Prabhupāda: This Bhagavad-gītā is read by the human society not only in India, but outside India, since a very long, long time. But unfortunately, as everything is deteriorated by the contact of material contamination, so people began to interpret Bhagavad-gītā in different ways. Therefore about five hundred years ago, Lord Caitanya appeared, and he started the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement under His personal guidance in Bengal. His birthplace is known as Navadvīpa. Now, He ordered every Indian to spread this message of Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the world, in every village, every town. That was His order. But unfortunately, since India was under foreign subjugation, they could not spread, or they lost their own independence of culture. But everyone expected after declaration of independence by India, such things should come to the outside world.
Foreign (Conversations)
Expressions researched:
"foreign"
Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No. Hinduism practically we do not recognize because this word "Hinduism" is not mentioned in any Vedic literature. It is a foreign term. The Muhammadans, they called the inhabitants of India as "Hindus." From that word, it is has come to "Hinduism." Otherwise, we don't find that word in any Vedic literature. "Hinduism" is a foreign term, it is not a Vedic term.
Reporter: Yes. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness, its Vedic literature, they have some of the same books or also holy books for what we call Hindu religions, aren't they?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just try to understand, the inhabitants of India were called by the Muhammadans from Persia and other places, "Hindus." "Hindus" means the resident on the other side of the River Indus. You have heard the name of River Indus. So they cannot pronounce it Indus, they say "Hindus." From "Hindus," it has become "Hindu." So actually the residents of India were called "Hindus." And generally, at least in, say, three thousand years ago, all the inhabitants of India were strictly followers of Vedic principles.
Prabhupāda: We ask people... We don't say that "You give up your, this religion. You come to us." But at least you follow your own principles. And... Just like a student. Sometimes in India it happens that although they have passed M.A. examination in Indian university, they come to foreign university to study more. So why does he come? To get more enlightenment. Similarly any religious scripture you may follow, but if you get more enlightenment here in this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, why should you not accept it if you are serious about God? Why should you say, "Oh, I am Christian. I am Jew. I cannot attend your meeting." Why should you say, "Oh, I cannot allow you to speak in my church." If I am speaking about God, what objection you have got?
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Mantra means the transcendental sound. You see. Just like oṁkāra.
Allen Ginsberg: So you think the very nature of the sound... Okay, but now, oṁ is an absolutely natural sound from the throat to the mouth. And yet even oṁ, natural as it is, sounds foreign.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore it is a praṇāma. It is accepted.
Allen Ginsberg: That also sounds foreign here. It's hard to get people to say auṁ even. 'Cause I tried in Chicago with auṁ and with Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: But there is no other alternative.
Allen Ginsberg: Well, we haven't been able to think of one yet, I'll tell you that.
Prabhupāda: That is his misfortune if they...
1970 Conversations and Morning Walks
Haṁsadūta: "Patel Pola(?) of Chicago had observed that he was a construction worker doing a śūdra's work. It would not become necessary to allot the three lower castes to the foreign converts according to their professions. This will not be an easy task. Talking of profession reminds me of a still graver problem—that of the occupation or profession of the white sādhus. If I am not mistaken, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement would turn out legions of new white sādhus in the West whose only aim in life would be to propitiate their Lord Kṛṣṇa. They would be steeped in the bhakti-rasa and would not soil their hands with doing any work for such a mundane thing as earning a living."
Prabhupāda: They are not doing anything. Actually they are not doing anything. They are preaching only.
Prabhupāda: No, Indian, one gentleman from Agra. So his son immediately sent me, sponsoring. But still, the government objected that "We cannot allow you to go there because you are sponsored by an individual person." But I wanted to see chief controller of, what is called, foreign exchange, Mr. Rao. So he kindly accepted. "Yes, Swamiji, you can go." He fought. (?)
Guest (2): That time it was very difficult. Passport I have got already.
Prabhupāda: Passport, visa.
Guest (2): Now, the difficulty is about visa only. Passport I have secured. He's cleared it for three years. Now it is easy to get a passport. I do possess. After getting the passport I wrote and corresponded with...
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prof. Kotovsky: Canakya. Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He was a great politician, brāhmaṇa. And under whose name in New Delhi all the foreign embassies, they are flocked together. Yes. It is called Canakya Purī.
Prof. Kotovsky: Hm hm. Canakya Purī, yes, I know.
Prabhupāda: So this Canakya Paṇḍita was a great politician and brāhmaṇa. And as brāhmaṇa, he was vastly learned. He has got some moral instruction. They're very valuable, still going on. In India school children are taught. So this Canakya Paṇḍita, although he was prime minister, he maintained his brahminical spirit. He was not accepting any salary, yes, because for brāhmaṇas to accept salary, it is understood that he becomes a dog. That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata. He can advise, but he cannot accept. So he was living in a cottage, but he was prime minister. So this brahminical culture, the brahminical brain, is the standard of Vedic civilization. Just like Manu-smṛti. Manu-smṛti... You do not know.
Prabhupāda: Many millions of Vaiṣṇavas and... Just like this gentleman. He is a commander of the Air, India Air Lines. So he's not my disciple, but he's a Vaiṣṇava, Kṛṣṇa conscious. Similarly, in India millions and trillions there are, Kṛṣṇa conscious persons. And practically there is not a single... Even there are Mohammedan Kṛṣṇa conscious. In Allahabad University there is a Mohammedan professor. He's a great devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa. So this is natural. It is said in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta that Kṛṣṇa consciousness is everywhere, in everyone's heart. It has to be awakened only by this process. That's all. It is there in your heart also. It is not that it is foreign to you. It is not that. Everyone's heart, there is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. By this process we have to awaken that. Śravaṇādi śuddha citte karaye udaya. Udaya. You know this word udaya. Just like sun rises. It is not that sun all of a sudden comes from somewhere. It is there, but it rises in the morning. Similarly, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness is everywhere, but some way or other, it is now covere
Prabhupāda: So give one man from each center. It doesn't require that he is very advanced. Advancement will be done by training, by practical application in life. If you send from each center one man to India... If you can send more, that's all right. But at least one man. In India we have got many things to do. Because the business in India is important in this respect, that partly due to their subjugation by foreigners, their original culture has been killed. Just like in India, they did not know drinking tea, drinking wine, meat-eating, illicit sex. They did not know. Even fifty, a hundred years before, they did not know. These Britishers, in order to control them, very silently introduced all these things. I know in our childhood, this drinking of tea was unknown to any family. Meat-eating, there was no question. Just like in my life, I do not know what is meat-eating, do not know womanizing(?) or illicit sex life, because we are trained in that way. So due to foreign domination, they were killed; and after independence, these rascal leaders, they are killing it: "What is the wrong in meat-eating? What is the wrong in drinking?" They are canvassing: "Eat chickens, eat eggs,." This is going on.
Dr. Weir: That merely means, you might say, if you're going to be very thorough and precise, that the, it could be explained in greater detail, but it's easier to do it with a master. But you can go to a foreign language by reading a book, although it's much easier if you're...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like here is the medicine, diabetic. So I have accepted this medicine through a bona fide doctor. Although it is meant for diabetes, I have not accepted this medicine, neither it is advised that this medicine should be accepted by a bona fide physician. So I cannot see properly whether it is good for me. But when the physician, qualified physician, says, "Yes, it is bona fide. You can use it in this way." That is right.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Reporter: ...is only by Hindu...
Prabhupāda: No, no. Hinduism is a foreign word, given by the Muslim. We don't find any word "Hindu" in the Vedic literature. Why do you call Hinduism? We are not preaching Hinduism. We are preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Reporter: By such a social system, social...
Prabhupāda: That is, that you satisfy (indistinct). But this is a broad Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This is broader than any system, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We are not preaching. We don't go to preach that "Oh, we are preaching Hinduism." But because those who are accepting this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, mostly they are Hindus, then you can call it like Hinduism. But this is not Hinduism.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: So many Indian swamis, they requested me to dress myself with coat-pants. I never agreed. You see all my pictures. They are all foreign pictures. So I never (indistinct) this dress also. Why shall I take to coat-pant? What is use? Now my students, they are giving up coat-pant. And girls, they are taking to saris. There is now good demand for saris in Europe and America.
Bhūrijana: They were even telling me that here, that I should wear like a diplomat's clothes instead of dhotīs. They don't... They were ashamed.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. So we shall go now?
Śyāmasundara: It's seven-thirty. (end)
Śyāmasundara: Why not Bali-mardana tour sometimes to check on the foreign literatures, French, German, see how they are going on and inspect the foreign literature field.
Devotee: (indistinct) planning to take speaking engagements in the colleges.
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Devotees: (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: So we shall increase. You can increase the number. So according to vacant position, how many, it may be fifteen?
Devotee: Thirteen.
Prabhupāda: Why not fifteen, make fifteen?
Prabhupāda: That's all right, that's all right. Bali-mardana will be stagnant.
Śyāmasundara: He can oversee some foreign...
Prabhupāda: Yes, he has this book department. Book department and... They may move according to convenience, Bali-mardana and Karandhara. He has got also very responsibility, with this department, that department. He has to purchase small houses. So big brain (indistinct). So similarly, you also think on the books. Everyone take big responsibility. Then we have to serve this mission. The people are foolish, they have forgotten God. We are delivering them. Best service. And without God, it is all useless, zero, all this civilization. Zero. Whatever they are making advancement, it is all zero. And nonsense. But actually it is. Now the priestly order supporting homosex. I was surprised. They are going to pass resolution for getting married between man to man. The human society has come down to such a degraded position. It is astonishing. When I heard from Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja there is a big conference for passing this resolution. In India still, if there somebody hears about homosex (makes sound of breathing out). Homosex is there but nobody will support publicly. (indistinct) People are going down and this is the subject matter for priestly order? It may be subject matter for the legislator, priestly order, they are discussing for one week. Just imagine. Phalena paricīyate, one has to study by the result. Not that superficially you show that "We are very much advanced."
Prabhupāda: They do not know the (indistinct).
Mrs. Keating: Do you have many Indian followers? Many Indian followers as well as foreign?
Prabhupāda: Yes. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness, so far Indians are concerned, everyone accepts Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Mrs. Keating: May I ask the significance of the markings?
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is a sign that we are Vaiṣṇava, devotee of Kṛṣṇa.
Ambassador: You all have that.
Mrs. Keating: And the bag, is that, is that...
Prabhupāda: That is our chanting.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Śrīdhara Mahārāja: Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna. So, our Swami Mahārāja has done a miracle! (Laughingly) He has done a miracle. What Bhaktivinoda conceived and (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati) Prabhupada tried according to his conception to translate into action we find that through Swami Mahārāja in his last days these revelations have been fulfilled. We are happy, we are glad, we are proud of Swami Mahārāja, and of you all too. When any person comes to take diksa and stay at the Math, we say that after wandering for a long time in a foreign land he is again coming back to his home. Home means homeward, back to God "back to home, back to Godhead." Back to Godhead means back to home, sweet, sweet home. Our home and life is there and nowhere else. So we may be quite free there of any misgivings or misconduct with such bold and clear faith we can go on, onward and onward. Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna. Vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca....
Prabhupāda: Jaya oṁ viṣṇupāda paramahaṁsa parivrājakācārya....So we are thinking we are very much fortunate to hear His Divine Grace Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Paramahaṁsa Parivrājakācārya Bhakti Raksaka Śrīdhara Mahārāja. He is, by age and experience, in both ways he is senior to me. I am also always fortunate to have his association for a very long timeperhaps since nineteen hundred and thirty or something like that. At that time, he did not accept sannyāsa; he just left home, vanaprastha. In his white dress he went to Allahabad. (Aside, to Śrīdhara Mahārāja:) Mahārāja, I think you remember this incident when you went to Allahabad.
Prabhupāda: Mahajati Sadhana.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, Mahajati Sadhana.
Prabhupāda: That is in Central Calcutta.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: There are many foreign scholars from, they're mostly from Japan, and many...
Prabhupāda: I don't find. I do not know much about it.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: When I was in Calcutta, I used to go there quite regularly. Because I was studying German. They have got German classes better in that institute.
Prabhupāda: This is the food for the fish?
Karandhara: Yes, bait.
Prabhupāda: Horse dung?
