Prabhupāda: There is a story that a grocer's son was doing business, and when he was given a five-rupees' note, so he was giving four rupees. So the customer said, "Why you are giving me four rupees?" "No, I do not know what is the exchange." "No, it is six rupees." So "No, father will be angry." (laughter) Means he knows perfectly well what is five rupees, but he is innocent when he was giving four rupees. And when the customer wanted six rupees, he, "No, my father will be angry." (break) ...created a havoc by misinterpreting Bhagavad-gītā, all people. According to their wish, "Five-rupees note means four rupees," by imagination. They have created havoc all over the world. Otherwise everything is there. Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhāḥ (BG 9.11). If we take Kṛṣṇa's instruction, then whole world becomes immediately happy. But they will not take it. They will manufacture their own, two plus two equal to five or three, not exactly the four.
Rupees (Conversations 1976)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: So what kind of committee?
Mahāṁsa: But that also is a farce, because they spent thirteen lakhs of rupees for construction of a temple in New York.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: New York.
Mahāṁsa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So New York, we have got so many temples. Let them here.
Mahāṁsa: They know. Anna(?) Rao, who is chairman.... (break)
Prabhupāda: ...temples (indistinct) foreign countries, then let them (indistinct) We shall.... How?
Mahāṁsa: They are very political. They want to take charge of everything that they give money for.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Mahāṁsa: They want to take charge of everything that they give money for. Just like these temples which they have in New York, they will be in charge of them. They are the pūjārīs and things...
Prabhupāda: That means they are constructing their own temple.
Acyutānanda: They'll give you a prize, and the person who brings someone, he will get twenty-five rupees. And the doctor, after a month he gets a bonus.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Now the government is thinking of having a policy by which if a person has more than two children he will not be promoted, he will not get raises—to discourage.
Acyutānanda: The Mohammedan community has refused, and Christian. So they feel...
Prabhupāda: So why not Hindus?
Acyutānanda: Hindus are doing. So they feel in a few generations the Mohammedan, Christian community will outnumber the Hindu.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that their plan?
Acyutānanda: Yes. Even to the point that Purī Śaṅkarācārya printed a book how everyone should have five children; all Hindus should have as many children as they want.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...authorities, do they believe in Bhagavad-gītā? Huh?
Indian man (1): Yes. Every day there you'll find Bhagavad-gītā.
Prabhupāda: Then why they are going against Bhagavad-gītā?
Prabhupāda: They'll never give us.
Jayapatāka: They're willing to give; they just want a higher price.
Prabhupāda: What is the use?
Jayapatāka: (break) He wants six thousand rupees. (Prabhupāda laughs) He has got three and a half bigas, about twenty thousand rupees...
Prabhupāda: We don't want it. (break)
Jayapatāka: This is about four feet. It used to be ten feet high. This used to be ten feet high. (break) ...the top during the monsoon. But according to the Ganges level the water is going up and down.
Prabhupāda: Now what is the depth?
Jayapatāka: It's about twelve feet now.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. (break) This is not our land?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Jayapatāka: To make karatālas... To make mṛdaṅgas doesn't require much capital, but to make karatālas requires a lot of capital because the metal is very expensive.
Prabhupāda: We shall invest. If we get good manufacturer, we shall invest. What is the capital wanted?
Jayapatāka: About four, five thousand rupees.
Prabhupāda: Oh, we shall invest.
Jayapatāka: The gurukula is living on this side. And they're having classes in this original house. (break) (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Bidi.
Jayapatāka: Many people want to open up a shop. They'll pay for the...
Prabhupāda: (break) ...tulasī...
Jayapatāka: Our land.
Prabhupāda: So why not employ one man to manfacture tulasī beads? Yes. There are many experts.
Prabhupāda: What do we pay?
Jayapatāka: Bed, the small bed, about twenty-five, thirty rupees.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Jayapatāka: And the bigger ones, a full man size, about forty-five.
Prabhupāda: Very good. It is nice.
Jayapatāka: That's solid wood with mingo(?) top or turta(?) top.
Bhavānanda: (break) ...stay here.
Prabhupāda: How many boys to stay in one room?
Bhavānanda: Two boys to three boys, depending on their size. Little ones, three and four, and the bigger boys, ten, twelve years old, two.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...rooms.
Prabhupāda: Why you are spoiling space by making these arches? You could have used the whole place.
Jayapatāka: Having the arches, when they're all painted it will be very attractive.
Prabhupāda: (break) ...attractive, it is going to be very expensive.
Jayapatāka: Each arch cost only fifteen rupees.
Prabhupāda: All right. (break) ...will be written on the arches?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You can see down there how they have done.
Jayapatāka: They're putting a very nice stone. Rose quartz.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that.... The stones and everything cost fifteen rupees?
Jayapatāka: Well...
Prabhupāda: (break) Vandalism, no? Then what is to be done? (break) ...big doors, why it is open? This should be open when car is going. Otherwise not.
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Jayapatāka: We should give the... We have two life members there. I've done this before. Give the price for one lakh of bricks in advance and we get twenty rupees off. That way they'll give you the full supply. So in one month we can get all the bricks.
Prabhupāda: So why they want advance?
Jayapatāka: Because then they get the twenty rupees off.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Per thousand?
Jayapatāka: They want advance because they have so many expenses for labors and they just started producing. It's helps them.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Twenty rupees per thousand?
Jayapatāka: That means over two and a half thousand you save five thousand rupees.
Prabhupāda: So we have to advance two and a half thousand?
Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Five minutes. (break)
Jayapatāka: ...festival devotees will pay one rupee.
Prabhupāda: Huh? Oh.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Such a short walk.
Prabhupāda: Why? They should come by walking.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Actually, unless someone is carrying something heavy or is invalid, they shouldn't ride.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Thank you. (Gurukula kīrtana party, chanting, meets Prabhupāda)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...like they are doing in so many other places?
Prabhupāda: You spend it.
Jayapatāka: Just like the Tirupati temple. They have got crores and crores of rupees in the bank, so government has borrowed twenty crores of rupees for improving the worship (?) If we spend the money as soon as it's made, then they won't take.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the point.
Prabhupāda: No.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The reason the government...
Prabhupāda: That is... That was the purpose of my Trust making: fifty percent immediately spent for printing, fifty percent building—no money.
Jayapatāka: In big letters here.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And there are so many places. Yes. First of all you place this and the other. We can give the upadeśa of Prabhupāda. I'll give you matter for writing. So writing, that charges should be reduced. One...
Jayapatāka: Yesterday Caitya-guru, the man he brought from Calcutta, he only wanted one rupee, seventy-five paisa.
Prabhupāda: For painting. And for writing that should be...
Jayapatāka: Writing, maybe one twenty-five.
Prabhupāda: No. One. One. Make it one.
Jayapatāka: One rupee.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Which way we shall go?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This way. We haven't gone walking this way.
Prabhupāda: So where you are going to give that shade upon?
Prabhupāda: Yes, there will be income.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: ...will be a huge income. I'm certain thousands of people will come daily just to ride that escalator. (laughter) Because even now a few hundred or more, five hundred to a thousand people come every day just for darśana. So these will all pay a rupee. And if this building is there, that will be ten times the number of people. It'll be a gigantic income.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (Bengali) (break) ...Mādhava Mahārāja's sisya? No.
Bhavānanda: Mādhava Mahārāja?
Jayapatāka: Gosvāmī. He used to be in charge of the agriculture.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Indian man: He is bringing a same person.
Prabhupāda: No, no, that's all right. But why should we pay him more, the Krishnanagar. He wants that one...
Bhavānanda: Three.
Prabhupāda: One rupee, eight annas, three. Why should I pay? Then? If he..., you pay him three rupees, then they will also charge more.
Indian man: Actually he told me.... He said, "Our rates are very higher in Krishnanagar. Don't tell anybody that we are charging three rupees.
Bhavānanda: But we're not going to hire him. (laughter)
Indian man: No, we are not going to hire.
Prabhupāda: No, no, no. We cannot pay.
Indian man: It's almost double.
Prabhupāda: Everyone is trying to exploit you. They freely say, the rickshawalla, that they will charge five hundred rupees per bīghā to others and they will charge four thousand rupees to you. This is going on. Don't allow them to paint unless the rate is settled.
Prabhupāda: Everyone is trying to exploit you. They freely say, the rickshawalla, that they will charge five hundred rupees per bīghā to others and they will charge four thousand rupees to you. This is going on. Don't allow them to paint unless the rate is settled.
Bhavānanda: We had one day guard on our front gate last week. He worked for three days. His monthly salary was forty rupees plus his meals. So after he was here for three days the rickshawallas, they said, "Why you are working for them for so little money? They are so wealthy." And he left.
Prabhupāda: Who is supervising this department?
Bhavānanda: Tapomaya.
Prabhupāda: Where is Tapomaya? (Bengali)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This is all our, for our sugarcane?
Tapomāyā: Another two.... (break)
Prabhupāda: So we shall pay reasonable price for all the lands.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't think the price will be more than eight hundred rupees.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They will take statistics for ten years and make an average. That is the way. (Bengali) (break) ...scheme requires very huge land. So if we purchase in that way they will go on charging more and more.
Prabhupāda: So it can be purchased...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Cost, they say.... It costs today.... A 16 millimeter projector with sound is about ten thousand rupees, new. I have a projector in America but I don't know.... I'm going to bring it, anyway, but it's not at all new. I'm not even sure...
Prabhupāda: So why new? Old is no useful?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Frankly I don't know if the projector.... This projector was donated by someone and we have no purpose for it. That's why I don't know about it's condition. I keep it in the bus.
Prabhupāda: So let who is coming, let him bring it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. They'll be coming in about a month from now. I'm not at all sure of the condition of it. In America things like that are.... A very old one, it's probably about fifteen years old. One boy joined us and donated it. We couldn't even sell it. In America things like that, if they're used, once they are used, sufficiently used, no one will purchase.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: And these ingredients are supplied by Jagannātha's own field. They grow it, and they... So there is no difficulty. They grow and they sell. They get money so they can maintain the establishment. A long time. There are potters. Daily they will supply for each prasādam a new pot. It cannot be used again. So few people purchase with pot, original pot, and they have got a fixed price. This big pot, say, five rupees; this pot, two rupees; this pot, one rupee. So as you like, you can purchase. Very nice system.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You said that when you were very young you always used to calculate what was the cost of a ticket to Purī.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Every day I was seeing how to go to Jagannātha Purī and how to go to Vṛndāvana. At that time a fare was, for Vṛndāvana, four or five rupees, and similarly for Jagannātha Purī. So I was thinking, "When I shall go?" That's all. I took first opportunity to go to Jagannātha Purī after my examination, and in business connection when I went to Agra, then I first of all took the opportunity to go to Vṛndāvana from Agra. This was in 1925, and I visited Jagannātha Purī sometime in 1920. And '25 I went to Vṛndāvana. I remember, in those days I was sitting within the car, and there was some prasādam. One monkey entered and took away everything.
Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Why they look inquisitive? No commentary. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) Cent percent cheater beginning from the top. They have lost their own culture, Vedic civilization, and they are not competent to earn properly. They must be cheater. Beg, borrow, steal. They have lost their own culture; therefore they have no one honest. Formerly Indians were so honest that after one man's death, his son comes... Even we have seen it in childhood. "Sir, my father took from you the five thousand rupees. So now he is dead, so I have come to pay you." So he says, "I never seen my account that your father has taken five thousand rupees from me. I cannot take it." This is India. One man is offering him five thousand, that "We are debtor to you. Please take it." And he says, "No, I don't find in my account that your father took five thousand. I cannot take it." And now they are cheating. This is India's position. Even in our childhood I have see that Mr. C. R. Das, his father died insolvent some lakhs of rupees. So when he became a big barrister he called every one of them that "My father died insolvent. Now I have got money. You take it." This was India. And now they have become cheaters. This is svarāj, independence. Even in British times there was C. R. Das who liquidated the debts of his insolvent father. "My father died insolvent. He could not pay, so he declared insolvency in the court. Now I have got money. You take it." This was India.
Prabhupāda: But why? Because they have no eyes. Has Satya Sai Baba so many properties all over the world? He is creating gold but has he got so many properties? One property like this? Huh? I started this business with forty rupees; now it is forty crores. Has this rascal has any property like this? (laughter)
Jayapatākā: He is producing ashes. (laughter)
Bhavānanda: Just like Yogi Bhajan came, remember Śrīla Prabhupāda, in Berkeley, and he said, "I am simply here to try and understand how you are doing so greatly, how you are opening so many temples." He said, "I have simply come to try and understand that point, to learn your secret."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But his idea is that he will then sit and enjoy all of those things.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Nowadays all these yogis and swamis are going. Even that blind saintly person...
Hari-śauri: Gange...
Prabhupāda: Gangesvarananda. He also went. But coming back, he is disappointed. Nobody took care of him. Although in India he is known as a great saintly person. They have no asset. They have no Kṛṣṇa; therefore they are beggars. Yaṁ labdhvā cāparaṁ lābhaṁ manyate nādhikaṁ tataḥ. If one gets Kṛṣṇa, then he gets everything.
Prabhupāda: He cannot complain. There is money; there is men; now you have to complete. You cannot say, "For this purpose, it..." No. (break) ...Mādhava Mahārāja, you can say that "Have you seen ever twenty thousand at a time?" And I am bringing daily twenty thousand. Twenty thousand dollars. Not money..., rupees, but dollars. "Have you seen twenty thousand dollars at a time?" (break) Detroit temple, you know? Jagadīśa? Are you going to negotiate.
Jagadīśa: Where is this?
Prabhupāda: Detroit, the temple.
Jagadīśa: Oh, yes, Detroit temple, yes.
Prabhupāda: And he was asking 350,000. So I told, "All right, you take cash, 300,000," and he immediately accepted, though I had not three paisa even in the bank. So immediately... The girl has paid?
Jagadīśa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, greater than you, you admit it, demigods or God or anything. But why you are thinking yourself so big? That is your fault. That is foolishness. I am a big man amongst a small, tiny living entities. But why you are thinking you are biggest of all, you can understand everything? That is your fault. This is the folly of the conditioned soul. He is nothing. He has no value. Still, he is thinking he is very great. Everything is big and small relatively. Just like here if one man has got 100,000 rupees, he's a big man. But what is 100,000 rupees in America? Nothing.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: One year's salary for an average man.
Hṛdayānanda: A worker.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Lakhpati. Here they call, lakhpati. Lakhpati means owner of 100,000 rupees.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Lakhpati.
Prabhupāda: So what is this lakhpati there?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This fog appears just like an ocean, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Boy, Prabhupāda, the people will pay... Everyone will pay a rupee to go in and see that. One rupee for that, one rupee to ride the escalator.
Prabhupāda: And there will be escalator to take them to different planetary system. Mention there.
Bhavānanda: My father... In those planetariums, they use a machine in the center that shoots out light. My father helped to invent that, so we could probably...
Prabhupāda: So bring your father. Father and son, both together. He is... Where he is?
Bhavānanda: In America.
Prabhupāda: So call him. He'll not come?
Bhavānanda: I don't think so, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Demon?
Bhavānanda: No, no. He reads your Bhagavad-gītā every night.
Prabhupāda: Then? Then why he'll not come?
Bhavānanda: I think he's too much attached to my mother.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Your mother is not old enough? What is the age of your mother?
Bhavānanda: Sixty-eight.
Prabhupāda: Strong-hearted. They made a, what is called, conspiracy to kill him.
Hṛdayānanda: Who did this?
Prabhupāda: Oh, the Navadvīpa gosvāmīs. They raised 25,000 rupees and wanted to bribe this police officer that "You take this money. We shall finish him. Don't take any action."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But the policeman said?
Prabhupāda: Refused. "Yes, we take bribe, but not in such cases."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Why?
Prabhupāda: "He's a saintly person. We cannot agree to that." Everyone knows police takes bribe. They admit, "Yes, we take bribe, but not in such cases." This was told by Guru Mahārāja, Bhaktisi..., to me. He was talking many things confidential.
Prabhupāda: He was in, several times in embarrassment. One friend in Delhi, Mr. Gupta, he told many things about him. He was patronizing him. In those days, when he was not very rich, he had, he gave him 25,000 rupees, that Mr. Gupta. (break) Ācchā?
Acyutānanda: I felt uncomfortable. He was clicking his teeth and moving his hands and talking very quickly. It was very uncomfortable just to be in his presence. I was very nervous. He actually contradicted himself. I was saying we should be respected in all Hindu temples. He says, "Yes, you are Hindus." He says, "Jains and Buddhists, they are also Hindus." I said, "How is that?" He says, "Who is Buddha?" I said, "He is incarnation of Kṛṣṇa." He says, "No, aside from that, he is the son of a kṣatriya." I said, "Then you are bringing it back to birth again." And then he started groping for words and avoiding it. They want to make a unity of Hindus so that they can always sway elections, so that Mohammedan and Christians do not change the election.
Prabhupāda: And we want to make Mohammedans Hindus.
Prabhupāda: What price you are selling?
Yaśodānandana: Twelve rupees.
Acyutānanda: Twelve rupees.
Prabhupāda: Twelve rupees. So you can sell, ten rupees, eight rupees.
Acyutānanda: Now the one, when...
Prabhupāda: Still, you keep profit, two, three rupees.
Yaśodānandana: Oh, yes, always. We always make sure of that.
Acyutānanda: When the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, small size, came, something happened, but it cost us from the BBT... How much does the Teachings of Lord Caitanya cost us?
Yaśodānandana: That's very expensive.
Acyutānanda: It's very expensive.
Yaśodānandana: That's about twenty-two rupees that we have to pay, and we cannot resell it for twenty-eight rupees.
Prabhupāda: No, no, no...
Acyutānanda: Twenty-two rupees, we shall pay.
Prabhupāda: We shall print. It will cost not more than ten to twelve rupees.
Guru-kṛpā: Śrīla Prabhupāda, it mentions in The Nectar of Devotion that in the viddhi-mārga there are many things we don't want to do but we must do in order to make advancement.
Prabhupāda: No, that is also modern government, democracy. I do not want to do something, but the Parliament pass the laws. We have to do, even I do not like. That is discipline. Just like C. R. Das. C. R. Das was one of the prominent member of Indian Congress. So he was earning in those days, fifty years ago, fifty thousand rupees per month. It is twenty times now increased. Fifty years before he was...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nowadays ten lakhs per month.
Prabhupāda: At least five lakhs he was earning. So the Congress resolution was that "noncooperation," so "Boycott British court. We are not going on." So resolution that everyone should give up practice of law in the British court. Resolution. So C. R. Das did not like that idea. He said that "I am earning fifty thousand. I can give the whole amount for Congress propaganda. Why you are asking me to give up this practice?" So the resolution was, "No, we should noncooperate. We don't want money. We should noncooperate." So when... He fought in the meeting that "This should be withdrawn." So it was not withdrawn. Then he resigned. Then he resigned. He became practically poverty-stricken, because he was earning fifty thousand rupees per month, and he had no practice, and he was not keeping any money in the bank. When he resigned, then some of his friend, Muhammad Ali... He was also one of the prominent members. He asked, "Mr. Das, what is your bank balance?" So he replied, "I do not know what is my bank balance, but I know I am debtor to the bank by two lakhs." The bank was giving him credit, so this was his position.
Prabhupāda: ...and these are.... You are being plundered. They are very expert in the plunder. But I thought, "Some Indians will help. He is also 'big belly,' you. It is simply in my eyes. I am the only fool." I criticize like that. Just see how much money they have taken. One day, they are charging ten rupees, and fifty men working, so all spoiled. This is going on all over. Baro baro baṅgole baro baro peṭ, lanka dingate mata kara het. (?) Hm? (break) (Bengali) He did not take the cart?
Jayapatāka: I took a jeep also.
Prabhupāda: No, no.
Jayapatāka: The card. I got your passbook and deposit book.
Prabhupāda: Baro baro pet. How you are being looted. Just see. Farce. They are making farce and taking money.
Prabhupāda: He has got ten lakhs of rupees because he collects the bribe from others and pay to the police. Everyone knows. There was one Mullik, now, on that Mahātmā Gandhi Road. His business was that. He was collecting. That quarter, our quarter, was full of pocket, pickpockets, guṇḍās. Pickpockets, gundas, in our childhood they were our neighborhood. (laughs) I remember when I was child I was coming, and the pickpocket was pickpocketing, and he was... He was doing like that: "Don't speak. Don't talk." I have seen all this. And whenever there was any riot, so we were accustomed to see everything. When there was Hindu-Muslim riot, one boyfriend told me, "Oh, don't go to your house. It is... A great riot is..." I thought, "Riot is going on daily." It was the same thing. (break) ...quarter. Induriya prakāra(?)
Prabhupāda: What is that enjoyment? Is that enjoyment? They are working so hard for ten rupees. Is that enjoyment? The enjoyment is "the future, future." "At night I shall go to my wife and enjoy"—that is enjoyment. But for that enjoyment he is working so hard. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham (SB 7.9.45). Everyone is thinking, "I shall enjoy at night," and working hard. That's all. This is enjoyment.
Pañca-draviḍa: "But why do you blame us for not surrendering when we see that even Kṛṣṇa's devotees can't surrender to Him? They come to us and ask us for money for these books. Why don't they give them away?"
Prabhupāda: But Kṛṣṇa's devotee.... When he surrenders, he is devotee. When he does not, he is not devotee; he is trying to become devotee.
Pañca-draviḍa: "But why do they ask us for money for these books? Why don't they give them away, if they're so surrendered to Kṛṣṇa?"
Prabhupāda: Why shall I give you? Why shall I give you?
Prabhupāda: Everywhere, they.... So, so they're standing—no customer at two o'clock. It is very cold. So Vidyasagara will take compassion: "All right, you take two rupees. Go home. Sleep." And that is in Vidyasagara's life, compassionate to the prostitute. By giving her two rupees, will she change her profession? But this learned man, he thought like that, that "She is standing in the severe cold. All right, let me.... Let me.... Let me give her two rupees. Then go home. Don't take so much..." He's Vidyasagara. The vidyā-sāgara means "ocean of education." And Haridāsa Ṭhākura—a prostitute came for three nights and converted her to a devotee. That's it. That is real compassion, not that "Take two rupees and go home." No. Turn her. That is real compassion, to turn everyone to become Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is the greatest welfare activity in the world. Otherwise there cannot be any peace or prosperity. Where is Tamāla Kṛṣṇa?
