha dāsa, 760 big books." Then they say, "Thank you for allowing us to assist you in preaching this message of Lord Caitanya in the Western countries. All glories to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Your humble servants, the devotees in France." Pretty big distribution. Bhagavān estimates that they collected over sixty thousand dollars in one week. It's amazing. Seems like Kṛṣṇa is giving unlimited facilities to spread His glories, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We do not want liberation. We want to serve the purpose of the Gosvāmīs, in association with pure devotees. To stop birth and death is not our purpose. Tāṅdera caraṇa-sebi-bhakta-sane bās, janame janame hoy ei abhilāṣ.

Room Conversation -- October 24, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: It will be good for propaganda.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Kṛṣṇa-aṣṭamī. Lord Kṛṣṇa's celebration." Full center page. "A voyage of discovery." "A Christian tribute to Kṛṣṇa consciousness." There's a picture of Your Divine Grace here. It's an article reprinted from Back to Godhead. It says, "All material in this special feature taken from Back to Godhead, the official magazine of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness." This is all... It seems like what they have done... The same thing they did in Fiji, they have done there in South Africa. Because many of the articles... This is a whole..., also all about our society. All of these pages. "Hare Kṛṣṇa puzzle is unraveled." "Jagannātha car festival is one of the oldest in history." Then it tells about the program, how to get to the farm. Then he sent photographs. It's a very beautiful temple, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I don't know if you can see it. This is the temple. You see the white structure here? You can see it has arched domes? Not domes but arches.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Can you see it? Look at the pandal they had.

Prabhupāda: They have got a new barrack... Festival.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Festivity. Here's Tulasī dāsa doing the fire yajña. Should I read you his letter now?

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?

Room Conversation -- October 27, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: You can show our South African success.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very grand opening is being planned for Bombay, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: So many.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: If the President of India comes, then it will get front-page coverage.

Prabhupāda: Who is the President?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Who is the President now?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Ansen Jiwar(?) Reddy. He's more religious than the previous one.

Prabhupāda: Ansen(?) Reddy, he was Home Minister? No.

Room Conversation -- October 28, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: The account number?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He didn't have the account number, but he has the name of the account and the ledger page and the bank and the address of the bank, which I think is sufficient.

Vrindavan De: That is enough, I think.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Actually, even without the account number, if you have the name of the account it sufficient.

Vrindavan De: Name, "Number 11," that's enough for account.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So, then I've also informed them in the letter that the proprietor of the company—and I mentioned your name—that we have given you the counterfoil identity slips and also that we have given you the receipt for the safe custody. These certificates were kept in safe custody, so we're giving you the receipt, because it says that in order for these... Of course the bank can do everything, but you can deliver these identity slips and the safe custody receipt to the bank.

Vrindavan De: To my banker?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, not to your banker. To Prabhupāda's bank, the Bank of Baroda. Then I also mentioned that I am enclosing a copy of the power of attorney, that "Prabhupāda has been ill so he has difficulty in signing and he has duly empowered the following two persons." And that power of attorney will also be sent to them. So I'm also going to write a letter to Chandra requesting him to give Vrindavan help, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: So he will carry all these letters.

Room Conversation -- October 29, 1977, Vrndavana:

essence of the entire...

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Hanumān-prasāda: Dr. Sharma suggested that we name introduction as Antar-Darśana, because it is the essence of the entire commentary. We have summarized the entire thing into thirty pages. So I thought we can name it...

Prabhupāda: Antar-Darśana?

Hanumān-prasāda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Good. Read it.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Read it.

Hanumān-prasāda: (reads Hindi book or article and discusses with Prabhupāda in Hindi) (break)

Prabhupāda: As it is.

Prabhupada Vigil -- November 1, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Don't bother to come here, then.

Brahmānanda: But they treated you with much respect, though. They said that they had wanted Your Divine Grace to come because you are also a member of their steering committee. (indistinct) They also had a proposal to produce a series of different books, small books, pamphlets, forty, fifty pages, comprising selections from the Bhagavad-gītā. And these would be for specific types of persons. The books would be Bhagavad-gītā for students, Bhagavad-gītā for businessmen, Bhagavad-gītā for scientists, like that. So they want us to produce the book for the scientists, taking various quotes from Bhagavad-gītā with a short explanation of the verse. So I said one problem is that all the different groups who are assembled here will all have different interpretations of the verses. What about this? And they said, "No, no, we shouldn't interpret." I said, "Well, one reason that the young people are not taking up this Bhagavad-gītā is because they see that everyone is giving a different interpretation. Nobody is presenting it as it is, so they're confused." I was in Kashmir, I was speaking with some young boys. They were telling me they're confused by religion. They don't respect the paṇḍitas in the temples—they're all simply after money. They have no respect for religion, Hindu religion. So I mentioned this to all of them. They are all Māyāvādīs. And they argued with me. I presented arguments. They would not accept it.

Prabhupāda: They want to avoid criticism.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: He wrote all books in English.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And who can understand those books?

Brahmānanda: You remember I brought to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that book I was studying in college when I first came to you. I brought one of Aurobindo's books, Message of Gītā. And you asked me to open the book and read one page. So I read the entire page out loud to you. Then you asked me to close the book. Then you said, "Now repeat what you have just read." And I couldn't.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You once described Aurobindo's writing, Śrīla Prabhupāda, giving the example of your childhood friend from school. He had to take the examination. So because he... Instead of writing normally, he made up so many big words, and the professors thought, "Oh, he's very intelligent."

Prabhupāda: (speaks some made-up words)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Did you hear that, what Prabhupāda just said, Jayādvaita?

Jayādvaita: No.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You didn't follow the Sanskrit?

Jayādvaita: I couldn't hear.

Brahmānanda: It's very important. If you can't understand it, it means it's important. (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They make up a language. Aurobindo has done like that. His writings are simply so many long words that no one can understand. Therefore they think, "Oh, he's very intelligent. Important philosophy." Your books are so simple and nice, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that even little children take pleasure in hearing Kṛṣṇa book and find no difficulty in understanding. And the biggest scholars, they are also praising. These are your books. I found that Śrīmān Nārāyaṇa was not so envious.

Prabhupāda: No.

Room Conversation -- November 13-14, 1977, Vrndavana:

Bon Mahārāja: Tennessee. And the pictures are printed separately, then the pictures are sent to the publisher in pages.

Bon Mahārāja: Last time they told me in New York... Your press was in New York, and they were shifting it to Los Angeles. About two hundred brahmacārīs were working there and they told me.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Now it's in Los Angeles.

Bon Mahārāja: Los Angeles. Well, it is all Mahāprabhu's will, and Prabhupāda is our...

Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Los Angeles is godown... (Bengali) Howrah Station. (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I have a picture of it, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I have a picture of that BBT godown.

Prabhupāda: Show him.

Devotee: It's about two blocks long and about one block high.

Bon Mahārāja: Everything is done in a very big way.

Devotee: 'Cause Prabhupāda's a big (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: (Bengali) (Bengali conversation with Bon Mahārāja)

Page Title:Pages (Conversations)
Compiler:Mayapur
Created:27 of Oct, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=185, Let=0
No. of Quotes:185