Śrutakīrti: Messages of the Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa are nondifferent from Him. Whenever, therefore, offenseless hearing and glorification of God are undertaken, it is to be understood that Lord Kṛṣṇa is present there in the form of transcendental sound, which is as powerful as the Lord personally. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, in His Śikṣāṣṭaka, declares clearly that the holy name of the Lord has all the potencies of the Lord and that He has endowed His innumerable names with the same potency. There is no rigid fixture of time, and anyone can chant the holy name with attention and reverence at his convenience. The Lord is so kind to us that He can be present before us personally in the form of transcendental sound, but unfortunately we have no taste for hearing and glorifying the Lord's name and activities. We have already discussed developing a taste for hearing and chanting the holy sound. It is done through the medium of service to the pure devotee of the Lord.
The Lord is reciprocally respondent to His devotees. When He sees that a devotee is completely sincere in getting admittance to the transcendental service of the Lord and has thus become eager to hear about Him, the Lord acts from within the devotee in such a way that the devotee may easily go back to Him. The Lord is more anxious to take us back into His kingdom than we can desire. Most of us do not desire at all to go back to Godhead. Only a very few men want to go back to Godhead. But anyone who desires to go back to Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa helps in all respects.
One cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless one is perfectly cleared of all sins. The material sins are products of our desires to lord it over material nature. It is very difficult to get rid of such desires. Women and wealth are very difficult problems for the devotee making progress on the path back to Godhead. Many stalwarts in the devotional line fell victim to these allurements and thus retreated from the path of liberation. But when one is helped by the Lord Himself, the whole process becomes as easy as anything by the divine grace of the Lord.
To become restless in the contact of women and wealth is not an astonishment, because every living being is associated with such things from remote time, practically immemorial, and it takes time to recover from this foreign nature. But if one is engaged in hearing the glories of the Lord, gradually he realizes his real position. By the grace of God such a devotee gets sufficient strength to defend himself from the state of disturbances, and gradually all disturbing elements are eliminated from his mind.
Prabhupāda: The prescribed methods are there. We have to adopt it. Without adopting the prescribed method, nobody can advance. But in this age the prescribed method is very simple. Simply to hear the holy name of the Lord.
Prabhupāda: Now just like Sir Padampat Singhania of Kanpur, he promised that, "You just construct a nice temple in New York." He wanted to give the money. The government will not allow.
Ambassador: Oh, foreign exchange.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Not allow. I made correspondence with the government. The last reply was that "You can raise fund locally, but you cannot take money from here." Now who will pay...? Of course, these boys are paying me. We are getting... Now recently, one boy, you know his name, George Harrison. He's a very famous singer.
Ambassador: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So he has purchased for me one house, fifty-five lakhs worth. But what, no Indian could help me. At two hundred and twenty thousand pounds. So it is equivalent to fifty-five lakhs.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Haṁsadūta: Possessed.
Dr. Hauser: Oh yes. But that's very often a symptom of a, of a psychosis that they feel that they are persecuted by, by foreign powers or by...
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Foreign powers, yes. So this is called ghostly haunted. So our material conception of life, this is also ghostly haunted, madness. "I am Christian. I am Hindu. I am Muslim. I am Englishman. I am German." These are all conception of ghostly haunted. Because spirit soul is pure. In the Vedic language it is said: asaṅgo 'yaṁ puruṣaḥ. The spirit soul has no connection with such designations. Just like in dream we see so many things. But it has nothing to do with me. So this is night dream. At night, we forget all these things about the day dream. "I am this, I am that. I am this family-member. I am his father. I am his husband." And so on, so on. At night, when dream, are in a different situation. And we forget everything. And again, in daytime, we forget everything of the night dream. We come another dream. So this is also dream. That is also dream.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Everyone. Your Hindus also.
Dr. Patel: We have degenerated because we have been ruled by foreigners for so many years. But these fellows, being so free in thinking and doing things, they...
Prabhupāda: You see. Following of religious principle does not depend on foreign rule or home rule.
Dr. Patel: That does...
Prabhupāda: Ahaituky apratihatā. This is the description. Sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokṣaje, ahaituky apratihatā (SB 1.2.6). One who follows actually. Just like we are following some principles. It cannot be checked by anyone. We do not accept anyone.
Prabhupāda: Brahmānanda you are defeated. (laughter) So kīrtana is glorious than brahma-jñāna. (laughter)
Guest (1): And some devotee introduced me with him, that "He is the first devotee of Prabhupāda in America, in foreign."
Prabhupāda: Yes. He's also a priest's son, coming from very respectable, priestly order family.
Guest (1): Last few days, we were enjoying a good day.
Guest (2): But there are so many disciples of one guru. Are they come all in bona fide disciplic succession?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Guest: Unless there is an adverse report from Delhi.
Yaśomatīnandana: Delhi.
Guest: You see if there is any report from the Delhi, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, against this movement, because being Americans...
Prabhupāda: No, they are against this movement, that I have got many proofs.
Guest: But if they will logically...
Prabhupāda: Logic, there is no logic.
Guest: No, but what I say. If they are appeased...
Prabhupāda: Argumentum baculam. Their logic is sword.
Italian Man (4): These important writers who have been read throughout Europe, France and England, who has no importance for the moment, they have never tried to give a (sic:) lifely idea of Kṛṣṇa, the pastimes and the youthfulness, and the liveliness of this is not given. And they will take... Yes, that's it. Yes.
Prabhupāda: Here is a foreign reader. He says.
Indian Man (1): Which book you have read?
Italian Man (4): Well, I have read every book that can be available.
Indian Man (1): Have you read Rādhākrishnan on Bhagavad-gītā?
Prabhupāda: He is first-class impersonalist. He is a first-class blind man. First-class blind man.
Indian Man (1): But still, he appreciates Kṛṣṇa. He has never told any...
Prabhupāda: No, I'll give you example that mass of people in Jagannātha Purī, in Vṛndāvana, many thousands, ten thousands, twenty thousands people, every day come, to worship Jagannātha, to worship Kṛṣṇa, but there is a Ramakrishna temple in Belurmath, or somewhere else—nobody goes. So how do you say the mass of people are attracted to Ramakrishna? And similarly, recently, our foreign students went to Vṛndāvana, went to Navadvīpa, by thousands, but nobody goes to Ramakrishna Mission temple. Then other point: Ramakrishna Mission is working in the western world almost one hundred years. Find out their disciples so many we have got. So your statement, "It is meant for the mass of people," it is false. I have given you proof from India and from here also. That means throughout the whole world. In India nobody cares for Ramakrishna. That I have given you proof. You go to Vṛndāvana. There nobody cares for Ramakrishna. You go to Jagannātha Purī, Haridvar, so many holy places. Nobody cares for Ramakrishna.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, there was no need. Every country requires good government. So if somebody gives good government and keeps the people nice, happy, and people hasn't got any interest that the... Now they have made like that. Formerly, at least in India, they didn't care whether it is being ruled by the Mohammedans or by the Englishmen or foreign... They wanted peaceful life, that's all. So the Mohammedans, they made their home in India, the Moguls. They were not exploiting India and taking the money outside. Although the Moguls were very luxurious, but they were spending money in India, India's money in India. And, of course, they accuse, the Mohammedan government was very bad. But I think if it was so bad, how they could rule over India for eight hundred years? And in those days Indians were in their own culture. They did not lose their culture, Hindu culture. The Britishers peacefully killed the Hindu culture, Vedic culture, yes.
Prabhupāda: Because your forefathers came from England and taught them like this. That is the real fact. India was satisfied, but the Lord Macauley, they said no, that if you keep Indian as Indian, you'll never be able to rule lower down. Cultural conqueror. So they began to teach Indians England's work in India. "Whatever you have got, that is all nonsense. You learn from us." And the first product is Jawaharlal Nehru. This is the misfortune of foreign rule.
Yaśodānandana: It would seem then that English culture is stronger than Indian culture then.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Prabhupāda: ...change your views victimized by these rascals. The rascals are very strong. (break) In the Sixteenth Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā it is said, pravṛttiṁ ca nivṛttiṁ janā na vidur āsurāḥ. Asura. Asura, demons, demonic civilization, demonic people, they do not know what is pravṛtti and what is nivṛtti. Pravṛtti means material civilization, and nivṛtti means spiritual civilization. The modern man does not know. They are neither educated about this pravṛtti and nivṛtti. And we are speaking on nivṛtti, and all of them are in the pravṛtti. So they cannot understand. It is foreign to them. They have no idea what is spiritual life, spiritual civilization. Five thousand years ago Kṛṣṇa spoke of all these things very clearly. Later on, the things, from the beginning of Kali-yuga, the things are deteriorating, and therefore different types of religion has sprung up. The Buddhism, Christianism, Mohammedanism. They are not perfect understanding of religious principle.
Prabhupāda: Yes. A little mistake will cause disaster. Therefore education means to protect him from committing mistake. This is education. And if you keep him in the darkness, what is the value of education? (aside:) Get that switch on. Education means enlightenment. One should know "What I am? I am this body or something else other than the body?" This is education. That is self-realization. "Oh, I am not this body; I am soul. And I am simply working for the body? What I am doing for me? I say, 'It is my body,' so I am working for my, and what for the 'I?' " Where is that education? If you simply take care of "my" and don't take care of "I," is that education? That taking care of "my" is done by the dog, and taking care of "I" is done by the human being. That is the difference. The dog, as soon as he sees another foreign dog in that neighborhood, he begins barking, "Gow! Gow! Gow!" So we are doing the same business in the immigration department: "Why you have come? Have you got visa?" This is civilization, but the dog's business. "Gow! Gow!" In Paris I went without visa, and they detained me for four hours. Well, a human being has come here. Why the immigration law so strict? But that is advancement of civilization.
Prabhupāda: But one thing I can say, generally. There was a great politician, Cāṇakya Paṇḍita, under whose name in New Delhi there is a quarter called Canakya Purī. All the foreign embassies are situated there. He said, viśvāso naiva kartavyaṁ strīṣu rāja-kuleṣu ca: "Never trust a woman and a politician." That is his remark, of course, I do not say anything. (Devotees laugh)
Reporter (3): Are these books all... Have you written all of these books or are they by other philosophers of...
Prabhupāda: Yes, I have written all these books.
Reporter (3): Who has published them?
Brahmānanda: The president. Nixon used to use the CIA to... If he had any enemy, he would have the CIA investigate that man. He was using it for his personal political purposes. (break) ...testing. In the early 1960's they were testing the effects of LSD, and so they gave LSD secretly into this one officer's coffee drink. And he drank it. He did not know it was LSD, and he went crazy and committed suicide. So now this investigation of CIA has uncovered this information. So now the family of this officer, they are suing the CIA for millions of dollars. (break) ... regular business of breaking into foreign embassies. In New York and Washington they did over 1500 break-ins, photographing documents, stealing coding machines. Sometimes when they would break in at night into one embassy, they would meet agents of another country who also were breaking into the same embassy, and they would salute one another. (laughter) It's a regular business.
Prabhupāda: They will not kill each other?
Prabhupāda: Eighteen?
Devotee (1): I think, 1920.
Prabhupāda: 1890. (Bengali)
Lalitā: ...foreign exchange, for the development of India...(Bengali) ...that how it is... "Can you prove?" And yes. You can send immediately? Everything is in open.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I have all the receipts with me from the bank transfers.
Prabhupāda: (Bengali) This is meant for the executive head of the state. It is meant for. In the Bhagavad-gītā, Fourth Chapter, it is stated,
- imaṁ vivasvate yogaṁ
- proktavān aham avyayam
- vivasvān manave prāhur
- manur ikṣvākave 'bravīt
- (BG 4.1)
Evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2). Rājarṣayo. It is meant for the rājarṣis. So Indira is in the position of rāja. If she becomes a ṛṣi, then it will be successful. Then it will be successful.
Lalitā: "And for the development of this country I can bring foreign exchange for..."
Prabhupāda: No, why this?
Lalitā: (Bengali)
Prabhupāda: "So we have already about six branches in India..."
Jayapatāka: Eight.
Prabhupāda: "Eight. And all the development is being done by foreign exchange. So it can be continued if I get encouragement by the government. So I shall be very much pleased to see you in this connection."
Lalitā: "I need your advices for this development." (Bengali) "With the help of government in villages."
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I... Just that one point. In my speaking to Ganesha's(?) also, even when we tell them we are bringing huge amounts of foreign exchange from abroad, they at once say, "But how do you get this money abroad?"
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.
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.
Brahmānanda: "Your Excellency Śrīmatī Indira Devi Gandhi. 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 for you and myself. 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 the 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 in India everyone should become a guru and preach all over the world."
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."
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.
Jayapatāka: And Gopāla Kṛṣṇa mentioned the point that... We're bringing foreign exchange. Whether there should be any word that also signifies that we have local support also?