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Śrīla Prabhupāda, he had a cold, and he's lying down.
Prabhupāda: And that is the inspiration of my devotional life. Then I asked my father that "Give me Rādhā-Govinda Deity; I shall worship." So my father was also Vaiṣṇava. He gave me small Rādhā-Govinda Deity. I was worshiping in my house. Whatever I was eating, I was offering, and I was following the ceremonies of this Rādhā-Govinda with my small Deity. That Deity is still existing. I have given to my sister. So then I introduced Ratha-yātrā. So I.... My Ratha-yātrā was being performed very gloriously. My father used to spend money. In those days ten rupees, twenty rupees was sufficient. I hired one kīrtana party and a small friends, they..., I think the brother of the present generation, and there was another De family here, so we performed this Ratha-yātrā ceremony. According to our children's imagination, it was very gorgeous. So I think our present Manmohan.... His name is? Gabhur Bhavana? (Bengali) Gopishvara Mullik. That Gopishvara Mullik was my father's friend. So he was criticizing my father that "You are performing Ratha-yātrā ceremony and you are not inviting us." So my father said, "That is children's play.
Prabhupāda: From our house to this Thakurbari, Rādhā-Govinda's house, coming and going with procession of children and khola, karatāla and everything. Prasādam distribution, everything was there. My father used to encourage. And in those days if my father would spend twenty-five rupees, it was a great festival. Why not? In those days, fifty, sixty years ago, the money value was at least twenty times. So if my father was spending at that time twenty rupees, now it is at least four hundred rupees. So for a children's play four hundred rupees is not a small amount.
Abhirāma: At least fifty dollars in American.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So my father used to pay.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: You hired a saṅkīrtana party?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Only two rupees. That's all.
Reporter (8): They don't have any fixed income.
Prabhupāda: No. None of us have any fixed income, but we are traveling all over the world, New York, London, Calcutta. It is just like going from this quarter to that quarter. Our men are moving like that. Immediately coming, one dozen men from Germany, one dozen from London, and immediately going. We are paying so much money to the airplanes, and we have got so many centers. So how it is going on? On Kṛṣṇa's grace. We depend on Kṛṣṇa. Our income, daily collection, is not less than one lakh of rupees, and we are spending everything.
Prabhupāda: Money. Such a nice tank is vacant.
Indian: I remember my young days. People, young boys, they used to come swim here.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Just see. So you may pay them, say, 150, 200 rupees each. Then it will be all maintained, and that much money you can spend.
Indian: And if it's nicely maintained, possibility you can get some return out of it.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That way we shall get fruits and flowers.
Jayādvaita: I was seeing yesterday in Rādhā-Dāmodara Mandira that nothing is nicely maintained except for your rooms.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Rādhā-Dāmodara temple (Hindi).
Indian: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) So give him two rupees, eight annas. (Hindi)
Guru dāsa: Bargain.
Prabhupāda: My father used to do that. He'd go to a vegetable vendor. He has got a big basket, and he'll say, "What do you want for all, the whole basket." So he is ready because he'll sit down so long, so at very cheap rate he'll give it. And it was not required in the family so much. My mother became very angry, that "You are bringing so many, so much vegetable, it is being spoiled." But he would purchase like that. If you give him in those days fifty rupees to go to the market, he will spend all the money and bring at home. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (Hindi) We are prepared to spend. (break) ...from saintly person.
Indian (1): Now Mahārājajī has told you the story about the Kuvera of the old days. I will tell you the story of the Kuveras of the today. That is us. In fact, it was in a paper. There was a cartoon. A bank manager, means today's Kuvera, was sitting in an office, and he received a call, such and such big Dalmiya or Birla, "We want two lakhs of rupees just now." He said, "Yes, come along. Here is our Swamiji. He'll pay you two lakhs." Then there was another call. There was some industrialist or a small-scale industrialist man. He said, "I want to start an industry. Could I get a lakh of rupees as a loan from you?" He said, "Yes, yes. Please do come along and we'll make some arrangements." Then he also. And ultimately the third picture in the cartoon, that the manager—that is today's Kuvera—he goes out of the bank. He is standing on the gate, and he says to that caukidāra, (Hindi punchline-laughter). It is today's Kuvera is not in any position to give anything. He also wants your blessings, you see, in fact.
Prabhupāda: Very good.
Dr. Patel: Very big. But is that land available to us?
Prabhupāda: Yes, available. And we have asked government to give us 350 acres of land in Māyāpur to construct Vedic planetarium, 350 feet high. It will require eight crores of rupees minimum. I shall exhibit there all the planetary system, bhurloka, Goloka...
- goloka-nāmni nija-dhāmni tale ca tasya
- devī-maheśa-hari-dhāmasu teṣu teṣu
- te te prabhāva-nicayā vihitāś ca yena
- govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
- (Bs. 5.43)
Dr. Patel: Now the Russians also have come to this conclusion, the Russian scientists and astro-physicists, that there are some planets here in the cosmos which actually have people, I mean, has life like human beings. The other day I read a big article on that. Now they agree.
Prabhupāda: They will agree so many things.
Dr. Patel: Sir, I may tell you, the adults.... That change is meant for the educated, cultured, and...
Prabhupāda: No, no, you don't name that educated, cultured. You simply say that "You vote for this person."
Dr. Patel: People vote for five-rupee notes. They don't vote anything else.
Prabhupāda: Then they will suffer. Then don't, don't complain. Don't complain.
Dr. Patel: I was a political worker myself and a member of the ruling party and a member of the assembly. I know how they collect votes.
Prabhupāda: If you.... For five rupees if you sacrifice your sacred right, then how can you expect good government?
Dr. Patel: But they never desired to have these rights. They should be disenfranchised, those who will not understand their responsibility towards their country.
Prabhupāda: So at least you can make some propaganda that "Don't give votes to these persons." Don't name any. Then he will be envious. No.
Dr. Patel: But, sir, there are some beggars here in Bombay who have got one and two lakh rupees. You have read the railway(?) story about couple of beggars. They rounded up, and they had money.
Prabhupāda: No, I am also a beggar. I am also beggar.
Dr. Patel: That is not.... You are a rich beggar.
Prabhupāda: Millions of dollars.
Dr. Patel: Sannyāsīs don't touch money.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I don't touch money. They pass check. (laughter) I simply sign check. All these accounts in Bombay, they are being managed by them. I do not touch even. Lakhs and lakhs of rupees they are spending.
Dr. Patel: Begging is prohibited, so they rounded up the beggars sometime back.
Prabhupāda: Therefore I tell him this way. Just give books. Transcendental fraud, that we give, say, fifty rupees' worth book, and we draw 2222. Buddhir yasya balaṁ tasya nirbuddhes tu balaṁ kutaḥ.(?)Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. You know that story? Eh? You know that story, buddhir yasya balaṁ tasya?
Dr. Patel: "The man who has got the buddhi is a strong man."
Prabhupāda: Yes. No. Paśya siṁho madonmataḥ śaśaḥ kena nipatitaḥ.(?) This is Hitopadeśa story. You know this?
Dr. Patel: No, I don't know this.
Prabhupāda: Therefore they do not know.
Dr. Patel: They vote five-rupees notes.
Prabhupāda: So that is degeneration. For five-rupee notes he is giving his valuable vote to anybody. That is degeneration.
Dr. Patel: That is why we really.... We are not for this type of Western type of democracy. We should have Rāma-rājya, a benevolent dictatorship of a good king, a religious king like Rāma. That should be the ideal condition for this country. This way, sir.
Prabhupāda: Our buses are bigger than this, I think. Eh?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Dr. Patel: Not so in industry. People are idle. It is just like a man having one son, another man having six sons. If the man with six sons works very hard, he is more, I mean, rich than that fellow. But those six boys don't work? Then he goes to hell.
Prabhupāda: No, he works. He sees that "In the village I shall get one rupee per day, and if I go to the town I shall get twenty rupees."
Dr. Patel: Not that, sir, even that, there is no jobs.
Prabhupāda: But he thinks there is job. He leaves.
Dr. Patel: Yes, they come here in search of job.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They suffer. They live in the huts and very nasty place, still expecting.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa advises...
Dr. Patel: Yes, because agriculture, however...
Prabhupāda: Annād bhavanti bhūtāni (BG 3.14).
Dr. Patel: Even though they have got a lot of machinery and all these things, but still, everything's all.... As, for example, chemical industry. Forty-paisa worth for ten rupees.
Devotees: Jaya! (end)
Prabhupāda: This is the important men.
Guru-kṛpā: That one Marwari spent eighteen lakhs of rupees.
Prabhupāda: I do not know eighteen lakhs, but I know he went to Germany for medical operation and changing the gland with monkey's gland. Yes. He was eighty years old at that time.
Devotee (2): The leaders are so infected. There was an article recently...
Prabhupāda: Therefore I say, andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ (SB 7.5.31). That is already dictated by Bhāgavata. These leaders, rascals who are blind, and they are trying to lead other blind men. All of them are falling in the ditch.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In the case of Mahārāja Veṇa there was some recourse for the brāhmaṇas. What can we do?
Prabhupāda: Yes, brāhmaṇas were controlling the kṣatriyas. They were obeying the instruction of brāhmaṇas. That is social function. The first-class man will give instruction to the government, and the government will carry the order, "Whether people are actually doing this?" Brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya. And vaiśya will produce food grain and milk sufficiently. And the śūdras, they will help these three higher classes. That's all.
Guru-kṛpā: We are expert cheaters also. That's how we get the money.
Prabhupāda: Yes. You are big cheaters. You don't cheat two rupees, three rupees. Two millions. (laughs) That is accusation, Alexander and the thief. The thief accused Alexander the Great that "What is the difference between you and me? I am a small thief; you are a big thief. That's all. Why you are punishing me? You are a big thief. You are doing same thing." Then he was let loose. "Yes, what is difference? (laughs) I am a big thief." (break) ...means Alexander the Great, actually he was great. Otherwise he is the emperor, and ordinary thief is accusing him and he said, "Yes, I am thief." He admitted. That is greatness. That is greatness. If he was not great, then he would have hanged him or punished him: "Oh, you are so.... You are accusing me?" But no, he accepted. That is greatness. Mistake is one fault, but to accept that "I have done mistake," that is greatness.
Prabhupāda: One crore means ten million.
Hari-śauri: Rupees.
Prabhupāda: Such eight.
Devotee (2): Eighty million rupees.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee (2): That's a million dollars.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Eight million dollars.
Prabhupāda: Now it will be tested how much money we have got. (Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa laughs)
Prabhupāda: He's serving Kṛṣṇa. He's not material necessities.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So Kṛṣṇa is supplying all facility at least to maintain body and soul together.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. I went to your country without any money. Now Kṛṣṇa has given. I went with forty rupees; now I have forty crores. Who has done this business? So if you serve Kṛṣṇa, so Kṛṣṇa will supply everything, whatever you need, require. He doesn't require to ask for it.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The question then is, is a devotee required to work very hard for material necessities?
Prabhupāda: Yes. He has to work sincerely to serve Kṛṣṇa. Then everything is there.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Even he doesn't consider material necessity?