Prabhupāda: Local support, that is understood. (Bengali) So our "books popular in foreign countries as well as in India." We are getting money also by these books.
Brahmānanda: We have quotations from professors in America and also India.
Prabhupāda: How many...
Brahmānanda: When you talk about "I... So we have already eight branches in India. All development is being done by foreign exchange. It can be continued if I get encouragement by the government."
Prabhupāda: "And foreign assistance, about one hundred men." That's all.
Lalitā: (Bengali)
Brahmānanda: "Foreign assistance, numbering about one hundred."
Lalitā: Missionary... (Bengali)
Prabhupāda: Then what is there?
Prabhupāda: Then what is there?
Brahmānanda: "So we have already eight branches in India, and all development is being done by foreign exchange and foreign assistance numbering about one hundred."
Prabhupāda: "Mostly. Mostly by foreign exchange and foreign assistance. Mostly." It is not that there is no Indian. Mostly.
Lalitā: "I want." "I want from you." (Bengali)
Prabhupāda: So, "If you..."
Brahmānanda: "It can be continued if I get encouragement by the government."
Prabhupāda: "By giving these foreigners missionary..." What is called? "Missionary visa"? Is that all right?
Lalitā: "Missionary visa..." (Bengali) Citizenship... (Bengali)
Prabhupāda: What you have said?
Brahmānanda: "It can be continued if I get encouragement by the government."
Prabhupāda: "By allowing these foreign assistant as missionary men." That's all.
Brahmānanda: "As missionaries."
Prabhupāda: "As missionary men." Or "missionaries."
Lalitā: "Missionaries..." (Bengali). So they will see in what way they can best.
Prabhupāda: That's all. Jaya. (end)
Dhṛṣṭaketu: ...Kṛṣṇa's pastimes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Kṛṣṇa is unlimited; His pastimes are unlimited.
Indian man (1): Could I permitted to take a Bengali class one hour daily, the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust room for foreign and also Indian boys?
Prabhupāda: They are interested in learning Bengali?
Indian man (1): Yes, some of them are interested.
Prabhupāda: Yes?
Indian man (1): I think they should learn Bengali well to go through the books written in original-Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura's and the six Gosvāmīs. If they learn, then they will be able to understand the siddhānta very well.
Prabhupāda: We are presenting them in English.
Brahmānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Ananda...
Brahmānanda: Ananda Niketan.
Prabhupāda: Full of foreign embassies. So nobody came.
Brahmānanda: They came the first night, and that was it.
Prabhupāda: Nobody came.
Brahmānanda: Neither were they very friendly.
Prabhupāda: They thought that "We are living so nicely, embassy and ambassador, and living in such a nice house, comfortably. What is this nonsense, God?" All these embassies and the ambassadors, they are prized post. It has no use.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Nectar of Devotion and the Śrī Īśopaniṣad. These books are actually being used in undergraduate courses. These are some of the recommendations, see, offered as an undergraduate course. Mostly... This book is very, very interesting, this, "the complete science of bhakti-yoga." This explains scientifically the science of devotional service to God. That devotional service which is not practiced with reference to the Vedic literatures is simply a disturbance, just as if some chemist walked into an English laboratory or some foreign language laboratory and tried to do something, and he had no knowledge. So the same way, we should try to understand the science of devotional service from the authorities, so that it's not just...it doesn't become simply a disturbance in society. People lose faith in God that way. Śrī Īśopaniṣad also has the same format once again. The Sanskrit, transliteration, word for word. This is a very nice entrance book into Vedic understanding. This is the most important of the Upaniṣads. Many other books we have like that, paperbacks and hardbound. This is being used in many universities in America.
Prabhupāda: Temple University, it is a study book.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Why did Nehru, though… He was so closely associated with Gandhi, and Gandhi was for getting the foreign products out. Why did Nehru go so much against that policy? Why did Nehru?
Prabhupāda: No, Nehru, he was searching after some big post. That's all. All these political agitators, they want the big post, that's all. You give them big post, and they will be satisfied. They will no more agitate. Political agitators means they want some prize post from the government. That's all. Make them some minister, and they will be no more agitator.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But he is considered to be very religious man in the eyes of the masses.
Prabhupāda: Who?
Harikeśa: There was once a few plots exposed, how some governments were ruined because foreign governments were printing up money just like their money, and shipping it in.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. I have seen it. I have seen it during last wartime. One Chinese man was coming to one of my friends, my business friend. So he would give, immediately coming, a bunch of notes, maybe ten thousand.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Indian notes?
Prabhupāda: Yes. And a list of goods. He was his purchasing agent. So that bunch of notes was printed in China. You see? And he brings it and gives to a merchant here, and he gives him real goods, and he takes it out. This is inflation.
Devotee (2): Could he spend that money?
Prabhupāda: Those who are not cooperating...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They should be asked to leave.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They must cooperate.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) The problem that these foreign, some of these foreign devotees that have come lately, they have been such loose devotees that the temple presidents, they want to get rid of them; they are sending them to India. Three people came from Rūpānuga's zone; and they were all useless devotees. They won't listen. They just ran away from Bombay. So I wrote a very strong letter to Rūpānuga Prabhu. I said, you know, they should screen the devotees before they send them to India. What they are doing is they are sending their rejected devotees to India. If any devotee is not good in their zone they say, "Okay, we'll send them to India."
Prabhupāda: No. Indians economical backwards because they have given up their own culture. When India was actually standing on the old culture, they were never defeated. Even the Mohammedans, they ruled over India for eight hundred years, but they could not defeat the Indian culture. But the British government are clever. They spoiled the Indian culture. Therefore they are poverty-stricken. Otherwise if India would have continued in his own culture... The Gandhi started the boycott movement. So Indian culture automatically boycotted anything foreign. We know in our childhood nothing foreign-made could be used in some ceremony. Even this cloth, it must be country-made, that, what is called?
Prabhupāda: Khadi, yes. No mill-made cloth can be used. That was Indian culture. They would not touch even foreign medicine. Dr. Bose, Kartick Chandra Bose, he told me that "You do not know how much we had to flatter to accept this British medicine." They would not touch quinine, anything foreign-made. This was Indian culture.
Harikeśa: Well, the basic flaw with Indian culture is that some people are very rich and some people are very poor.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Then why in your country there are hippies lying on the street? Why? Why they have accepted poverty?
Harikeśa: That's a temporary thing.
Prabhupāda: They will have to divert because both, either Chinese or Russian, these are all rascaldom. It is not perfect system.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But the chairman of the Russian Communist Party, Mr. Brezhnev, he has about fifteen foreign cars. Each time a foreign dignitary goes, he gives him a special car. So everyone is supposed to be equal, but he is not equal. He has fifteen cars for himself. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...clean city. (break) It is not the same New Delhi as five or ten years before. Huh?
Tejās: Yes.
Prabhupāda: How long you are here?
Dr. Patel: The interest of the body.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is not in his interest because it is changing. Suppose a person comes to a foreign place, and he becomes only interested in where he is staying, and after a week he is driven away. Then what is interest? You are eternal; you must have eternal interest.
Dr. Patel: That education comes from the Vedas.
Prabhupāda: Therefore we say that there is no education. They do not know what is interest. They are making a small limitation, that "This is my country. My interest is to become a national. I will sacrifice my life for this, that, this..." Whole world is going on like this. Na te vidhuḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Babu? Babu means?
Indian man (1): It's a name of the...
Prabhupāda: Foreign devotees, they are joining this movement not because it is a Hindu culture. They take it as a real spiritual culture. Otherwise why, for the last hundred, two hundred years, the Hindu sannyāsīs, yogis, were going there? Who did accept it? Did anybody? The Rāmakrishna Mission, Hindu monk, within the eighty-five years, how many Hindus they have made? You can count maybe a dozen only. Huh? Did they make any Hindus, European, American young boys? And it is the Hindu custom that sannyāsīs eat meat?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Drink wine.
Prabhupāda: Drink wine.
Hṛdayānanda: Well, because the officers, they were not qualified. They were simply foolish. They were directing them in such a way that they were all in danger.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Hṛdayānanda: And they could not understand why they were there. It was a foreign... They were used to America and so they had to go to the jungle but they were, they could not see the point of fighting...
Prabhupāda: Mm. (indistinct)
Hṛdayānanda: So many times they would become so disgusted they would simply kill their own officers, shoot them or throw a bomb. Also in Vietnam, the majority of the soldiers were fighting intoxicated, marijuana and different drugs.
Dayānanda: Also I think people have no respect for authority any more.
Hari-śauri: I think, when he was thrown out of office, he said "Well, I may have had so many faults, but at least I increased our good relations with other countries." He was always... He was trying to convince everybody that he may not have been very good at domestic affairs, but at foreign affairs he was expert, so then that made his administration not so bad.
Hṛdayānanda: One thing... The one thing that caused his downfall, that when they heard the tapes... He had recorded all of his conversations, private conversations with his ministers. So it turned out that it was horrible language. Practically every other word was dirty word.
Prabhupāda: That dirty word used by him?
Prabhupāda: Where is Jayapatāka?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Jayapatāka Mahārāja. (break) ...almost sixty years.
Prabhupāda: Sixty years, they could not do any of these books. And still they are envious. Within sixty years they could not attract any foreign student or any book published. And still, they are proud. They have got all the blessings of Bhaktisiddhānta.
Yaśodānandana: They cannot even attract Indian students.
Prabhupāda: Just see, how black snakes they are.
Yaśodānandana: They do pretty good with old widows, however. (laughter)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Getting a lot of flowers here, it seems.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There must be always all full of flowers.
Prabhupāda: And it was a barren place.
Dr. Patel: They all come to see the devotees. These foreign devotees, they are enchanted to see them. All these times we were seeing the foreign, foreign, those padres, the Christians. Now we are seeing the sanātana...
Prabhupāda: And another the thing is that Ramakrishna Mission has constructed temple of Ramakrishna. Nobody goes there. It is lying barren.
Dr. Patel: You were planning to raise a temple in Kurukṣetra?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I have applied to the government for land, twenty-five acres land.
Dr. Patel: Very big. But is that land available to us?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Fences.
Guru-kṛpā: Especially if it's a devotee, they'll be more eager to shoot.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...foreign or this, a small river. (break)
Devotee (2): 1717. Captain Cook.
Guru-kṛpā: He's the same one that went to Hawaii.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Guru-kṛpā: You know, and they never saw a white man there before. So the natives there in Hawaii were very enamored to see such a big white man, so they took him as God, and they were worshiping him. And one day...
Prabhupāda: Captain Cook?
Prabhupāda: P-form sanctioned by the state government, yes, state government. So it was applied for. It was... No sanction was coming. Then I went to the State Bank of India, the officer Mr. Bhattacari. So he told me: "Swamiji, you are sponsored by private man. So we cannot accept it. If you are invited by some institution, then we could consider, but you are invited by a private man for one month, and, after one month, if you are in difficulty, and there will be so much obstacles and so on." "Well, I have already prepared everything to go." So I said that "You, what you have done?" "No, I have decided not to sanction your P-form." "No, no, don't do this. You better send to your superior. It should not be done like that." So he took my request and he sent the file to Chief Officer of Foreign Exchange, something like that. Anyway, he is the supreme man in the State Bank of India. So I went to see him. So I asked his secretary that "You have got such file? You kindly put to Mr...."—his name was Mr. Rao—"I want to see him." So the secretary agreed, and he put the file and put my slip that I wanted to see him. I was waiting. So Mr. Rao came personally. He said, "Swamiji, I have passed your case. Don't worry." (laughs) In this way.
Hari-śauri: When I was there I remember every month there would be a major strike in the car industry, in the shipping industry, all the major industries there was always a major strike every.... And it would completely devastate the economy.
Hṛdayānanda: The foreign businesses no longer have confidence in England, because if they make some order maybe it will not be fulfilled.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Hṛdayānanda: The foreign business no longer has confidence. I heard that England had sold military weapons to Israel, and when Israel was fighting the war they called England, "Immediately send replacements for the weapons." "No, I'm sorry, we are on strike, there's no..., we cannot send replacements." So in this way there is no longer confidence in England for business, international business.
Rādhāvallabha: Now in South America it has been fashionable.... There are many, many wealthy businessmen living there. So terrorists will kidnap a businessman, and then send a letter to the company in the United States or in that country, stating that "If you do not give us such and such million dollars, we will kill him." So in this way the terrorists are getting millions of dollars by kidnapping big men.
Prabhupāda: In Vṛndāvana they have got hospital and Ramakrishna temple. Who is going there? This is practical example. In our temple, thousands and thousands of foreign boys and girls are coming, and who is going there? It is because actually, if they did something, they should at least gone there out of inquisitiveness: "Oh, where is Vivekananda?" Nobody going. Not even to pass urine there. (laughter) (break)
Kīrtanānanda: That Japanese tape recorder.
Prabhupāda: And Hichai is, this is called Hichai? That is "hitchhike," and this is Hitch-hi.
Hari-śauri: Hitachi.
Prabhupāda: Hitachi, yes. This is a church?
Kīrtanānanda: No, this is an institution, state institution for old people or mental home. I forget. "Western State School." (break)
Prabhupāda: ...Hayagrīva.
Prabhupāda: The thing is that sometimes we Indians come to Western country for better education. The university in India or the university in U.S. or in Europe is the same, but why does he go after Indian university education to foreign university? Why does he go?
Guest (2): Superior.
Prabhupāda: That's it. God is there, the dictionary is there. Sometimes pocket dictionary, sometimes big national encyclopedia dictionary. The Christians, they have no idea what is God. They believe in God, but if you ask them what is God, who is God, they cannot say. But we can say. That is the difference.
Woman guest (2): It is not as good.
Interviewer: Yes. But is your way the only way?
Prabhupāda: No, that is only way. Because God is one and God consciousness is one, so when you are Chinese consciousness, that is foreign. Or either American consciousness, it is foreign.
Interviewer: Okay, I was speaking in an analogical way. There are different way to express oneself or different languages one can learn. Similarly, I would think there would be different ways to get to consciousness.
Prabhupāda: Different ways may be, but if you actually come to that consciousness, that different way is approved. Otherwise it is bogus.
Interviewer:. Other way?
Prabhupāda: America.
Rāmeśvara: New York.
Prabhupāda: New York.
Rāmeśvara: In other places they consider us to be very foreign, alien. But here there are so many foreigners, so it fits right in.
Prabhupāda: This is the Tenth Street? No.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is Amsterdam Avenue.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Ninth Avenue turns into Amsterdam Avenue.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā?
Jayatīrtha: Yes.
Bhagavān: I've seen in India, they are bringing foreign dogs.
Jayatīrtha: Even that one gosvāmī in Vṛndāvana, he has got French dogs.
Prabhupāda: That poodles. He's rascal. And such a fool, "Jagat-guru." So you go.
Jayatīrtha: All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda. (end)
Prabhupāda: Very good. This should be arranged with lemon juice. If you have got these fruits, there is no need of purchasing.
Bhagavān: The tomatoes are supposed to be as good as oranges. The tomatoes are supposed to be as healthy as oranges.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In our childhood, these tomatoes were called foreign eggplant, bilāti beguna. And because it was foreign, nobody will touch it. In our childhood we'd never eat the tomato. It was rejected by whole Indian Hindu culture.
Harikeśa: Tomatoes don't grow in India?
Prabhupāda: No. It was imported. Because it was imported they would not touch. The mill cloth, because they were imported, no gentleman will touch. No religious function would allow to use mill-made cloth. And so far medicine is concerned, they would never touch it. This is the difficulty... (indistinct) sent a confidential report that if you want to keep Indians as Indian you'll never be able to do like that. Then they will gradually introduce all this nonsense, drinking tea, drinking wine. "You are uncivilized. Whatever British are doing, they are civilized way. England's work in India." And they were given facilities, those who were English educated. In this way, they first of all tried to make the whole Indian population Anglici... Not possible to all. At least, those who are educated. So the so-called Indian educated, they took it seriously. Just like our Bon Mahārāja. English way of living, with fork and... Yes. He has taken it seriously. He is under impression, whatever is foreign. In this way Indian culture was killed. The Muhammadans, they had no such idea. They wanted to rule over, that's all. And the money was not going to outside They were spending lavishly—in India. The money was in India, but these people, they're dispersing all the money, jewels, and everything valuable, outside India. So they became poverty-stricken. And culturally conquered. (aside) Not so many. This will be enough.
Bhūgarbha: Professor Chenique's suggesting that in the Middle Ages there were many philosophers who also were researching the same questions of the body of God and how His body is different from ours, and they came to exactly the same conclusions as are mentioned in the Bhāgavatam, so he's suggesting some of our devotees should read some of these books so we'll be able to in our preaching show the French people these conceptions that God has a body are not foreign conceptions, and actually even European philosophers in the Middle Ages were saying the same things.
Prabhupāda: No, you can convince by your words. It is not necessary that you have to read so many other words. If you are yourself convinced, then you can convince others by your words. The fact. The same example, when there is fire actually you can express it by any word.
Nava-yauvana: Moustafa asked a question, how to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness in this country. It seems difficult to him, because the people's reaction... It's very foreign, the outward appearance of devotees is very strange to them. He wants to know how this philosophy can be spread here.
Prabhupāda: The first thing is that what do you mean by Kṛṣṇa. That is to be understood. Kṛṣṇa means God. So if you have no objection to chant the name of God, then there is no difference of opinions. Now first of all, I may ask you, "What do you mean by God?" You are chanting the holy name of God, and people may ask you, "What do you mean by God?" Because especially nowadays... (aside) No, there is matches? That's all. Come near. So first question will be, "What do you mean by God?" If I, or anybody, asks you, "What do you mean by God?"
Moustafa: I cannot explain, because now...
Prabhupāda: But that you must explain. If you are chanting the name of God, then you must know what do you mean by God.
Moustafa: When I feel, I will get spiritual, my feeling...
Guest: Reason is because from the last fifty years the education was a big problem here, and the government needed people to get educated. So they gave a lot of facilities that people should send their children out to get educated.
Prabhupāda: Foreign education.
Guest: Yes. So everybody who could have some money or he could afford it, he sends his children to America, London, Paris, Germany. Very huge (indistinct). But they are full in Germany, they are full in London, they are full in America. They are four places where everybody... In London you can walk everywhere on the street and you can hear...
Prabhupāda: (to other guest) Oh, you are going? Thank you very much. (Bengali) (long pause)
Mr. Sahani: Reason is because from the last fifty years the education was a big problem here. And the government needed people to get educated. So they gave lot of facilities that people should send their children out to get educated.
Prabhupāda: Foreign education.
Mr. Sahani: Yes. So everybody who could have some money if he could afford it, he sent his children to America, London, Paris, Germany. Berne, even Switzerland, but they are full in Germany, they are full in London, they are full in America. They are the four places where everybody... In London you walk everywhere on the street and you can hear...
Prabhupāda: Oh, you are going? Thank you very much. Utsāhān dhairyāt...
Nava-yauvana: So we are here, if we work hard and try to please Kṛṣṇa, then there we will get a temple. Śrīla Prabhupāda arrived in New York with only eight dollars? Forty dollars? How many dollars you had when you arrived in New York?
Prabhupāda: Seven dollars.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: No, I know. I shall do it. I will do it. We will put in this bankbook, your account, two thousand dollars now, today.
Prabhupāda: And I'll give you some foreign exchange, give him.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Whatever you give, I will put in that account.
Prabhupāda: Give that cash money.
Hari-śauri: Yes.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: And you will get eighteen percent interest. You want it on a monthly, yearly, how do you like?
Prabhupāda: Monthly, no year.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Spiritual Sky in Los Angeles. He has come on a business trip. They were trying to negotiate buying incense sticks from Mysore, sandalwood, and Bangalore. So they are... Did you get those color proofs I sent you of Bhāgavata? Did you like? It's coming out quite nicely.
Prabhupāda: Not as good, not as good as foreign.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's not as good as foreign? That is... But we are going to be printing the softbound book for seven rupees.
Prabhupāda: All right, we shall talk later on. Now let me...
Hari-śauri: Maybe somebody could take those flowers and put them in vases.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: All the pictures have a garland. Distribute it?
Prabhupāda: So you have come, it is good.
Prabhupāda: That is perfect. Saṁsiddhiṁ paramaṁ gataḥ. That is the highest. Why these people, our own people, in spite of possessing Bhagavad-gītā, we are so rascals, we are not taking that?
Dr. Patel: I think the degeneration of this country are from the foreign people, foreign domination.
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, it was their propaganda, Macauley's, that "If you keep Indians as Indians, you'll never be able to rule over them." So British policy was to make propaganda so that "everything Indian is bad."
Dr. Patel: I think Max Mueller (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: No, it was necessary for them to Anglicize the Indians to rule over them.
Dr. Patel: Our differential, or (Hindi) has created all this rot.
Prabhupāda: Because you have it. It is the first educational system.
Interviewer (3): No, but the system that we have here...
Prabhupāda: That you have introduced. That is your unfortunate case.
Interviewer (4): No, that is because of historical reasons. We were ruined by a foreign...
Prabhupāda: If the real subject matter of study you neglect, that is your negligence, your misfortune.
Interviewer (3): Now how to rectify this...
Prabhupāda: You can take it now. You are simply arguing. Why don't you take it? That means you don't want to take it. There is the thing, but if you want, you can take it. But if you don't want, then how we can help you?
Interviewer (4): How is the response in the West?
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: Why people are accepting our books? You'll be surprised we are selling book to the extent of six lakhs of rupees per day. Daily. Daily we are selling six lakhs of rupees' worth all over the world. So people think philosophy, religion is dry subject matter. If it was dry subject matter, how they could purchase so many books? It is ānanda-cinmaya-rasa. They are getting for the first time. Here is real ānanda. Therefore they are appreciating. Everyone, learned circle, they are appreciation. In (indistinct) foreign circles. So, there was no such literature. It is the first time. Śrīmad-bhāgavatam amalaṁ purāṇaṁ vaiṣṇavānām... So unless, they're really relishing some rasa, how they are purchasing? This is the first distribution of ānanda-cinmaya-rasa throughout the whole world, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. So I am very happy that you are also joining. Let us join together.
Prabhupāda: Nadia?
Jayapatākā: District Planning Committee. So the head of the Nadia District Planning Committee is that minister, Anandamoy Visvas. So I went to him and I gave him an invitation for the Janmāṣṭamī. When I saw him, then... You gave me that letter. So I showed him that letter where you have said that "every day we're selling sixty thousand dollars of books, and I think you for helping me." I said, "Sir, we are simply doing Prabhupāda's order. This is not our work. It is not a foreign work. It is his work; we are simply doing it. He is selling so many books that he wants to invest some of the money to develop Mahāprabhu's birthsite. That is all. He has got the money. Why he should not invest it?" He said, "I am going to have a meeting of the committee next week, and I'm going to push your project through. We're going to pass it." That is the last word I heard. So it looks that everything is very good right now... But we have to keep our society very pure because their investigating us very strong. All the time they're having people watching us.
Prabhupāda: This is ajwain(?). My only concern is about the immigration department. They are gagging you: "Now your visa... Go out, go away, go out..." So they are making so big, big arrangement. If my foreign disciples are forced to go away, then what is the value? That is...
Gargamuni: Well, as far as myself... Of course, I was supposed to leave yesterday. But there is very easy process. You can come in and out and stay six months.
Prabhupāda: So that, make plans. That will... Otherwise we are making so big, big, big plan. Who will manage?
Jayapatākā: For that matter, we can get. Even the American citizen, they can get outside... By various means you can get Canadian and English passports.
Jayapatākā: And then "Our headquarters is in India."
Gargamuni: It must be always stated, "Our headquarters are India." If we say "foreign," that means we are controlled by foreign. We must publish everywhere that our head...
Prabhupāda: No, we have mentioned headquarters Bombay?
Jayapatākā: We just said offices.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Jayapatākā: They think that Los Angeles is our headquarters.
Prabhupāda: That is for America.
Prabhupāda: Now, you ask Bhagavān. He is very clever. He's expert.
Jayapatākā: We are worried that now we're getting good men to join, they're doing good work, then how...
Prabhupāda: I think if you prepare according to the order of our foreign centers, then you won't be... They will all give. You can make fine cloth?
Jayapatākā: We can make up to eighty count. Eighty count we can make now.
Prabhupāda: They are purchasing cloth, shirt, and everything.
Jayapatākā: They're saying... Sometimes they say that "The cloth you make is not what we like." But I tell them we can make any cloth. You give us sample. You tell us. We'll make to your specification." They don't...
Jayapatākā: Up to now we've been making according to the devotee's specification. To make for Indian to make a different type. We can also make Indian sari and other thing. They'll be cheaper one. but previously we were making because we thought that all the foreign branches...
Prabhupāda: So whatever... Now you can make Indian style. You keep great stock?