Prabhupāda: Where is material necessity? Even for the cats and dogs, there is no material necessities. It is all supplied by Kṛṣṇa. It is simply māyā that "I am in material necessities." There are eight million lower species of life. Who is doing business for his...? We, simply civilized men, we are doing this. Otherwise Kṛṣṇa is supplying everyone. Eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān. He supplies everything. Even the ant within the hole of your room, are you giving any food?
Devotees: No.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They said they would...
Prabhupāda: No, no difficult, but what is rate?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The rate, ah, 11.34 American cents equals one rupee.
Prabhupāda: 11.34.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. I haven't converted into how many... I can do that.
Prabhupāda: 11.34, that is good rate. So I wish that... We should combine the work very vigorously when this (indistinct). They are just like women, equal in preaching (indistinct). You keep some women together, and they fight. The children together, they will fight. Dogs together, they will fight. Sane man, why they will fight? Where is the cause of fight? Then you are (indistinct) to become woman. Worse. This material world is such that even you keep some utensil together, when dealing, tung, tung, tung, tung, tung, what to speak of individuals souls. But our cause is the common, how to push on. That soberness must be there. I can give you points, instructions, you will have to put it into shape; otherwise how it will go on?
Prabhupāda: First business, how to get our books. (indistinct) For Russia export from India will be favorable. So government paper we are printing seven, eight rupees price. Make that addition, all the books. Ask them to take paper from the government, huge quantity, and all these books should be published immediately, 5,000 books.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: 5,000 copies each.
Prabhupāda: Yes, if possible, minimum 1,000.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Last time we were speaking, I was mentioning to you that in Russia they are particularly inclined towards an exchange program of books, where we give our books and they will give some useless books.
Prabhupāda: (indistinct), why should we do this?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You mentioned last time you will throw them away.
Prabhupāda: For us there is no readable books in the whole world.
Prabhupāda: I think American working class are paid more than any country.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The average income in the United States now...
Guru-kṛpā: You know a man who lays bricks, a brick layer, in India he gets paid 10 rupees a day...
Prabhupāda: Utmost.
Guru-kṛpā: And here he gets paid twelve dollars an hour.
Prabhupāda: Bricklayer.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, twelve dollars an hour.
Guru-kṛpā: So one hundred dollars a day.
Prabhupāda: Oh, it is impossible to engage.
Prabhupāda: Karmī.... Just like, I began this Kṛṣṇa consciousness business with forty rupees, eh, in New York. Now, say within eight or ten years we have got forty crores. What is the karmī who started his business with forty rupees and within ten years, eight years, has got forty crores?
Devotee (3): Therefore the difference is the karmī's not successful.
Prabhupāda: A bhakta is never unsuccessful.
Devotee (2): (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Yes. Karmī.... Just like this house you have got. For a karmī to invest so much money, it will takes fifty years. We got this by donation. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: What is that revolution? The ball is kicked here, and again goes and he kicks there. That's all. Revolution means Czar was kicking, and then Lenin began to kick. But his business is to be kicked. That's all. What is the advancement? One man was kicking, another man was kicking. That's all. That is revolution. Gojan mumukta(?) (indistinct). If you have got strength, then the government is yours. That's all. But those who are resident, they are suffering. Just like this Korea, Vietnam, sometimes Communist government, sometimes capitalist government. The sufferer is the ordinary man. Revolution means one part takes the power, another man is killed. But the general people, they're suffering, this way that way. They do not think who will rule. Just like in India, they are the British rule, now it is Congress rule. But the result is in British rule the ghee was selling at one rupee per kilo, now it is twenty-five rupees. The dhotī was selling one rupee six anna, now it is twenty-five rupees. So what the public has gained? Nothing.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Devotee (3): These plates, the silverware and things that people use?
Prabhupāda: No, whatever (unclear). Silver is not half price. Silver, little less than new one. They purchase one rupee less. It was 200 rupees new, and the purchaser will take 190 (unclear) ...India they use (unclear). Bell metal, copper...
Hari-śauri: Aluminium is becoming very popular now, aren't they?
Prabhupāda: They don't use aluminium much. If they have got excess money, they invest in metal-gold, silver, copper, bell metal.... Immediate loan—you can mortgage the metal pots, the metal ornaments, you get money immediately. (break) ...in a year, that is a metal purchasing ceremony. Every family will purchase, according to his means, some metal pots once in a year. Dhantraivesi(?) (indistinct) means desire some funds. So if there's some extra money—not big, big men; middle class storeman—they invest in metal purchase. If there is a good business day, (unclear) all the utensils (unclear). You know Diwali, Diwali?
Devotee (2): Yes.
Rāmeśvara: Because they would be labeled fool. So finally one boy said, "But the emperor has no clothes."
Prabhupāda: Yes, there is a nice story in this connection. There was one Gopal Ban. So he was very cunning fellow. In the Muhammadan period in Bengal. So the Mohammedan Nawab asked him, "Gopal Ban, can you prepare a Mahābhārata in my name?" "Oh, yes!" So, "I'll engage so many paṇḍitas, and they will make a Mahābhārata, your activities, your glories, everything. So give me one hundred thousand rupees, just begin." He was taking money, taking money, "Yes, it is going on, going on." "Then when it will be published?" "Yes, just last few days more. Now, sir, everything is prepared. So the one thing is, you have to give me information how many husbands you have got, your wife, huh? How many husbands your wife has got?" That is very insulting. "What, you nonsense, you take." "No, that is the main feature of Mahābhārata. Draupadī had five husbands, so how many husbands your wife has got? Tell me that." Then, "No, no, I don't want that. I am the only husband." "Then how can you write Mahābhārata?" (laughter) "I don't want." "All right. If you want Mahābhārata you must tell how many your wife has got husbands." That he cannot say. So Mahābhārata finished.
Prabhupāda: They are very favorable to us. Especially the father.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes, Bhogilal. I remember when I first approached him for a donation, I asked him: "Please give twenty-five thousand rupees." I was the one who was approaching him. So then he said, "I can give ten thousand." So I said, all I did is I, just I said, "Please give more." He said, "All right, twenty-five thousand." (laughter) It didn't take very much preaching, he's so kind-hearted. And his son Pranlal was also nice boy.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He's very intelligent, he knows what we are doing. His wife also, that young girl.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, very nice. They're actually a little aristocratic, I think.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Devotee: You were staying in the YMCA.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) So I did not say anything seriously, but perhaps he took it very seriously, Gopal's father. So he might have written to Gopal that "Swami Bhaktivedanta wants to go to America. If you sponsor, then he can go." So whatever the correspondence was there between the father and son, I did not know. I simply asked him, "Why don't you ask your son Gopal to sponsor so that I can go there? I want to preach there." So after some months, three, four months, the No-Objection Certificate from the Indian embassy in New York, Gopal sent to me, yes, that he had already sponsored my arrival there for one month. So all of a sudden I got the paper, No-Objection Certificate by the Indian embassy. After so much inquiry, I learned that so much inquiry was done and so on, so on. Then I tried to take a passport and paper process. So I got the passport. Then I approached that Śrīmatī Morarji. She once gave me five hundred rupees in exchange of my Bhāgavata book, so I approached her, that "Give me one ticket." They have got their shipping company, Scindia Navigation. So she said, "Swamiji, you are so old, you are taking this so responsibility. Do you think it is right?" "No, it is all right." (laughs) At that time, I was seventy years old. So all the secretary, they thought that "Swamiji is going to die there." Anyway, they gave me the ticket, one return free ticket by their ship. Then arrangement was going on. So there is another process to get a P-form. You know.
Prabhupāda: Hm. At that time, I got some money. Five thousand was given by Jayānanda. He gave me five thousand, and Brahmānanda also gave me. So I spent some money for acquiring some... I had about six thousand. So then I purchased ticket coming back with Kīrtanānanda. In this way, came back to India.
Hari-śauri: You were just saying...
Prabhupāda: And again I paid five thousand rupees to Kīrtanānanda to come back. (aside:) What is that?
Rādhāvallabha: Kirtirāja Prabhu bought this for your rocking chair.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Rādhāvallabha: Should I put it on?
Prabhupāda: Rock and roll. (devotees laugh)
Hari-śauri: So when did you come back again?
Prabhupāda: I came back in 1968, no '67, December.
Jayatīrtha: That's a fact.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And in the bills they are writing the.... Why this hypocrisy? Why this hypocrisy? In the schools, colleges, you are forbidding, "Don't talk of God," and on the bills you are writing, "In God We Trust." That means if the bill is not paid, don't be dissatisfied, you trust in God. (laughs) Although I'm giving you a piece of paper, don't hesitate to take it. Trust in God, it will be paid. They write, "I promise to pay," but people may not have faith in this word. Actually, I'm paying you hundred rupees—or a thousand rupees-worth currency note, but actually it is paper. But only on faith and trust I'm accepting it, it is one thousand dollars. That much. In last war, the Germany, marks note were thrown in the street. And the bunch of note, taken to the confectioner, "Give me a piece of bread," There is no bread; they throw away. It happened, actually. So these notes are accepted on the understanding that the government will pay. But time may be there when government may be not able to pay. And it has become practically experienced in the last war. So everything should be done scientifically. If we say that in God we trust, then we must know what is God, whether actually we can put our faith and trust in Him, whether He is trustworthy, what is that God. This science should be introduced. There is science; we are preaching that science. Our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means to teach Kṛṣṇa science, science of Kṛṣṇa, science of God. So the government should take up, American government, and cooperate with us. Teach the people the science of God. Then it will be a great, benevolent welfare activity. Simply giving their money to the poor, to the needy, will not help them.
Prabhupāda: Who cares for it? (laughter) Wine is highly taxed in India. When I was manager in Dr. Bose's laboratory, he was manufacturing alcohol(?) for medicinal purposes. The cost was one rupee eight annas per gallon. The government was levying duty. For medicinal purpose, five rupees per gallon, whereas purchasing liquor, fifty-eight. The government would take profit out of it, fifty-eight rupees.
Satsvarūpa: (indistinct) Fifth Canto (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Today, there was description, there is description, the fight was so severe that the blood sprinkled up to the sun planet. So why not moon planet? Why they say sun planet? The sun is the nearest planet from the earth. So this calculation.... They say the sun planet is 93,000,000 miles away from earth? And if you add further 1,600,000 miles, it comes to about fifteen (50?) million miles. Fifteen (50?) million miles, they have calculated, go there by the sputnik at the rate of 13,000 miles per hour.
Prabhupāda: That's it. Bank will give you loan, they are eager to give you loan, and you haven't got to pay anything in gold and silver. One check, that's all. And with that check you can purchase lots of commodities and hoard it, and price will be increased. If I have to pay gold for (indistinct), then I have limited source. The price will not increase. This is the only way. Introduce gold only, gold and silver. In the British period in our childhood there was practically no notes. Silver. If I have to take payment from you, one thousand rupees, you will give me so much silver. For counting, counting, I have to see whether it is.... There were some imitation, counterfeit. So each coin you have to see, they were saying like that, that, "For thousand rupees I have to occupy so much space."
Hari-śauri: And weighed so much.
Prabhupāda: Yes, and weight was so much. (pause) The time was not so bad. If you take some cash, thousand, two thousand rupees with you, you can safely walk on the street. Now if somebody knows that he has got thousand rupees cash with him, maybe he will be killed. The bank, they are so much afraid, they keep police in bank, police guard, always.