Jayapatākā: Well, we are hearing that they are buying the cloth elsewhere.
Gargamuni: All right. Come on.
Prabhupāda: Eh? They are buying elsewhere?
Gargamuni: Yes. They are buying sometimes from other. (to JP) All right. Let's go and chant, come back tomorrow.
Prabhupāda: So "You are not genuine. Therefore we are not appreciating." Genuine they appreciate. "But you are not genuine. Therefore we are criticizing you."
Pradyumna: "As far back as 1971 the Maharastra government had taken action against the foreign devotees who had chosen to overstay in Bombay and elsewhere."
Gargamuni: That isn't true. Their action was to allow us to build our Bombay center.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that's not true.
Pradyumna: "In mid 1975 the Union Home Ministry took, however, a lenient view and allowed the immigrants to stay for long periods on the specious plea that the mastering of Vaiṣṇava literature, the spiritual diet of the cultists, was not like learning shorthand." Then heading: "Contrary Pulls in Government." "Lately, of course, the center has become wise, though contrary pulls in the thinking process still persist. This was quite evident at the Raj..."
Pradyumna: That we... He said he has "Now unmasked the ungodly face of Kṛṣṇa cult." That we're putting on a false face of being devotees of Kṛṣṇa, but actually we have an ungodly purpose. That we want to...
Prabhupāda: What ungodly we have done?
Pradyumna: That he does not come out and say, but he implies that we are foreign, that we want to exploit India somehow.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, they are feeling the weight. Now they are feeling the weight. That is the progress. Otherwise, if our movement would have been a trifle thing, the government and newspapers they would not have taken care. Now they are feeling that this movement is going to be more and more important, all over the world.
Hari-śauri: They can see we're having an effect.
Prabhupāda: I'm writing one letter to the governor that I work hard, I print my books and they are selling, and if I bring the money to construct temple, why people are envious? What is the wrong there? Rather, I should be encouraged that I am bringing so much money in India, foreign exchange, by my hard labor. So why they are envious? Why... I have sent this to the governor.
Jayapatākā: To the governor?
Prabhupāda: Governor, Mr. Chandra Reddy. "Why, wherefrom they are getting money, where, why?" That is my very, very hard labor, that's all. Is it wrong if a man works hard and gets money in foreign country and bring in India?
Gargamuni: I think they cannot believe that a sādhu could have so much money from selling books.
Prabhupāda: The building belonged to a big zamindar. So Prabhākāra arranged. So it was to be given to me, and I wanted to start the League of Devotees from there. So I spent some money, whatever money I had, and it was going on. But in the meantime, this Lilavati Munshi, Mrs. At that time she was wife of the governor. Her husband, K. M. Munshi. She had some organization of foreign women. So somehow or other she got imagination that "This house is very nice." She was governor's wife. So it was not given to me rightly, but I was using. So she wanted that house. Through collector and through all government officials pressure. She wrote me later on, that "Bhaktivedantajī, you wanted to organize, but you could not. But I have got this institution. Why not give it to me?" So, of course, there were many lawyer friends. They advised me that "You do not give up. You should litigate." So I thought, "Who is going to litigate? Let me go to Vṛndāvana." So I left. So at Mathurā I delivered the Deity to this Keśavajī Gauḍīya Maṭha, and I made my place in Vṛndāvana.
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.
Krishna Modi: And in the comparison of India?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, in some respects I found them even lower than India. You'll be amazed... I visited all the leading libraries of Russia and Leningrad. Moscow University Library, all the big libraries. These libraries don't have any foreign exchange for ordering these books. They all want to order... They were begging me for free books. They said, "Why don't you give us a donation or exchange." They have a book exchange that if they give their books then we give our books. Each library gets such little foreign exchange allowance to buy books from abroad.
Prabhupāda: A taxi driver, he was asking some bhakshish.
Krishna Modi: In Russia.
Prabhupāda: And they are always anxious to get extra. Buses are not very good. Third-class buses.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And a lot of people want foreign exchange there. Like they'll ask...
Krishna Modi: I'm going.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: You're going to Russia? When?
Krishna Modi: Yes, on 4th of October.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: For how long?
Krishna Modi: About fifteen days.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Visit.
Prabhupāda: Sixty thousand per day. Actually. But we are all foregoing it for pushing on this movement, and if we bring that money and construct big, big temple or planetarium, what is the harm to India?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda is bringing in more foreign exchange than even big business export concerns.
Prabhupāda: I'm bringing regularly not less than ten lakhs of rupees per month.
Krishna Modi: Sending to India. We must tell them all these things.
Prabhupāda: You tell.
Krishna Modi: That is the thing. This is the Brahmānanda... I already told yesterday that some members must be briefed and they must tell something so that my hands may be strengthened and so that I may...
Prabhupāda: Even not in our favor. I am working hard in foreign countries and bringing money to India. You should give us some credit. But instead of giving credit, I am being criticized in the Parliament.
Krishna Modi: They are putting like this. They are putting this case like that, that foreign money is coming here to advertise the American embassies, like that. They are that talking like that.
Prabhupāda: They may talk nonsense, but this is the fact. This is the fact. I have got my Book Trust Fund and I've advised regularly to send eight lakhs of rupees per month. That is being spent in Bombay, in... I'm not collecting from here.
Krishna Modi: That is correct.
Prabhupāda: So if an Indian brings from foreign country by his labor eight lakhs of rupees per month, how much credit he should be given? He should be recognized. But instead of recognizing they are criticizing.
Prabhupāda: The one encouraging thing in this movement is that our books are being very much appreciated. In all universities, foreign and Indian, libraries, professors, learned scholars.
Indian man (3): Yes, they'll branch out and... It's a great service.
Prabhupāda: We are selling books to the extent of sixty thousand dollars daily. That is our only hope, that we shall not be financially in difficulty. People are taking our books very nicely. People are accepting our literature.
Indian man (3): It is not that difficulties were not there (indistinct). I don't have the support, but I feel (indistinct) find that several places the demand for this for the acceptance of (indistinct) also not in the manner in which I had wanted. (indistinct) ...lakhs of people stand against (indistinct) religion and moral side. There should be a linking up of all those who want religion to remain and morality to also be there. Those forces have to be met by also organized force from the right kind of people (goes on giving his own opinions-indistinct) ...I hope you are not coming in your way.
Prabhupāda: No, no.
Prabhupāda: You are trying in your own way. But Kṛṣṇa does not like that program. You can manufacture your something, idea, but Kṛṣṇa will allow or not. I tell you. This is practical. You are a qualified man, foreign educated man, and you have come back for the last one and a half years, still you are in nothing. It is surprising. That means Kṛṣṇa does not want you to do that something. You take it from me. These boys have come because they found, outside Kṛṣṇa consciousness, life is nothing. That's a fact. Therefore they are sticking to this. They knew it very well. That outside Kṛṣṇa consciousness the whole world was vacant, "Nothing for us." That is a fact. Therefore they have got something here. They are not foolish rascals, they're sticking for nothing. There is something. It's a fact. So for nothing, "Oh, we have suffered." And come to something. If you want. That's Prāṇava, he is trying for something. He has come also to Vṛndāvana more than one year or two. Huh?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. I said outside India because Gītā Press... It becomes disputable in India. So this was my reply to point three. "Point four. Blitz: Most work in India is done by foreign devotees. ISKCON: The founder-ācārya of ISKCON is His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, who is an Indian. His chief secretary for India is also an Indian. In total, ISKCON has presently about 270 devotees in India, of which at least 150 or about 60% are Indian. Our programs in India have been praised by all leaders. The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, while inaugurating our Hyderabad center on August 18, 1976, said, "History appears to be repeating itself. One found a revival of temple construction, temple worship, and Gītā-prayana in advanced countries like U.S.A."
Prabhupāda: Not Gītā-prayana. Gītā-parāyaṇa.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. "He complimented ISKCON, for disseminating the Vedic culture. West Bengal government officials have praised our agricultural efforts. The principle officer of agriculture of Nadia District in West Bengal said that our Māyāpur farm is receiving attention of nearby farmers, and this farm is acting as a demonstration for them. So the statement that foreign devotees are running ISKCON in India is misleading. Point five, Blitz: Big business in Spiritual Sky. Boss of West Bengal is Gregory M. Scharf. ISKCON: In Māyāpur our devotees make handloom saris, dhotīs, and gāmchās. All over the world our devotees wear the traditional Indian dress of dhotīs, kurtās, and saris. It is our spiritual master's desire that all our devotees overseas only wear clothes made by our devotees in Māyāpur. Spiritual Sky sales and services was formed just to send our Māyāpur handloom and other necessities only to our centers overseas. In return our overseas centers send Māyāpur donations. Even Gandhiji wanted every Indian to be self-sufficient. This is what we are trying to do. We produce our own food and clothing. Instead of criticizing, Blitz should publicize these activities so that others can follow. Gregory M. Scharf's spiritual name is Gargamuni Swami, and he is an initiated disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Blitz has tried to portray him as a businessman who's wearing saffron clothes to deceive people. He is a sannyāsī since 1966. Point six, Blitz: Substantial amounts of foreign money is being received by ISKCON India Limited. ISKCON: First of all, our society is registered and called ISKCON, not ISKCON India Limited." They are purposefully being sarcastic. "It is not a business house. Yes, we do receive remittances from abroad. Every paisa that has been remitted from abroad has come through the reserve bank of India. Bhaktivedanta Swami has written over eighty books which are being sold in every country in the world. These books are selling twelve doubled(?) sixty thousand dollars daily which is about five lakhs. We have over a hundred centers all over the world and all these centers are being run by book sales. In the last three years, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust has published over two million hardbound big books. About three and a half million softbound medium size books and about fifteen million magazines on Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So you can see the wide acceptance of these books. Out of the 2,800 major universities in America, about ninety percent have purchased one or more of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda's books. Occasionally we receive contributions. This is not in cash but in kind. For example, Alfred Ford donated two buildings to our Society, one in Honolulu Hawaii, and the other in Detroit, America. In London..."
Prabhupāda: Thank you. You can go and play. You cannot understand.
Prabhupāda: So that land was donated by a prominent man. Nityananda Kananda (?) was central government minister and later on governor of Gujarat. And he often comes to see me in Calcutta.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: "Point ten. Blitz: It has started taking interest in politics. It has started a political party in U.S.A. called "In God We Trust" party. ISKCON: ISKCON is not involved in politics at all anywhere in the world. Two American devotees did contest some civic elections for which a party called 'In God We Trust' was formed. The purpose of that campaign was to remind everyone to remember the Lord at all times, as everything belongs to God. Our spiritual master dissolved In God We Trust party in U.S.A. four years ago. Furthermore, there were never any plans to set up In God We Trust in India. We challenge Blitz to show us any evidence to support their claim. Point eleven. Blitz: As far back as 1971, the Maharastra government has taken action against the foreign devotees who have chosen to overstay in Bombay and elsewhere. ISKCON: This statement is also incorrect. The Maharastra government has never taken any action against our devotees. Point twelve. Blitz: The government has decided to stop specialized facilities rendered to foreign devotees seeking to popularize Kṛṣṇa in India. ISKCON: We are very grateful to the government of India for giving us facilities for spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Hari-śauri: So this is his statement. There are 18 chapters in Bhagavad-gītā, 18 thousand verses in the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam and several hundred verses in the Upaniṣads. These are the literary works which form the foundation of Indian culture and religion. They are all in Sanskrit. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, founder of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement has transcribed these texts, has translated them, and has explained their essence in English. From Sanskrit into English. One is an ancient classical language and the other a foreign language, a difficult task indeed. I have state... (break)
Prabhupāda: Brahman means unlimited happiness. Ananta brahma-saukyam ananta suddhyed sattvam yasmād suddhyed satya. You purify your existence and you are hankering after happiness, you get the unlimited, greatest happiness, yasmād brahma-saukyam anantam. Hm.
Bhagatji: That's all. Then, afterwards we can make other, just elemental mathematics, arithmetic or just that, afterwards, when the regular studies go in the (indistinct). Now (indistinct), these three things. By learning Hindi they will (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: And the government also will like that, that foreign students...
Bhagatji: If they can understand the language and they...
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, Hindi is essential. It is not difficult. The same principle as Sanskrit. Reading and writing, that's all.
Jagadīśa: So far as the financial situation, I've discussed with Bhagatji and it seems that the best idea is to open a separate gurukula maintenance account with co-signers Bhagatji and Rūpa-vilāsa, so that... Because there's so much...