Prabhupāda: The state is in the management of official trustee. And this trustee in charge of the trust board men, they give us so much trouble and exploit the position for his personal profit. I have seen. Horrible. For instance, I can give you, if in some property there is some repair, it will cost you, say, one hundred rupees. And they'll give it to a contractor, and the contractor will present a bill, twelve hundred rupees. And he'll pass. And the contractor will be given, say, two hundred rupees, and balance he'll take. I have seen.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Stealing from the trust.
Prabhupāda: In this way he's.... The money's in his hand. If you want money for expenditure, so if I press you, you have need of money, so you do everything, give some back, get the money. You are in urgent need. Everywhere. All, whole world they have become dishonest. Even the high-court judges, magistrate, they are getting bribe.
Prabhupāda: Extremely. They've lost their religious sentiment, religious consciousness. They're just like rude, crude. There was one chief minister in Punjab, he got a big business, big man, "Mr. such and such, I'm sending such and such man. Give him ten thousand rupees without waiting for his reply." "So what for?" "Why you are asking? Give him ten thousand rupees." And the man goes, and he has to pay; otherwise he knows that "This minister will harass me in so many ways later on."
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They are called public servants, the so-called government officials.
Prabhupāda: Even your country, there are so many bogus institutes. There was one Mr. Bogart. I used to call him Bogus. Bogart is a title?
Jagadīśa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, any rascal thing. They made a good market. And British Empire means to sell their goods. And they, for that purpose, they became rich. Money was drawn from all parts, especially from India. Everything. Later on, gradually we came to understand. In Lucknow, because I was in medical business, so I saw one Japanese salesman was selling one medicine, one or two items, potassiodide. Do you know? No. Potassium iodide. And another, iodine. He was selling at four rupees, eight annas a pound. But we were accustomed to purchase English potassiodide and iodine, thirteen rupees a pound. That Howard's.... Very famous, Howard's chemicals, like that. They were selling. So I doubted that "How so much cheap this Japanese firm can supply?" And they used to advertise that all these Japanese goods are third class. Yes, "German goods are second class. Our goods, first class." So I inquired from the salesman, "How is it that you are supplying so cheap?" "They're supplying.... The price is the real price." "Now why they charge more?" "They purchase from us and pack and sell." There are many big chemical concerns in Germany. Germans are very good manufacturers, especially of chemicals, iron, machine. Still you find, all this Uher and, what is called, Gundsag?
Hari-śauri: Actually, they are making adjustments to the law so that they can do that.
Prabhupāda: Yes, in India, in Vṛndāvana, they are killing now for a little money. They are so poverty-stricken. They have got a clique. Because in Vṛndāvana there are many retired men; they get some money from bank or some saving bank in post office, and they have got clique with this post office man and the bank clerk who has taken money. Bon Mahārāja was attacked. He brought some one lakh rupees, one and a half lakh rupees for some.... He was recognized by the.... As soon, at night.... He was living in the Institute. Attacked, in the presence of police. Police was guarding that others may not come to help.
Hari-śauri: The police were helping the thieves?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I think the magistrate even was complicated. And when it was complained, the magistrate said, "Better not to take it seriously; it will be your.... I'll give you some guard."
Kīrtanānanda: Court jester.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Court jesters, yes. So there was a man, court jester, in Bengal. So the Muhammadan governor asked one Gopal Bhan, jester... He was jester in the court of Raja Krishna Chandra. So he asked him, Nawab, that "Gopal Bhan, I have heard you are very expert. Can you write a similar book, Mahābhārata, about my kingdom?" (laughter) "Oh, yes. Why not?" That is not... So he took some hundred thousands of rupees and again come: "Give me another ten thousand," "Another ten," in this way. "When the book will be finished? You have taken so much money." "It is just on the verge of being finished." Then, when he saw that no more money can be taken—"I have taken so much money"—then he one day said that "Now, sir, one information is very essential. That is wanted. You give me, and the Mahābhārata will be finished. Everything is there." "What is that information?" "Now, your wife, how many husband she has got?" "This is nonsense!" "Eh? Well, that is the main subject matter of Mahābhārata. Draupadī had five husbands, so you are such a great person, your wife must have at least one dozen. Otherwise how Mahābhārata will...?" "It is the subject matter of?" "Yes, that is the only subject matter, that Draupadī had five husbands. So you are such a big nawab, your wife must at least have one dozen. So give me their names." So he became very angry, "Don't talk all this nonsense." "Then I cannot finish your Mahābhārata." "I have already invested..." So he took another ten thousand rupees, and he said, "Stop all this nonsense. That's all right." So these rascals, they are writing Gopal Bhan's Mahābhārata, and the rascal government is paying them.
Prabhupāda: There is no question of evolution. It is already there. This is a wrong theory. The monkey is there, the man is there. The soul is going from monkey to man. It is not the evolution. Just like you have got apartment, ten rupees, five rupees, twenty rupees, thirty rupees, like that. Now, as you pay, "Come on, here." There is no question of evolution. It is already there. Jantur dehopapattaye. These dehas, these bodies, are already there. So immediately it develops a particular type of desire, "Yes, come here, sit down." First class, second class, third class, fourth class is already there. As you pay, "Yes, come here." It is not evolving; it is already there. He is transferred from one apartment to another. This has to be convinced. We don't find that monkey's body became a human body. That is not in the experience, anyone. The monkey is there, the human being is there. But the soul is going from monkey's body to human's body, or monkey's body to another body. That is by superior administration. Their theory is the body is evolving and some body is missing. Nothing is missing. Every body is there. The soul is being transferred from one body to another. Asatims caturam caiva laksams jīva jātiṣu.(?) Jāti means the form of the body.
Prabhupāda: Oh, Coleman, yes. Last time in India, he gave me twenty-five thousand rupees. (laughs)
Rūpānuga: He did?! Wow, twenty-five thousand! He still has the original tape of this record.
Prabhupāda: Let him now do. He wanted to pay me something, but he never paid.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I sent Kṛṣṇa-kānti, he made a, recorded this in South Africa and printed it. It's not actually legal, but we did it because we didn't think it would... This is the most wonderful record for spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness because you are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. So pure.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Originally.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: People can more appreciate Hare Kṛṣṇa than these bhajanas, because they do not understand.
Prabhupāda: Bhajana, they do... (break) ...Brahmānanda, you...
Rūpānuga: Brahmānanda, yes, he's singing. Satsvarūpa. Hayagrīva was there also, and Jadurāṇī was there. We were playing all kinds of instruments, all kinds of things. We were playing bells and sticks.
Prabhupāda: Kīrtanānanda was playing sitar.
Prabhupāda: So Kṛṣṇa is giving us facilities to preach this cult. Everywhere we have got very, very palatial buildings to accommodate devotees. Now we have got here a very nice place, accommodate devotees. Everywhere we have got. In Bombay we are getting the best temple in India. We are spending crores of rupees, Kṛṣṇa is giving us money. So I started the business with forty rupees. That was also not American currency. They allowed me to bring forty rupees. So when I was getting off the ship I asked the captain, "I have brought these forty rupees, which will not be accepted here, so you take." At that time three books I had, the first, second and third volume. So I asked him that "You purchase. Give me some dollars." So he asked, "What is the price?" "Sixteen dollars." So he gave me twenty dollars, and I delivered them. With that twenty dollars I got out down on the land of America, and that forty rupees. So I did not know where to go, where to stay. So Kṛṣṇa is giving us all facilities, and these American boys are helping. I think those who are Indians, they should join this movement sincerely and preach more vigorously. People will be benefited—this is real substance. Otherwise people are being misguided, so many things going on.
Prabhupāda: Called him back: "Call this rascal back." Every month he was being sent seven hundred rupees. That, in those days seven hundred rupees is a big amount. So at least ten time value has gone up. Seven hundred means seven thousand. He was spending for nothing, and he was publishing report, "Swamiji is playing on harmonium." And photo. This is first year, second, like that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And he told your Guru Mahārāja that "Unless we serve meat, they will not come."
Prabhupāda: Ācchā! I do not know that.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think you have once said that he had written to your Guru Mahārāja that letter. I heard that, that "Unless we serve meat," in England, when he was in England.
Prabhupāda: Yes, he was in England. Just like these rascals...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Ramakrishna Mission.
Prabhupāda: This is not good report.
Bali-mardana: Praghoṣa, he gets at least ten dollars in lakṣmī.
Indian man (2): It's difficult to collect money from the Indians. That is my experience, and I...
Bali-mardana: Because they are thinking of rupees. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: That means they do not like Kṛṣṇa.
Indian man (2): I don't know. Somehow or other, I myself am totally confused about Indian community in this country. I have no comments to make, but I found out that they are the least charitable community among all communities. I lived in Canada almost ten years, and I found out other communities are very charitable. Even if you go to other community, at least they will give something, but Indians...
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Every Indian should come to the temple and become a devotee.
Indian man (1): I think more and more people are really coming to the temple and becoming part of it, as I think most of the devotees around here know, in the last few years. Everybody I know of...
Prabhupāda: "More and more coming" means not all are coming. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: They have given all orders?
Devotee (5): Yes, most of them gave orders to our... Even unlike... Some like Unites States some place, they would order all seventeen Caitanya-caritāmṛtas, and all the volumes of Bhāgavatam out and place an order for the rest to come, plus other books. And we lowered the price to about 45 rupees which was, which was right where they can afford to pay for the volumes (indistinct) take them.
Prabhupāda: What is the usual price?
Devotee (5): $7.95 which would be like too many, eighty rupees or something like that. It would be very expensive for India for one volume.
Prabhupāda: So you have reduced the price?
Devotee (5): To forty-five rupees. Gopāla Kṛṣṇa made it very, very reasonable for them that they can partake.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. They are taking the book. That is wanted. We don't want much profit.
Mr. Kallman: Very small profit.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The Marwari business man, they want to sell, for suppose, one lakh of worth goods, if there is customer to pay him immediately one lakh ten rupees, he'll sell, immediately sell. He thinks "I've got that ten rupees," that's all. Again person. That is their way of doing it. They are not calculating that I have invested one lakh of rupees, I must get at least ten percent profit. No. Not at loss. A little profit. "Never mind, give me cash." That is Marwari business. And he, when he goes to purchase from his supplier, he sees that this man is purchasing at the time one lakh, two lakh. So he gives him all credit.
Prabhupāda: Yes, 1944, the first copy. I get them from selling. Perhaps they had been, American.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Very thick, it was a thick magazine.
Prabhupāda: In those days I was spending three hundred rupees per month.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That was a lot.
Prabhupāda: Yes, three hundred rupees, nowadays at least ten times. Three hundred ten times?
Kīrtanānanda: Three thousand.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: At least three thousand. I think even perhaps more, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Yes, not less than.
Bali-mardana: Now I think in India it costs one rupee. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: One rupee, twenty paisa. Of course, you get forty paisa back for the bottle, but it's between sixty-five and eighty paisa after you get your money back. When we were travelling in Bhopal, we traveled there in the months of May and June. It was very hot. We were drinking seven bottle a day, every hour. Every hour. Prabhupāda: (laughs) Lemonade. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Gargamuni and I, we had to stop. We'd call it Limka. In India it is called Limka. Bali-mardana: When Westerners go to India, it is so hot the water just comes out, you know, sweat, all the time. Become dehydrated. Hari-śauri: Apart from that, you can't drink the water in India, so you have to drink Limka or something. It's safer to drink the lemonade than it is to drink the water. Prabhupāda: Yes. (end)
Prabhupāda: Right in here.
Hari-śauri: Through that window you could see Rūpa Gosvāmī's samadhi. And for those two rooms they were charging five rupees a month?
Prabhupāda: Yes. These rooms were broken. So they told me that "You can repair these, and whatever you like, you can give." So I thought, "Don't need much space." "Pay me if..." I know, before me there was a tenant in that other room. He was paying three rupees. So I thought, "Two rooms, but I have spent money. So I'll give him five." Now I am giving them ten rupees.
Hari-śauri: To retain it.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: The construction will be like your Washington capital, like that.
George Harrison: A big dome.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Estimated eight crores of rupees. Is there any dahi preparation? Oh, that's all right. Now, there is fruit. You...
George Harrison: Very good. Fantastic. Maybe just a little bit of, but now I'm not.... Thanks. That's fine. No, okay, thanks, fine, that's enough, that's fine.
Prabhupāda: That watermelon, you can give. It is water.
George Harrison: Now let me finish all this.
Prabhupāda: This is that mango preparation.
Prabhupāda: The construction will be like your Washington capital, like that.
George Harrison: A big dome.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Estimated eight crores of rupees. Is there any dahi preparation? Oh, that's all right. Now, there is fruit. You...
George Harrison: Very good. Fantastic. Maybe just a little bit of, but now I'm not.... Thanks. That's fine. No, okay, thanks, fine, that's enough, that's fine.
Prabhupāda: That watermelon, you can give. It is water.
George Harrison: Now let me finish all this.
Prabhupāda: This is that mango preparation.
Harikeśa: You once said in Vṛndāvana that the Marwaris, they don't bother going to school because they can make a lot of money by sitting by the phone and just pay a few rupees a day and any educated fool can do the work.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they do that. They are employing in their factory, big, big chemist, big, big physicist, engineer and so on, but they do not bother. They are paying thirty thousand rupees per month salary, Birla. Expert, imported from foreign country, but their sons are never troubled. They know how to utilize that worker of thirty thousand rupees per month and to earn thirty lakhs from him. Why shall he waste his time? He knows how to they earn. They pay a man thirty thousand and through him earn thirty lakhs. Actually, in order to make a balanced society, the varṇāśrama-dharma is very important, cooperation. So these things are meant for the śūdras, and brāhmaṇas are not meant for this.
Hari-śauri: Seems everything is devolving at a phenomenal rate. Every decade that passes, everything breaks down twice as fast. Just in the last twenty years or thirty years everything has become so much degraded and...
Prabhupāda: No, I have got experience. I am Calcutta born. What Calcutta was in our childhood days and what is now, I know everything. How we were happy during British days and what is now position, I can speak from my personal experience. We do not belong to the richest class nor to the poor class-middle class. So we have got practical experience. My father's income was not more than 250 rupees. How opulent we were. At least, there was no question of need. We were receiving daily four, five guests, and my father was functioning so many festivals and he was asking... My father gave in marriage four daughters. There was no difficulty. The income was not more than 250 rupees. Of course, that 250 rupees at least ten times now. But still, there was no needy. Not very opulent, but there was no need. The first necessity is to feed and to clothe. So there was no such scarcity. May not be very luxurious life, but there was no scarcity for food and shelter or cloth. There was no scarcity. Happy. That is wanted. Happiness in whatever circumstance. Not that because we did not possess a motorcar, therefore unhappy. I purchased one motor car in 1925, Buick car. Not for personal use, but for using it as a taxi. My one nephew, he was a good driver, so my father, "Why don't you give him? He can do that, we can use it our own car also taxi." So I took it, Buick car, I think I paid eight thousand rupees.
Prabhupāda: There's no question of starvation for want of money. Anywhere sit down and do something palatable, and people will purchase. So your livelihood will go on. Pakorā, kacuri, jalebi, anything. You make some palatable, people are fond of eating some palatable things. That is their hobby. In Allahabad, there was a brāhmaṇa. I had my business, and he was neighborhood, he was living. So in the morning, the husband and wife would go to take bath in the Ganges. They would very nicely take bath, and while coming they will purchase some ingredients and then come home. The husband will perform pūjā, etc., and the wife will prepare many nice preparations-baḍā, pakori, puskar (?), this, that. Then he'll take his meals, rest awhile, and in the evening he will sit down, he was sitting just in front of my shop, about four or five o'clock. All the preparations his wife had made whole day, and the small shop. And the university students will come up to night, ten o'clock, he'll finish. Nothing will remain. Everything will be... And he'll make at least ten rupees profit, minimum. In those days, 1925, in those days ten rupees means nowadays at least fifty rupees. So, and living very happy. Living humbly as a brāhmaṇa, he was having his pūjā, going to the Ganges, taking bath, husband and wife, in the morning, and the wife's business is to prepare and his business was to sell. So they'll make at least ten, fifteen rupees profit daily, very prosperous. Living peacefully, husband and wife.
Prabhupāda: Very good.
Hari-śauri: It's very good. There's just a real short one about the university in Kurukṣetra. It says, "Vedic Varsity for Kurukṣetra Soon." "The first Vedic university will come up soon at Kurukṣetra and will be affiliated to V.M. Cakravarty University. The proposed university is being set up by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON, and will cost rupees two crore. Most of the funds will be provided by Mr. Alfred Ford, the nephew of the auto magnate Henry Ford. Mr. Ford, on becoming a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, founder of ISKCON, changed his name to Ambarīṣa dāsa. The Vedic university will offer courses leading to bhakti-śāstrī and sarvabhauma."
Prabhupāda: (break) ...new devotees joining?
Bhagavān: Yes. The last month we have about five new devotees.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Bhagavān: Including children, there are about hundred ninety altogether.
Prabhupāda: Hundred-ninety, two hundred.
Prabhupāda: Dharma-nyāya. In India we have seen that you bribe the brāhmaṇas and they'll give decision in your favor. And it is experienced by everyone. In the law court you bribe even the high-court judge, he'll give judgement in your... That is proven. One big judge... Not now, at least fifty years ago or more than that. His business was to take bribe, high-court judge, very learned judge. He was asked. He'll give judgement if you give him ten thousand rupees. So other brother high-court judges, they knew it, so in one case he was just arranging for this and the chief justice called him, that "You immediately resign and go home, otherwise this arrangement you have made, it will be exposed." So he had no other alternative, he immediately resigned, and on some plea like, "My heart is palpitating," so in this way he left the court and then he was never allowed again. And when his friends asked him that why you are doing this? He said, "What can I do? I have got at least ten thousand rupees expenditure per month and I get only four thousand." That was his... He was very able lawyer. By private practice he was earning more, but this practice... And nowadays it has come to, at least in India, anywhere you go, and bribe and you get a favorable decision. (guests arrive) Hare Kṛṣṇa. So we shall be sitting inside or here?
Prabhupāda: So twelve thousand dollars means about more than one lakh of rupees. So we are spending that, but not for any other purpose than for Kṛṣṇa's service. Anywhere we speak we are talking only Kṛṣṇa, trying to push on Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is our business. So the platform is different, eh? Externally, one can see, they are also spending so much money for traveling, they are living in a nice house and they have some nice car. But the consciousness is different. Another example in this connection, that I am sitting on this chair and there is a bug also. He is also sitting on this chair. But that does not mean the bug and myself equal. The bug's business is different, my business is different. But superficially, if one sees that the bug and Swamiji's on the same chair, therefore they're all equal? That is not the fact. Similarly, we may be using all these material things, but we have no material business. We have simply spiritual business.
Prabhupāda: This is bhakti. So everything is there. If we don't misinterpret and take as it is, then we'll benefit. That is fortune. If somebody has one lakh of rupees and if he does not utilize it, then he is unfortunate. And if he's fortunate he can utilize it, he can make it millions of dollars. So the knowledge is already there, you haven't go to manufacture or speculate. You take it, you become perfect. We are preaching this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we don't manufacture anything. Here is this knowledge, Bhagavad-gītā, just take it. Already it is there, everything. We haven't got to manufacture something, concoct something. Everything is there. You refer, you get knowledge, and be fortunate. Prasādam?
Atreya Ṛṣi: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Cut this fruit and distribute it. Bring one knife.
Prabhupāda: That extra. We brought from India seven dollars. At that time the exchange was four rupees, eight annas. And you were not allowed to take more than forty rupees. That is same now. So I wanted to sell one set of books to the captain, Mr. Pandia. So he gave me twenty dollars in exchange, three books. I was confident Kṛṣṇa was there, (indistinct) seven dollars. (Hindi)... (break) ...strongly by chance?
Devotee (1): Yes.
Prabhupāda: How do they support? In other words, they cannot give explanation, and like a foolish man says "Chance." You cannot give proper explanation how things are happening. Like a foolish rascal: "Chance."
Prabhupāda: This is always, Western disease. It is a Western disease. Vairanga-roga (?). In the Ayur Veda it is called vairanga-roga. Fairanga, ferengi, ferengi, the Westerners are called ferengi, the vairanga-roga. So this syphilis disease was imported in India by these Europeans. Before, it was not there. There is a medicine called (indistinct) injection. Fifty years ago it was one rupee, four annas, price. But during the wartime the same medicine was selling at nineteen (ninety?). On black market.
Jñānagamya: That is their nature—they will always try to exploit.
Prabhupāda: Hm. I have seen it, one rupee, four annas, the price goes nineteen (ninety?).
Jñānagamya: There is a story about a man who made some perfect cloth that would never get dirty, never get torn. So he made a suit out of it and he was trying to market it. So he went to the capitalists and said, "Now I have made some perfect cloth." And they did not like it because they could not sell more cloth after they sold this. No one would want anything else. And the workers, they did not like it either because they would lose their jobs. No one would buy.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Jñānagamya: They tried to kill him.
Prabhupāda: So there are many servants. What is their general payment?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: About eight hundred rupees per month.
Prabhupāda: Hundred dollars. What is the average expenditure here?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Depends on how one lives; it is quite expensive. Eight thousand, ten thousand rupees per month.
Prabhupāda: For rent?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: No. Just for food, it is per head, simple devotee food, per person, about five hundred rupees per month.
Prabhupāda: Oh. In India... India, two hundred rupees per month. And it has increased very recently. In 1930, we were paying servant twelve to fourteen rupees per month, and they were satisfied. With food, six rupees. And without food, twelve rupees, fourteen.
Nava-yauvana: That means it cost only six rupees per month for food.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In the hotel also they were charging six rupees. Means third-class hotel, not first class for cooking dāl, vegetables. Rice was, first-class rice, six rupees per month. Dāl, twelve annas for kg, flour, five annas for two and a half kgs. And from 1942, all of a sudden the price increased, artificially. Milk, two annas per kg. Now three rupees, four rupees. Ghee, first-class ghee, one rupee per kg. First-class ghee. (break) ...paying for the clerks thirty rupees per month. And head clerk, sixty rupees. Officers, hundred to two hundred rupees. High-court judges, four thousand rupees. High-court judges were highly paid.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Iran at that time was even cheaper, much cheaper. Because you had the British in India, you were...