Prabhupāda: So then some of them, they are getting money.
Mr. Malhotra: No, he wanted the country to be free from the foreign rule.
Prabhupāda: No, now what freedom we have got? (laughter)
Mr. Malhotra: That is a different thing.
Prabhupāda: But that means we do not get such information from Bhagavad-gītā, that "Make your country free." Why he took Bhagavad-gītā and did this business, miscreant (?) business. He took Bhagavad-gītā and he was busy declaring war. Because politically, sometimes required. But the thing is that if your ideal is to live very simple life... His, I mean to say, followers, Jawaharlal Nehru, he did not take up this.
Mr. Malhotra: He used to stay in bhangi colonies, Gandhi. Hm?
Prabhupāda: So, and he was killed in the bhangi colony. No, he was killed in the Birla's place. And there is not a single picture of Kṛṣṇa. Although he was thinking, "This is my life, Bhagavad-gītā," without Kṛṣṇa. What is this?
Prabhupāda: But you don't get customer even lesser than that. First of all see your position. You may calculate in the mind that "This is cheap, this is not," but cheap or no cheap, you are not getting any customers. (chuckling)
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, because we never went after the tourist traffic. We have just started going after this foreign traffic with these brochures, and now we have...
Prabhupāda: And now, in the Sixth Chapter there are forty-seven verses. So divide forty-seven with seven.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That's seven.
Hari-śauri: Seven.
Jagadīśa: Almost seven.
Hari-śauri: You want to do like seven verses a day?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
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.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: For example, in the Fourth Chapter Lord Kṛṣṇa says,
- evaṁ paramparā-prāptam
- imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ
- sa kāleneha mahatā
- yogo naṣṭaḥ parantapa
- (BG 4.2)
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa says that this Bhagavad-gītā has to be received by the disciplic succession. And sa kālena yogo naṣṭaḥ parantapa. Because that disciplic succession is now broken, that yoga system is now lost. So all these interpreters, they are interpreting in their own way. Therefore it is lost. So there is no use of consulting this lost version.
Dr. Patel: (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: When Vivekananda came back from foreign tours, he brought three women and one woman was intimately connected with him.
Dr. Patel: (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: You, you have seen yourself. Why there was no men in America? He came back...
Dr. Patel: I think he was a brahmacārī throughout.
Prabhupāda: You do not know. There is an old man... Some old woman, he said about he's connected.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Hari-śauri: Red Square?
Prabhupāda: Red Square. No, I mean to say what is that called when they go to see specially something? Foreign Mecca(?).
Hari-śauri: Sightseeing.
Prabhupāda: That, no. Sightseeing. So anyway, they took us to a house.
Hari-śauri: Oh, you went on a sightseeing tour.
Prabhupāda: Ah, yes, that "Here, respectable widows." In Russia, after being widow, they used to live along with other respectable widows. They would never marry. Widow house. Live with queens and other respectable ladies. This was...
Hari-śauri: Now I think about seven or eight marriages out of every ten in Russia end up in divorce.
Prabhupāda: Everywhere.
Gurudāsa: There's an unofficial rumor that Indira Gandhi's going to come. Speaking of politicians, I did some research on Tarun Kanti for the letter, and he's very preoccupied now, and Gargamuni Swami told me that he doesn't want to have anything to do with foreign funds.
Prabhupāda: Foreign funds.
Gurudāsa: In other words, that letter would say, "I would oversee this." On the other hand, there's a man from CARE who went to our camp and was very impressed with the food program. I thought we could get a letter from him, because Germany knows CARE and they don't know Tarun Kanti Gosh from the dobi.
Prabhupāda: No.
Prabhupāda: Or you can exchange. Whatever money you have received, you supply books.
Rāmeśvara: The government will insist on...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No. The government will insist that we get foreign exchange, and...
Prabhupāda: Anyway, if credit builds, you send less money.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I got a letter from Bali-mardana Mahārāja. He's ordered four thousand... Today I got a letter. He says... He's ordered the Bhāgavatams also. Four thousand copies of First Canto, Part Two, he ordered already. So this one is four thousand copies, Śrīla Prabhupāda...
Prabhupāda: This is Indian printed?
Prabhupāda: Why not?
Rāmeśvara: That way, because they cannot pronounce these names, Gopīparanadhana.
Prabhupāda: Fine, allow this.
Rāmeśvara: Then it seems like a foreign thing.
Prabhupāda: Oh yes, you can...
Rāmeśvara: So should we have both names?
Prabhupāda: Oh yes.
Rāmeśvara: Use both names.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Gargamuni: This Tarun Kanti Ghosh, he wears a ring, Sai Baba ring. He is wearing. We always make joke with him.
Prabhupāda: Acchā?
Gargamuni: "This is not Mahāprabhu. How you can wear this? This is foreign." So he laughs. We make joke with him, "Why you are wearing this ring? This is not in your custom to follow this..."
Prabhupāda: He is hodge-podge. But he has got love for Caitanya. That will save.
Gargamuni: He does.
Rāmeśvara: But this Maharishi, he is capturing American money but he is not using it to spread Indian culture.
Prabhupāda: Religious...(?)
Rāmeśvara: They're not interested in religion.
Gargamuni: But because our books are printed so nicely and coming from America, and they are seeing the foreign sādhus, oh, they become so, "Oh, yes, we must take." But actually they have no budget for any religious books.
Prabhupāda: That is good. The so-called religious books, they're presenting—all bogus hodge-podge. (laughter) Humbug imagination, that's all. There is no fact. Just like Ramakrishna Mission. What religion they have got? Anyone? This religion, that religion, Jainism, Sikhism, this "ism," no nothing. Simply bogus propaganda.
Gargamuni: All the libraries, they say, "We have too many religious books, too much religion."
Prabhupāda: No, then this Kartanai(?) can help.
Rāmeśvara: Yes. And their main interest is foreign exchange from the tourists. So if we offer them U.S. dollars to purchase the property, they may think, "Why should we waste our time developing when they will give us lakhs in U.S. dollars, and let them develop?"
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: So they may sell it to us on that basis.
Prabhupāda: Yes. We shall develop. (break)
Satsvarūpa: "Unsurpassed," this... Not just remembered, it will be unsurpassed.
Prabhupāda: And many foreign scholars also, they have. In France... In France one professor has said, "The..."
Satsvarūpa: Chenique?
Prabhupāda: "...Aurobindo and Dr. Radhakrishnan, they have compromised with the Western idea, but here is the real tradition of India." Actually that's a fact. All of them, they have tried to make a hodgepodge. And from the beginning my idea was I shall present as it is. That's all. Therefore I gave this name, "As It Is." Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, yāre dekha tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Why shall I manufacture idea? Present this as it is. All right. Let us do our duty. (devotees offer obeisances) (break) So at any cost, I am still dictating. I'll go on dictating so long I live. That's all. But this is very nice program, our farm program. practical. So if possible, Paramānanda may come and teach them.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Sometimes people ask whether I have seen anything very powerful in Śrīla Prabhupāda. I sometimes answer, saying that when Śrīla Prabhupāda came to the United States, all the foreign disciples, all the Americans, they all because of their social structure, eating all kinds of things, but they are all now pure Vaiṣṇavas. So it is the greatest wonder that one can expect. So they become very silent, just hearing the answer, seeing that there is something very powerful.
Prabhupāda: Yes. First of all they admitted in that Voice, that "We thought God is dead. Here Swamiji has brought." They admitted like that. (break) ...wife, she is also coming from very respectable family. Her father, grandfather all... Doctor had big...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Allahabad. Dr. Ghosh.
Prabhupāda: Past life means... As we are not this body, past life means there was another body; we have forgotten it. Just like at night we dream, "I have gone to some foreign place and talking with some foreigners and so on, so on." But in the morning that situation is changed and we forget everything. Again, at night we forget this body and we dream in another body. Every night we have experience that we forget this body. This is going on.
Translator: She says she's conscious of the relation, karmic relation, with a person that for last life she's having, and right now that person is also present with her in this life.
Prabhupāda: Past life?
Satsvarūpa: And we discussed the sannyāsa recommendations. No one who was recommended last year for sannyāsa was approved this year. During the year they did not prove well. No one is here for initiation. And for next year no recommendations were made. Then... One man... And I was accepted as editor in chief of Back to Godhead. The details of the editorial policies that I should follow, I can take in consultation from my other GBC Godbrothers. And further, in an attempt to set a uniform standard so that Back to Godhead is like scripture, I should function as editor for all Back to Godheads published in the various languages. In this I should work in cooperation with the co-editors and BBT trustees of the various foreign language BTGs. There may be various co-editors of those magazines, but I will be responsible to keep a uniform standard.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Gargamuni: ...from one very important Hindi scholar, and he is Dr. V. P. Singh, M.A. Hindi, M.A. Sanskrit, Ph.D. literature, and he's the senior professor and head of the department of Hindi, and Dean of Faculty of Arts of Benares Hindi University at Benares. So he writes about your Hindi Bhāgavatam, which has just come out: "It gives me great pleasure to review these publications of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Especially I am appreciating this Hindi edition of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, complete with original Sanskrit text, word-for-word synonyms, and a marvelously lucid Hindi translation. In addition, having read thorough portions of the purports, which in my opinion reflect the vast erudition of the genius of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, I am discovering an unequaled body of literature in terms of scholastic quality and devotional impact both. The real meaning of such bhakti literature can only be disclosed by one who is a truly devotee and a saint. The evidence of these qualities in Swami Bhaktivedanta are highly apparent because of his great dedication and success in spreading the message of the Bhāgavata all over the world, and creating thousands of foreign bhaktas who aptly deserve the title of Vaiṣṇava Brāhmaṇa, due to their strict practice, devotion and learning."
Prabhupāda: Ah, very good.
Prabhupāda: No. Sometimes there is nasty breezes coming.
Gargamuni: That still comes. Every morning at six o'clock we wait for that. Guru dāsa was thinking of writing letters to the municipality, signing it in foreign names, that "I am a tourist staying in a hotel, and this smell is coming. Something should be done." Because they should have a pipe back there instead of a river. One of those big round pipes.
Prabhupāda: They must doing something.
Gargamuni: The thunder showers have started in Bengal now. So it is not so hot when I was there.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Probably not to be identified easily.
Guest (1): Disguise.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It came in the papers that the government was giving contracts to his son's businesses, and he was taking commission and keeping them in foreign banks. And they were giving contracts to her son's businesses at a higher rate than the market. There was open tender, and even though his rates were higher, he was still getting the contracts. And he was getting 21% commission from these companies and keeping them abroad. So it just shows how corrupt these leaders are.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Thieves.
Guest (1): No, they have taken hundred crores of rupees from State Bank of India.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Sixty lakhs.
Guest (1): No, hundred crores in one day after election. Hundred crores of rupees taken from State Bank, and there is a big inquiry about that.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: After which, this election?
Guest (1): Yes, yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hundred crores!
Guest (1): Congress Party has taken out. State Bank, the biggest bank in India.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Withdrawn from the bank.
Guest (1): Yes.
Prabhupāda: How State Bank gave them?
Prabhupāda: Whatever that State Bank kept that money and gave that. So there is no fault of the State Bank. State Bank has no fault.
Guest (1): No, but they can't give so much money in one day to the party. Particularly after the election debacle. That money will go out of India and transfer into foreign funds. Because there are all brokers here. Suppose you have got hundred rupees. You can exchange pounds and get it in London. Anyone can do it. So this money was used for that purpose. If it was known that elections are lost and this money will not be utilized in India, they would not have given.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: America gave a lot of money to the Congress Party because Sanjay Gandhi was very friendly with America, with agent of many American companies.
Prabhupāda: America was against Indira?
Prabhupāda: Let me work with these foreigners, because you have taught Indian independence, and they are not coming. Therefore these foreign boys, they are helping me. So let them remain. What harm they are doing? Let them have permanent residence helping me. Their life, money, everything, why don't you allow me? Unnecessarily they have to go away and come again.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We are throwing five lakhs of rupees that could be well utilized every year.
Prabhupāda: We are not... We have no interest in politics. What interest do we have in this phantasmagoria? We are not so fools. And there are so many people, they are taking part in politics. Is this sane?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. It is quite a... It's about two weeks old. Somehow or other, Śrīla Prabhupāda, the mail is... This was sent to Hyderabad, this letter. So that accounts for it. "BBT Trustees' Meeting. 1) Yogeśvara dāsa was appointed the Los Angeles production manager for all international publications and will also act as assistant to the English production manager, Rādhā-vallabha." Yogeśvara dāsa was already in Los Angeles, and the various different foreign BBT's were com-plaining that they weren't getting the proper help from L.A. BBT.
Prabhupāda: He?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They were complaining that they weren't getting things timely. So Yogeśvara will handle all the international business of the L.A. BBT.
Prabhupāda: That's nice. He's very good.
Prabhupāda: No, not...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "14) All foreign language editions of BTG will include a section of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam."
Prabhupāda: Hm, that's nice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "15) Foreign temples will receive records for approximately 75 cents, while North American temples will pay one dollars. All profits made by the BBT for records will go to ISKCON Food Relief. Prices may increase if the costs rise. 16) Harikeśa Mahārāja will take responsibility to prepare the Māyāpur brochure. 17) The BBT Trustees for each division are responsible for setting priorities in each division." That means printing priorities. "18) The US BBT will experiment with importation of books from India as soon as..."
Prabhupāda: What happened to that book, Dialectic Spiritualism?
Mr. Rajda: Now, sir, daily he gets up at 3.30 a.m., does first of all his religious things, reading of Bhagavad-gītā and all this. And that goes on for two, three hours. Then, at seven, he comes out of his room after taking his bath. Then he meets particular...
Prabhupāda: And these foreign boys, they begin their, this Bhagavad-gītā practice from 3.30 to 9.30. They have no other business. You see. You have studied our, this Girirāja. The whole day he's doing. They're all on this. From morning, 3.30, till they are tired, 9.30, simply Bhagavad-gītā.
Mr. Rajda: Wonderful.
Prabhupāda: And we have got so many materials. If we discuss on this one line, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), it takes days to understand.
Mr. Rajda: Quite.
Prabhupāda: Now, if this is fact, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ and na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20), what we are doing for that? This is Bhagavad-gītā. Na jāyate na mriyate vā kadācin na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). So when my body is destroyed, I am going... (break) ...from door to door, selling the books and sending money. We are pushing on our mission in the way. I am not getting any help neither from the government, from the public. And the record is there in the Bank of America, how much foreign exchange I am bringing. Even in this feeble health also, I am working four hours at least, at night. And they are also helping me. So this is our individual attempt. Why not come here? If you are actually very serious student of Bhagavad-gītā, why don't you come, cooperate? And harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā manorathenāsati dhāvato... (SB 5.18.12). You cannot make public honest simply by legislation. That is not possible. Forget it. That is not possible.
Prabhupāda: Yes. What is that?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "To Ratansingh Rajda, Member of Parliament, Bombay. Dear Sri Rajda, We thank you very much for visiting us at Hare Krishna Land and for sympathetically hearing our divine master Śrīla Prabhupāda. His Divine Grace mentioned several difficulties which are impeding his great work, and you have been kind enough to promise to remove these obstacles. 1) Our men are regularly being asked to leave India. How can we manage such important projects when our men are forced to leave? Every year we have to send so many men away from India and then again we have to bring them back. For every man who comes and goes like this, we have to spend Rs. 10,000, and in this way we are wasting not less than Rs. five to six lakhs each year. Our men should be given permanent residence in India. The United States Government granted Śrīla Prabhupāda a permanent residency visa so that he could fulfill his mission in the USA. Similarly, Śrīla Prabhupāda's foreign disciples should be given permanent residency in India. Śrīla Prabhupāda requires at least one hundred men to remain in India, and he is prepared to bring Rs. ten lakhs, foreign exchange, per month just to maintain them. They will not have to seek employment, they are not interested in politics, and they will not touch one paisa locally for their maintenance. Rather, they will bring money.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Did you see that article yesterday?
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There's an article in the Times of India yesterday about foreign travel as a center to expand.(?)
Prabhupāda: There Hare Krishna movement is nice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, it says that "The Hare Krishna movement is responsible for promoting knowledge of India and India's culture abroad." I mean, it is farce, because according to this article, we have to now come up with seventy crores of rupees and spend seventy crores in three years. So we cannot come up with seventy crores of rupees. Neither anyone could build that quickly. I mean, it's a farce. How could anyone build a temple of that proportion, a planetarium of that size, in three years' time. I mean, anybody who knows about building will know. We can't even build this building in three years.
Prabhupāda: It will be fantastical. Therefore they, "It is going to meet the same fate." (pause) You do not know what is the temple will be? You do not know?
Prabhupāda: Little ABCD, and they are trying to challenge the laws of nature. Little learning dangerous. Alpa-vidyā bhayaṁ kare(?). Just like in our society. Some of them have got little Sanskrit—they have become scholar, Sanskrit scholar. They're reading only Sanskrit. Rascal cannot read anything, and they are wasting money, four hundred, five hundred, like that, "Sanskrit Department," dozen men. You were speaking. So I have stopped it. Unnecessary. I have talked with so many foreign Sanskrit scholars. They do not know anything. Still, they are passing as Sanskrit scholar.
Girirāja: This also you said many years ago.
Prabhupāda: Yes. I talked with one professor, Norman Brown or something like that. He does not know Sanskrit. He is in charge of the Sanskrit...
Prabhupāda: Now I am getting old, old age, not good health, so try to give me relief. Otherwise it is too much. Brain has to be taxed. But if my foreign(?) business is there, if you tax my brain in this way, that will be suffer. So try to give me relief from this managerial... (pause) Still I can hint like this. But where is the work going on?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, you have to just point it out to me like that.
Prabhupāda: There is no work. So dangerous.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually I told some people to meet me, so maybe I should... Regarding this. They may be waiting for me outside.
Prabhupāda: Go. (end)
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Three months. Utmost, six months. And we are losing five to six lakhs of rupees per year for this injustice. I have pointed out the government that "In America they give permanent residentship to so many Indians. I am also. I have got that blue card, formal residence in America. So why don't you give them permanent residence? They are my assistants." "No." This is our misfortune. I am preaching Indian culture all over the world, and I am bringing at least ten lakhs of rupees, foreign exchange, for my Indian activities, but there is no help from the government. This is our position.
Indian man (4): So now the government has changed.
Prabhupāda: But the machine is the same.
Prabhupāda: All right. Then you shall begin. Jaya. (break) Daily or alternately, (makes bleating sound:) "Myaaaḥ, myaaḥ." And there is religious process that the head should be eastern side and the throat should be cut up. And when the animal dies, bifurcate, cleanse it and the skin and everything... And they have got cāpāṭi. Government subsidizes. So they cook at home the meat, and in market they purchase a cāpāṭi according to the family, one big cāpāṭi, two cāpāṭi. That's all. Our men who has eaten that cāpāṭi, they say it is very nice, very soft and digesting. Huge deserted country, but some stock, some spots, water. There are trees. They raise the cattle there. Eighty percent of the land, all desert. Or ninety percent. No, eighty. Say seventy-five. And because they have got now money, they are having big, big buildings, foreign cars, roads in the air, developing. And they're importing at any cost. From Bombay the best mango they are importing at any cost.
Bhavānanda: Oh, yes. Oh, ready to jump.
Prabhupāda: Very strong management required and vigilant observation. (background whispering, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa and Bhavānanda) So you are foreign...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Beg your pardon?
Prabhupāda: You are foreign trained up. And you also idea how to protect our interest.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda, I'm always...
Prabhupāda: There is very great undercurrent.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I never trusted them much. I know those things. (background whispering, Bhavānanda)
Prabhupāda: Make it... (end)
Hari-śauri: It's increased since they did plainclothes distribution.
Prabhupāda: Encourages?
Hari-śauri: Yeah. The distribution has increased.
Prabhupāda: Then why don't you dress like European, half foreign dress and half hair? Who is that foreign and European and gentleman? What is the use of wig? Keep regular gentleman's hair. There is no need of saffron dress. If by ordinary dress you can sell more book, there is no need of saffron dress. So what is the time now?
Gargamuni: 9:30.
Bhavānanda: Kīrtana, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Prabhupāda: So whatever materials he wants, give him.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes, definitely.
Prabhupāda: He went to show into foreign language, foreign religion, Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Just see. (laughs) Standing order they give. (Hindi) This Indian culture, push on. Don't keep it lock up.
Surendra Kumar: Under your guidance...
Prabhupāda: Don't keep it lock up. Sarasvatī jñāna-khale yada sati. These words are there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata. (Hindi)
Surendra Kumar: Prabhupāda, this man, this literature he understands. He himself composes poetry in Urdu as well as in Hindi. And he likes that our Indian culture and our heritage must be spread all over.
Prabhupāda: "If required, you can inquire from the Minister of..."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Home.
Prabhupāda: No.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, Foreign Affairs.
Prabhupāda: Foreign Affairs, that "My position, it is in his hand now."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, by the time I write my letter, my name will be one of the people on the list, so it's a fact.
Prabhupāda: When he's going to submit?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He said in two weeks he'd be returning to his committee, so I'm thinking about four or five days, around five.
Prabhupāda: Mention this.
Mr. Myer: Our new prime minister is now very much appreciating the movement, especially about Prabhupāda. He may like to visit. He says he does not want these foreign industries. He wants people to have religious... And he is very big sannyāsī himself. That is why he is...
Prabhupāda: Who?
Mr. Myer: Morarji Desai. He is very much in favor of the movement that we are carrying on.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Mr. Myer: Because he himself is following the four principles very nicely for fifty years.
Prabhupāda: So why does he not do? Let him do it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Another help you can get is from the embassies. American Embassy has to give protection to its citizens. All foreign embassies have to give full protection. Actually that's a very good road to take, because if the foreign embassies put in complaints, then it becomes international thing. Then the Central Government will get very upset and direct the West Bengal Government to stop this from reoccuring "Because we are getting complaints from foreign governments now that we can't give protection to foreigners who are here in this country."
Prabhupāda: So give them the instruction.
Prabhupāda: Delhi.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Ah. The heading is "Eleven Krishna Devotees Held for Firing." "Five Indian and six foreign Vaiṣṇava devotees were arrested from Māyāpur maṭha of ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, in Nabadwip last night when shots fired from inside the celebrated temple injured fifteen persons, most of them milkmen. A double-barreled gun was seized from the maṭha, it is reported. Police pickets have been posted since there is considerable tension in the nearby villages. Among those arrested is Swami Bhavānanda, an American in charge of the maṭha. Some time ago he was forced to leave the country after the expiry of his visa, but he returned later. The incident occurred at about 5 p.m. on Friday.
Prabhupāda: Oh, directory
Mr. Myer: Whole things is done in one. I'll bring a copy when I come next time. It was done on very special paper made by Triveni Tissues in Calcutta. And whole thing is just so thin, and it covers everything, whatever, all Indian bases, all foreign embassies, banks, newspapers. (indistinct) Bombay this gentleman is. He's got a very big press. But he has a problem in managing it. So my brother is trying to give him some business. They have got very good facilities, offset. People don't believe such good printing can be done in India, five color, six color.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Your brother is a printer by trade? No.
Mr. Myer: He is publisher.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He's a publisher by trade.
Prabhupāda: Because the government is Communist.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Right. The newspapers are being told what to print. They're afraid to print anything else. But foreign press can print anything. And other press, Delhi press, Bombay press, they can print anything. This was dated the eleventh.
Prabhupāda: Government published this. The Statesman, therefore, has not given any description.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I didn't notice. Here's a little news clipping. It's probably the same. You probably have seen this already. This is from Indian Express. "Why Krishna Mandir Men Fired Salvo." By a... "An attack on the devotees and destruction of the premises of ISKCON Māyāpur Chandrodaya Mandir, West Bengal, led to the shooting incident, according to Mr. Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Dāsa, Secretary, Bombay center of the organization. Mr. Dāsa, in his statement issued on Monday, said the news from their sources in Bengal stated that on July 8th about fifty miscreants were found encroaching on our agricultural field and stealing our crops.
Prabhupāda: This report is already there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Next, then the next is: "Probe Urged Into Krishna Cultists. Chief Minister Jyoti Basu has urged the Central Government to investigate how some of the foreign Vaiṣṇavas of Māyāpur temple of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness who clashed with the villagers last weekend could return to India after extradition from the country." And he's against us. Naturally, he's a big Communist. "In his report on the incident to Home Minister Charan Singh, Mr. Basu has drawn the Center's attention to reports that these foreigners came back to India by obtaining new passports and visas. This aspect, he felt, should be inquired into." He's against us. "The US Consulate visited the āśrama and met some of the American Vaiṣṇavas. The Consulate has not lodged any complaint with the government about the Friday incident."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The only Hindu kingdom.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. They have got a sentiment of Hinduism. So with their cooperation, a little foreign exchange, you can establish a stronghold there. It will be a grat service. So how much foreign exchange will be required, minimum, to establish a stronghold there?