Prabhupāda: Yes, when India was native state, they were cheaper. In India, this inflation was caused by Mr. Churchill. During the war he wanted men to join the fighting, so people were not coming. So artificially...
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Printed money?
Prabhupāda: No, artificially increased the price. So they were obliged to join.
Prabhupāda: What is the price of this bread?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Five rials, it's about half a rupee.
Prabhupāda: Ācchā.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: It's big, it's good. It is good bread.
Nava-yauvana: It is subsidized by the government.
Prabhupāda: Still half a rupee.
Prabhupāda: Seven dollars.
Nava-yauvana: Seven dollars.
Dayānanda: I think you got that from selling Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: No, that extra. I brought from India seven dollars. At that time the exchange was four rupees, eight annas. So they would not allow to take more than forty rupees. That is sufficient. So I wanted to sell one set of books to the captain, Mr. Pandiya. So he gave me twenty dollars in exchange of three books. I was confident Kṛṣṇa was there seven dollars. (end)
Hari-śauri: Oh, in the family members.
Prabhupāda: Yes, but practically that is now their income. The more one gets the worshiping term longer, he gets more income. (laughs) The Deity has got very, very good income. All the temples in India... Just like I am trying to make some fund for Vṛndāvana and Māyāpur. Even no contribution comes, it will go on. The sevā-pūjā will not stop for want of money. So there will be no want of money. Still, I must make some provision, by the income the sevā-pūjā will go on. Contribution may come or not. That provision should be made. Now in Vṛndāvana Akṣayānanda is collecting in so many ways. Suppose nobody collects. That does not mean this temple will be closed. It must go on. So I am trying to make some provision from that bank interest. At least five to ten thousand rupees so that the Deity worship will not be stopped. That is the system in all Indian temples. It must go on, nitya-sevā. It must go on. These big, big temple in Vṛndāvana, they have got such arrangement. Otherwise how it is going on for five hundred, six hundred years? They have very good income. Govindajī has got eighteen thousand rupees monthly income.
Prabhupāda: Fifteen hundred on?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Ratha-yātrā in Ahmedabad. Now we are distributing these books for one rupee each or 1.50 in Vṛndāvana because now we've got the cost of printing down to sixty paisa...
Prabhupāda: Our Ratha-yātrā in New York was very successful.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, I saw in the New York Times. I went to the American Embassy in Delhi and I saw "East Meets West" that was the heading, and there were picture, and Daily News had it on the first page.
Hari-śauri: Middle page.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: First page.
Hari-śauri: Center pages.
Prabhupāda: Three chariots, very gorgeous.
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.
Pālikā: Would you like to take some fruit now?
Prabhupāda: I'll tell you. Not now.
Harikeśa: Haribol. (offers obeisances)
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: So you don't train, how they will learn?
Indian man: No, he himself is not trained, so he cannot give any answer to the children. So I told him, "At least you get their ISKCON books. You can read now before the children can read." So he immediately signed up. He immediately paid 2222 rupees by check and he agreed "I'll read Bhagavad-gītā and everything."
Prabhupāda: We don't require much money also. We require men first. Money will come. Money is coming. I started this business forty...
Indian man: Forty rupees.
Prabhupāda: So there is no scarcity of money. Now our daily collection is six lakhs of rupees throughout the whole world.
Indian man: Per day.
Prabhupāda: Per day. So there is no scarcity of money. A business started with forty rupees bringing six lakhs daily, it is not ordinary business.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is giving. I never thought my books will be sold as much. I never... Neither in the history of human society religious books sell six lakhs of rupees daily.
Indian man: It has never happened.
Prabhupāda: And it is selling where? Where they are not Hindus.
Indian man: Yes, all Christian countries, so-called, Westernized countries.
Prabhupāda: In the country of Hindus it is selling very less in comparison to what we are selling daily.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: It's hard to talk (?). Vṛndāvana also is doing six, seven hundred rupees a day in book sales.
Prabhupāda: Still, six lakhs or six hundred. No, I say this is unique in the history. Now we have got... we are going to print, next our printing program... Bring it from Harikeśa. I am being surprised. Fifty thousand, one lakh, five hundred thousand each item.
Kartikeya Mahadevia: Each item. In Ahmedabad there is a very religious person who was not becoming life member at all. Without seeing the balance sheet and this and that. And I told him, "What do you mean by balance sheet? Only money matters? If ten thousand foreigners are being converted and they are following this religion and this culture, everything, is it not part of the balance sheet? Only rupees and paisas you want to see, then that's a different matter. Here the people are chanting every day sixteen rounds, they have left so many bad vices, they are propagating all over the world." Then he immediately signed up. He has gone to... He might have met you in New York. Chandrakanti Ravaiwala. He was to come on 8th July in New York. He has gone to America to see his son there.
Prabhupāda: In America, in New York, they have got a very...
Kartikeya Mahadevia: Very good temple. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami wrote to me, my friend was also there. Mr. Patetas has met you I think.
Prabhupāda: It is twelve...
Kartikeya Mahadevia: Twelve stories.
Prabhupāda: In the middle of downtown.
Indian man: First time they are hearing.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is the cause we are selling six lakhs of rupees' worth books daily. They understand it is not so-called religious sentiment, it is science. Our so-called swamis and yogis, they never tried. They did not know. Also big, big swamis, they went there. Instead of teaching them, he was taught how to eat meat. Sannyāsī eating meat. He was convinced, "Yes, why not?" At least, in India still, the sannyāsīs they do not eat meat. Except that rascal missionary. No one. There may be difference of opinion, Māyāvādīs. But their behavior is the same.
Prabhupāda: They may read and translate. And why in India where there is Bhagavad-gītā? Apart from all other Vedic literatures, set aside, the gist of all Vedic knowledge, Bhagavad-gītā, there is. And still, people are kept into darkness. How much lamentable. Still, big, big leaders, at least, they want to preach Bhagavad-gītā—without Kṛṣṇa. They have set aside lakhs of rupees for preaching Bhagavad-gītā, but condition is if you preach without Kṛṣṇa. Just see. Bhagavad-gītā in every page it is written "śrī-bhagavān uvāca." Not even it is said "kṛṣṇaḥ uvāca." Because some rascal may take Kṛṣṇa as ordinary human being, therefore Vyāsadeva has specifically said... People know it, "kṛṣṇaḥ uvāca," but he says "śrī-bhagavān uvāca." The bhagavān word. People may not mistake that Kṛṣṇa is somebody else. And they want to banish Kṛṣṇa from Bhagavad-gītā. Even Gandhi did it. So you explain Bhagavad-gītā as it is there in Ahmedabad?
Yaśomatīnandana: Yes.
Vāsughoṣa: About two months ago in Hyderabad they had a very big Bhāgavata-saptāha. One thousand and eight brāhmaṇas chanting Bhāgavatam for seven days, and it was presided over by a big Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī, Rāmānuja-sampradāya. And all the local Marwaris, they gave lakhs of rupees for prasādam and so many things.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They hurt our collection, I think.
Vāsughoṣa: No, they haven't given anything to our temple, but for this, the same people, some of them, most of them refused even to become members. One man who refused me to become a member, he gave fifty thousand rupees for prasādam.
Prabhupāda: Why they refused us or help us?
Hari-śauri: He's talking about some Bhāgavata-saptāha they had there.
Prabhupāda: Because it is...
Acyutānanda: They are the "Hindus." We are the foreigners.
Prabhupāda: So bring some sitting place.
Vāsughoṣa: Every brāhmaṇa got 116 rupees, and they brought him a cādara and they paid for prasāda. Lakhs of people came from all over central India, Andhra Pradesh, thousands and thousands. They paid for prasādam. Whole pandal, huge pandal, they went to this exhibition ground. They gave, the rest of the money went to the Rāmānuja Swami.
Acyutānanda: Oh, that was the yajña.
Vāsughoṣa: Jeer Swami. Shriman Narayana Jeer.
Acyutānanda: That's not a Bhāgavata-saptāha.
Vāsughoṣa: Yes, Sahasra-Bhāgavata. They had one thousand...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Is that Donghari Maharaja?
Yaśomatīnandana: That Donghari is very famous in Gujarat, so now he has mostly become famous all over India.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But they are booking thirty rooms in our guesthouse for ten days for the program.
Acyutānanda: You've got new japa beads, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Yes. From tulasī. It was made in Honolulu. In Honolulu tulasī plants are very luxurious. Hyderabad local people, they are not sympathetic with our temple? Huh? Not sympathetic?
Prabhupāda: They visit our temple?
Vāsughoṣa: All those brāhmaṇas that came for the yajña, and everybody, after the yajña ended at about six-thirty, they immediately came to the temple, our temple, afterwards. Everybody knew. We distributed thousands of books there. It was very good book distribution. We sold in one day, you know, we were selling two thousand rupees a day worth of books. Everybody that came there was very pious.
Prabhupāda: We took advantage.
Vāsughoṣa: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Unless one is pious how he can...
Prabhupāda: So we have got cows, they are supplying more than hundred pounds.
Indian: This cost is three thousand rupees, one cow. Four thousand. (Hindi) pure cows five thousand rupees.
Dr. Patel: They have brought some Holland bulls and Jersey cows and then Indian bulls, and brought some genetic researchers brought out a new hybrid.
Indian: It is very good cow, very good. Giving thirty to forty liters per day.
Hari-śauri: Those cows we have in the Pennsylvania farm, the two best ones, they're the two best pedigree cows in the whole of America. They have their pedigree traced back two hundred and fifty years to when the first cows came to America. Purebreds.
Prabhupāda: In our Philadelphia farm we are selling fifteen hundred dollars extra milk. Fifteen hundred dollars per month. So if cow is properly protected, it can supply immense milk.
Prabhupāda: What is the rent?
Yaśomatīnandana: Land also...
Prabhupāda: No, no, rent.
Yaśomatīnandana: Rent is thousand rupees. One thousand rupees, plus tax for government.
Prabhupāda: Plus twelve hundred?
Yaśomatīnandana: No, plus two hundred tax. They are life members from Ahmedabad. They came to see Your Divine Grace.
Prabhupāda: Oh, thank you. So give them place to stay. (end)
Prabhupāda: Let them inquire. Our... Everything is open secret. We are selling books throughout the whole world to the extent of six lakhs rupees per day. So money is coming from Kṛṣṇa.
Indian man (1): Here only Swamiji, Prabhupāda, just now this...
Prabhupāda: If you don't like this, you can close India, we can go all over the world.
Indian man (2): Yes, there is a very big scope there.
Indian man (3): No, but here even it would declare it. Minister of State. Only Communist have put those questions.
Prabhupāda: Communists are seeing this movement as a great danger.
Indian man (3): Yes, great danger for their...
Prabhupāda: And we are spreading God consciousness. (break) By the grace of Kṛṣṇa, we have no debts. We are (indistinct) simply find out... (?) Now in Bombay I am getting from my Book Fund seven lakhs of rupees per month regularly.
Prabhupāda: We have given them three lakhs of rupees. What is that?
Mahāṁśa: This is the newspaper article which came in Hindu, the Hindu paper, about the government asking something about us.
Indian man (1): Communist party.
Mahāṁśa: "New Delhi, August 13th. Mr. Om Mehta, Minister of State for Home, informed the Rājya-sabhā yesterday that government will order an inquiry into the activities of Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Society in Nadia District of West Bengal to find out whether there was something fishy about it."