Prabhaviṣṇu: Actually they have a regulation that when foreigners come into the country they all have to change at least 150 dollars a month per person.
Prabhupāda: So that we can spare very easily.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How many men you want to go with you?
Prabhaviṣṇu: To begin with, about four or five devotees.
Prabhupāda: That's very encouraging.
Prabhaviṣṇu: Everywhere we went the people would...
Prabhupāda: The best thing is that in Bangladesh you get foreign exchange. You print books there. It think it is cheaper there. Never mind for the quality, but you'll get good number of books. The government will be pleased.
Prabhaviṣṇu: Yes. Then we can export the books also into West Bengal.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In this way organize these two places with the courage of an Englishman and the heart of a Bengali mother. And we should ventilate in the papers that this Indian investment of American money is not American money. It is my money. I have written books, laboring whole night. The American boys have cooperated with me by printing, by distributing, and the money was received by selling the books. So the books are mine. I have given to the society. So I have done business, regular, in foreign countries. I have earned money and spending the same money in my country. It is not American money. It is my money. I have done business. That's all. It is a credit for Indian son so to do such tremendous business and bring money for investing in his own country, from the national point of view... Why the...? The Americans are not claiming that this is their money.
Prabhupāda: What is use of sending?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just like supposing he sells a great quantity of literature.
Prabhupāda: Invest again!
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They may want him to continue bringing foreign exchange in. That's the point I'm making.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So to continue sending...
Prabhupāda: Make more capital by making profit out of.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But they may want him to continue sending foreign money in, not just...
Prabhupāda: Yes! Beginning will be foreign money.
Prabhupāda: Yes. If required, we shall send.
Prabhaviṣṇu: Yes, they want that. They want that. When they see foreigner, they just think how they can make some profit from them.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Foreign exchange.
Prabhaviṣṇu: Our lawyer told us that you can do anything in Bangladesh if you have money. You can accomplish anything.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We don't have any shortage of money.
Prabhupāda: Make plan how to do it. The money we shall send, we shall not take back. We shall invest.
Prabhupāda: No. Why? Kṛṣṇa has no scarcity of money. Aiśvaryasya samagrasya. Why there is question of scarcity? Make scheme. You are all intelligent. So with how much foreign exchange you'll begin in Bangladesh?
Prabhaviṣṇu: Well, at the moment, Pañca-ratna Prabhu has gone to Bangladesh, and he's investigating in great detail the cost of printing. So when he gives his report, then we'll have a clear idea.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What my idea was, Śrīla Prabhupāda, was this: If he can print in Bangladesh, not only he can print for his own needs in Bangladesh, he can print for West Bengal. And Jayapatākā, instead of... We can pay him in foreign exchange from America, and Jayapatākā can pay the money for the books to the construction fund, which would have been coming from America anyway. In that way it will be very nice accounting.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, all blessings of Kṛṣṇa upon them. They are doing very nice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says, "Bali-mardana was there years ago, and he seemed to be doing well. It is just that with all these countries, visa is a great problem. They demand always so much foreign exchange. Please let me know what I should do. I have also six other men who have to leave. If I go to the Far East, I could not take them all, just one or two. If possible, telegram as mail is slow. I have three weeks as of today. By 30th August I have to go. Please reply this letter immediately." So we'll tell him to go to the... "Yes, I need my own field, perhaps due to my obstinacy, as Your Divine Grace pointed out. I cannot seem to blend in someone else's field. I am really engaged here and very happy by your grace. You will be pleased to know that we have made another devotee. Shree Lanka is definitely a first-class field for preaching..."
Prabhupāda: So maintain the branch by local devotee.
Prabhupāda: I'll sit down. (now?)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You'll sit up? (break) Should I read it, Śrīla Prabhupāda? "The battle royale over the existence of God as creator of life pursued relentlessly by the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement and debunked with equal disbelief to match by the president of the Rationalist Association has fizzled out. Dr. Abraham Kovoor's long-standing challenge, backed with an offer of Rs. 100,000, to anyone who could provide proof of the divine creation of life was taken up by Haṁsadūta Swami of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. The Swami increased the offer made by Dr. Kovoor to one million rupees in foreign exchange if he could produce life—a mosquito or a mouse—from inert chemicals to prove his contention that life originated from chance biochemical combinations. The rationalist doctor has now put the ball in the Kṛṣṇa court. He counters the challenge, calling upon the God-believers to demonstrate before the public that God is the creator of life and to prove it with the creation of one." What a nonsense rascal. That's the whole article, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: We have reason.
Girirāja: Yes, we have reason. That is our choice. And the manager in Delhi already said that for our foreign remittances it would be much easier to bring it in Delhi.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Girirāja: So I think we could have an account at the main office in Delhi and the money can come first there, and that will make them satisfied. And since we have our office in Delhi, and since Delhi is the main city, it's more convenient for us to have our most things there. And then when we need it in Vṛndāvana it can be brought here. Manager of the Delhi branch asked us if we have a branch in Delhi. So when I said that we do, he said, "Then it will be more convenient for you to deal with the main branch."
Prabhupāda: So do it. Transfer.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, he's worse. I mean the whole group of them is worse. There's a whole clique of them. The real thing that was happening is that without the knowledge of the head office they were doing so many things here locally. When it became known to the head office, then the head office became very angry. I can now understand that they had a whole plan in mind. They had it very planned, what they were doing. The plan in my opinion was that they felt here is a sannyāsī, old sādhu, and he has many foreign disciples...
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They were planning, in my... I talked with Girirāja about this. They were thinking "Here is an old sannyāsī, Prabhupāda. He has many foreign disciples, he has money. Let us get the money in fixed deposit. Then if he should pass away, then somehow by trick the money will be kept here and we'll never let them take it out." That was their plan. Therefore whenever Prabhupāda suggested that Gurukṛpā would sign, co-sign, "No, no," they would never allow. Their plan is that Prabhupāda would pass away, and all the foreigners would be there, and they'd never let them take it. When I showed them this power of attorney, they had a great shock. They were shocked how this had happened to them. I think this was their plan. Very deceiving type of people. Because they are here in Vṛndāvana. All their money is from fixed deposits from āśramas. So they know how to do this business of keeping the money. Now everything is clear. The money is there in Delhi. The Delhi office is not like that. They're businesslike. And we can keep dealing them, but on regular accounts. None of these fixed deposits. Not now. They "Now you must gain their confidence again." We told them, "We have nothing against you. But you deal properly, then again we'll deposit. But deal properly in a businesslike way." We have nothing against them. Punjab Bank is a good bank. Anyway, it's settled now, Śrīla Prabhupāda. It's finished. I wanted you to know that it's been successfully completed due to Girirāja's good efforts. Girirāja went to Bombay. His parents went with him.
Prabhupāda: You said this Trivedi is worse than him?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I got a letter from the Home Minister's secretary, saying that they're considering it seriously, and he just asked me for some more information, And actually the answers to all the questions that they have asked are positive. In other words, they have asked questions like "For these foreign students, will ISKCON pay for their boarding and lodging? How many years' course is it?" So it appears... I'm going to see them again next week. We may get our permanent residency visas. This is the first positive sign.
Prabhupāda: They have made some inquiry.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. I met the Home Minister two months ago, and I gave him an application. So I've just received a reply.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I mean there are other points also. Whether they'll have a wheelchair that can be wheeled through an aisle in an airplane? See, on the train we can carry you quite easily. Plane traveling just becomes a very... It's a sophisticated situation. And I don't want to take you in a stretcher in a plane. I don't like that idea. I don't think it's nice in any way, you know. It's all right if we take you in a wheelchair, and then you can sit down and lay down in the seat. That's no problem. But how to get through the aisle? You remember when we went to London you had to walk. They say they have... Foreign airlines say... I remember they used to say they had some wheelchairs.
Upendra: It's not exactly a wheelchair. It's a little tiny seat that they strap down.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah. Who knows that they'll have it? What's the guarantee? He can't walk. You want to go by plane? Because it's two hours? That's a big advantage. (Prabhupāda coughing) Do you want a little miśri-jala, Śrīla Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: So that bus, they have stopped?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: ...printing books and exporting these books, and this way we're earning so much foreign exchange for the Indian economy. They liked it.
Prabhupāda: Did you show them the invoice of what book already we have got?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I told him the amount. I told him this year we have orders for Rs. twenty-five lakhs, and I said, "This is just the first year, and worldwide we print over eight crores. So this is just the beginning." So they liked it. And I also gave him the Hindi Bhāgavatam like you had told me. And he turned out... This man who is handling our case is a Marwari, Mr. Pandy. So Marwaris are very pious. They're better than these others. So he liked the Hindi Bhāgavatam very much. So I gave him the Hindi Bhāgavatam and the English. (break)
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That was our biggest problem. The president of India is presently in Hyderabad, so Mahāṁśa Mahārāja was in Delhi, and we have a life member, Panilal Peddy in Hyderabad, Polareddy, who knows the President very well. So I asked Mahāṁśa Mahārāja to go with Polareddy to the President to see if he will come to Bombay to inaugurate our temple. Also we are thinking of inviting some foreign ministers of countries like Nepal, which is a Hindu kingdom, and Mauritius. Because if these foreign ministers or some minister from these countries come, then it will lend more credit, and we'll get better coverage.
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.
Prabhupāda: Bhaktivedanta Institute is doing something scientifically to understand God consciousness. That is proof. And it is well advertised. And we shall go on proceeding like that more and more. So many scientists, foreign and local, they participated, discussed. It is not ordinary thing. Hm?
Guest (2): Jaya.
Prabhupāda: The importance of Bhaktivedanta Institute is there, not that theory molecule. Come on. We are challenging. Discuss like scientist, not like sentimentalists.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda? It seems like we should... Next time we have a conference here, it should be done in the proper hall.
Prabhupāda: Yes, we have got enough place.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...book sales and sells twelve to fifteen thousand rupees a month. It's very nice to see these foreign people coming to Vṛndāvana, having read your books, coming here. It's like a perfect fulfillment of your books. They're so much impressed with the subject matter that they want to see this Vṛndāvana. Especially they have read Kṛṣṇa book. To them Vṛndāvana is like a magical world.
Prabhupāda: Hindi book is selling nice.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Hm-hm. He said so.
Prabhupāda: Four hundred, five hundred—no joke.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, no joke. That Bengali Back to Godhead is very good also. This one has come out very nice, the layout and everything. It's very good.
Prabhupāda: He writes nice.
Akṣayānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda, this morning, in the Bhāgavata class, we read a verse how Bali Mahārāja had been awarded all material opulences by the Lord—because of his devotion, not because of his puṇya. So I gave lecture to the devotees—in the same way Your Divine Grace, because of your devotion and preaching, Kṛṣṇa has given you every facility for propagating the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, and although there are other nice movements in India, actually they should all join you. They should all surrender to you. We want that everyone should actually join us at your lotus feet because you have actually been given all śakti by Lord Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa-śakti vinā nahe tāra pravartana. So I told the devotees like this. "Do not be misled by others, even though they may be appearing to do nice work." Actually you are the only one who is really distributing the message of Lord Kṛṣṇa. This is very obvious by the result. These others have not made even one foreign disciple. And if they did make one, he could not give up smoking, drinking and this and that. So there is no benefit whatsoever. Any intelligent person can see. Plus you have given us so much nectar. Prahlāda Mahārāja says mahāmṛta. I always think of that verse. You have given us so much nectar to absorb our minds in. There is really no chance that we will be influenced by these dry personalities.
Prabhupāda: Now you take up seriously and distribute. (aside:) It has finished.
Upendra: Twenty-five.
Prabhupāda: Only?
Jayapatākā: Hindu, Muslim?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Anyone. Any of these groups that have foreign people in it now will be allowed to stay. It's a general decision. It wasn't...
Jayapatākā: Not of ISKCON.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. Śrīla Prabhupāda, would you like to take rest now?
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. They must be tired. They traveled all night long. The kavirāja didn't sleep at all, I heard. Is that true, Jayapatākā?
Jayapatākā: Yes. The flight was three hours delayed. Three hours he was sitting, and he didn't leave Calcutta... 8:00 flight left at 10:30, 11:00, and arrived in Delhi 1:00. Then it took to 5:00 to get here, so he's quite tired.
Prabhupāda: It did not start on time.
| Page Title: | Foreign (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 22 of Jun, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=154, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 154 |