Hari-śauri: This is the same report Gopāla Kṛṣṇa read you.
Mahāṁśa: You have read this, Prabhupāda?
Indian man (3): It must have come in earlier.
Prabhupāda: But the name is "Kṛṣṇa Caitanya." (laughs)
Indian man (3): This book sales all over the world, six lakhs of rupees?
Prabhupāda: Sixty thousand...
Indian man (3): Dollars. About five lakhs.
Prabhupāda: Books. We are printing books five lakhs, three lakhs, one lakh, fifty thousand. Lowest twenty thousand.
Indian man (3): Volumes.
Prabhupāda: And repetition.
Hari-śauri: They expect to sell twenty thousand copies in one week now. When a new book is published, that first batch of twenty thousand will sell in one week.
Prabhupāda: So here is? (break)
Prabhupāda: Huh? No, many novel things go from here, but they are sticking to it. They are now seriously taking to it. They understand that this is a great science and we are publishing books. We have already published eighty-four books like that. Eighty-four of four hundred pages. And you'll be surprised that throughout the whole world we are selling books about sixty thousand dollars a day. That means six lakhs of rupees. That is the basic income for our expenditure, 102 centers all over the world.
Interviewer (3): A central minister the Parliament recently said that he will conduct a probe to see if there was anything fishy in this...
Prabhupāda: Therefore I am bringing before you, before probing, you try to understand what is our income. We are selling these books six lakhs rupees daily, and we are spending it fifty percent for reprinting the books and fifty percent for expanding temples all over the world. This is our activities. Now you probe it or understand it.
Interviewer (3): This is the only source of revenue for the society?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
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: Oh, yes.
Jayapatākā: Now the price of rice has gone up by about eighty paisa. From two rupees to two-eighty. So the poor class of people, they are in a very bad situation. So now our attendance has gone up from twelve hundred to two thousand on that Saturday and Sunday, each day. So we have two shifts. So many people are coming that they come from ten o'clock in the morning and wait because otherwise they can't get a boat in time to cross the river. So then we were very surprised to read in a recent newsletter from LA that "They're going to restart the food relief." But we never knew it stopped. We never knew that they had stopped the food relief. We saw then that he said, "They're going to restart." But we never stopped, and we were very surprised to see that. And now they say...
Prabhupāda: Who said?
Jayapatākā: Rāmeśvara.
Gargamuni: To maintain this food relief from the centers only requires what? Fifteen hundred dollars a month. So little amount and so much service is done.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Jayapatākā: Rāmeśvara, you wrote him a letter that "Jayapatākā Swami should be sent money for ISKCON Food Relief." And he told me that "I am sending you. I have four thousand dollars, "which he sent. We had already been 36,000 rupees in debt because we had not received money for six months. But he wrote in a newsletter to the temples that "Prabhupāda has wrote me to send money to Jayapatākā Swami; and now we're going to start again ISKCON Food Relief." But that was making it appear that we had stopped. But actually we had never stopped.
Prabhupāda: Rāmeśvara? He did not know?
Jayapatākā: Rāmeśvara had stopped collecting from the temples. But we had never stopped...
Prabhupāda: Anyway, he'll collect. That's all.
Prabhupāda: No, our cloth necessities are supplied by ourselves? The cloth?
Jayapatākā: The difficulty is right now we have twenty thousand rupees worth of cloth in stock. That is all profit. We only are three thousand rupees in debt. But we have all the cloth. We have no customers.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Gargamuni: There's no customers. We have a huge stock...
Prabhupāda: You send immediately to America. They will pay.
Gargamuni: we sent a newsletter to get people to buy cloth the cloth because we have a huge stock of it.
Prabhupāda: Now, you ask Bhagavān. He is very clever. He's expert.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Jayapatākā: And that is the seventeenth branch of Lord Nityānanda. It's got the personal Deities of Nitāi-Gaura that he used to worship. It's got a building worth about fifty thousand rupees on it. A nice, brand new nātha-mandira. This man is Shri Keshav Priya Brahmacari. He's a disciple of that Krishna Prem, that Mr. Nixtan or something.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Jayapatākā: He talked personally with Bhaktisiddhānta, I heard, in Sanskrit many years ago. He's a disciple.
Prabhupāda: He's Indian or...?
Jayapatākā: Well, it's an unusual story that that man was a pilot in the World War, and he was flying over Himalayas or something, and he saw Kṛṣṇa in his mind's eye or something, and then, then he was shot down, he saw Kṛṣṇa, and then, when he landed, he searched out who he saw, and he came to Vṛndāvana or something and saw the Deity of Kṛṣṇa, and he became initiated at Rādhā-Rāmaṇa temple.
Prabhupāda: Rādhā-Rāmaṇa
Prabhupāda: He's fixed up. That's nice. Let him translate in Orissa and, if possible, in Hindi. And give him few devotees. Then he'll be encouraged.
Jayapatākā: I think he has got two or three devotees now. This man himself is a pretty capable worker. He's somewhat like Prabhu Swarupa, only a little older, little more mature. He's about forty-five or so. He's been able to collect about, what I can see, about fifty thousand rupees for one nātha-mandira. And he has a couple thousand people. I heard from the Gauḍīya Maṭha. They say they have big utsavas there. Every year two three thousand people come.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Jayapatākā: So he's a capable...
Prabhupāda: Manager.
Jayapatākā:...manager in his own right. He wanted to meet you.
Prabhupāda: So let us cooperate with him. You take it. And he is there. In the meantime, our men may be trained up.
Prabhupāda: Our difficulty is this immigration. If we can manage this, then all such places we can take. There is no question. The only thing is that government is gagging. One has to go and it means ten thousand rupees unnecessarily. If that ten thousand rupees was invested in developing that center, much improvement could be done. But they are gagging. They are dreaming, "CIA."
Jayapatākā: When I go back, I'll see this Rāghava Paṇḍita because there the MLA, he himself wants it because that's a very important place and it's going bad.
Prabhupāda: So that MLA can help us to get some citizenship.
Jayapatākā: With MLA and Tarun Kanti Ghosh...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: You can bring so many men and keep everyone in charge of such places, and it will develop. Money, there is no scarcity. But the difficulty is as soon as we establish, the immigration, "You go away." This is... What is this? You say the MLA and this Tarun Kanti." This is our difficulty. Otherwise there is no difficulty. We can take all the charge and develop them very nicely." So if one man is kept in charge, and after few months he's advised, "Go away," then all his training goes to hell and we have to spend another ten thousand rupees. This is the difficulty. What... We are not... Not a single case there is that we have taken any part in politics. So give us some facility. We can take charge of everything. Tell them that actually that is fact, that there is no scarcity of money. We can bring money from America and develop. There is no difficulty at all. The difficulty is the immigration department. You can say that "Prabhupāda has put this philosophy, andha..." What is that? Paṅgu. Andha-paṅgu-nyāya. Blind and... Depends on this... Blind and... I think you have already know. Blind man, lame man. One man is blind, another man is lame. Both of them are useless. But when they combine, the blind man takes the lame man on his shoulder, and the lame man gives direction to the blind man, "Go this way. Go this way." So he walks. So both of them are benefited. So America has got money but blind. And India has got culture but lame. So let us combine.
Jayapatākā: I tell the members that "You can't get any Bhāgavatams," because there's too many.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Why not? If he reads, give him. And it is very easy. Suppose I give you five books. You become member. So you read it and take another five books. This five books I can give to another. In this way we can manage. There is no misunderstanding. We give you book for reading, not for selling. Not that I have money. Now so many books, let me sell it and get return as many, as much money as possible." Bāniyā tendency is like that.
Jayapatākā: Because they're paying 2,222 rupees. If they only give them five books on exchange, I don't think now they'll be satisfied.
Prabhupāda: What for he's taking?
Gargamuni: They're satisfied.
Prabhupāda: No, no.
Prabhupāda: What is the cause of dissatisfaction? You take the books for reading, so you finish this and again we give five books. We take back this and give you in exchange. So actually we give them five books for good. That we are prepared. Five books at fifty rupees each, that one or 250.
Jayapatākā: But they're giving two thousand rupees.
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Gargamuni: That's for membership. That isn't just for books. Sometimes they stay in our mandira.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Gargamuni: We pay for their prasāda.
Prabhupāda: And three days, free boarding and lodging. In this way things should be clear so that in future they may not complain, "Ah, we...," as they are doing. Somebody is coming: "Oh we have given 1100 rupees to live forever." Some ladies came like that.
Prabhupāda: Let him purchase one room. Let him live... For life he can live, and we give him prasāda free.
Jayapatākā: Purchase one room. Eight, ten thousand rupees.
Prabhupāda: No, fifty thousand, I think. In Vṛndāvana we are selling sixty thousand. Sixty thousand.
Gargamuni: No, but those rooms have attached baths. In our room there is no attached bath.
Prabhupāda: No, I mean to say in Vṛndāvana, that... Or anywhere. Whatever money is fixed up, let him pay, live in his room comfortably and we give him free prasāda. There is no harm. But he must attend the ārati and rules and regulations. There is no...
Jayapatākā: No tea, nor... All the rules he should follow.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: They are... They are crazy fellows.
Gargamuni: That bank is worthless. They don't know anything about banking. They are farmers.
Prabhupāda: Forget it. If bank like Central bank or United, that bank... They are useless, and they are asking ten lakhs of rupees deposit.
Jayapatākā: Five lakhs. They will give interest. They'd like a fixed amount...
Prabhupāda: So who believes them?
Gargamuni: No, but I don't trust that bank because they already tried... They kept fifty thousand rupees. It took us two weeks to get that.
Jayapatākā: They didn't have any signature.
Gargamuni: It doesn't matter, though. It's still...
Prabhupāda: They are not... It is a small cultivator's cooperative.
Prabhupāda: Then who is going to deposit five lakhs of rupees with them? That is not possible.
Jayapatākā: Yes, that's all right, but as far as the bank goes...
Prabhupāda: That's all right. We can go on without the business. We cannot deposit.
Jayapatākā: Any banker goes there, they'll want a deposit.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Why should we deposit five lakhs of rupees? The money value is decreasing daily.
Jayapatākā: We get credit.
Prabhupāda: If you deposit five lakhs now, it will decrease value in five, ten months. The purchasing power of money is decreasing. Now what you can purchase with five lakhs of rupees, after five years you'll require ten lakhs. So your money will decrease. And if you invest that money in land, after five years it will increase to its full extent (?). So why should we waste our money? What is the benefit?
Prabhupāda: Farmers' policy is if they have got money, they purchase land. Therefore they are making ceiling. The whole policy is not so good (?). Farmers, as soon as they get some money, they want to invest the land but the ceiling..., so they cannot invest money in the land; they give to the bank. And as soon as you keep money in the bank it will decrease the value. This is... Money is decreased, value of all over the world. Because it is not money actually; it is paper, cheating. Real money is gold. But they will now allow to keep the gold. The whole policy is vicious. If I purchase gold with five lakhs of rupees, then it is real money, and after five years I can sell it ten lakhs. That they will not allow. Therefore I... My policy is that whatever money is there, spend. Don't keep. In land and produce food. That is the best use of. All buildings, government (for men?), there is no need of. And instead of keeping money and take interest, you print books. That is also good. You can sell. Or you purchase land for producing food.
Prabhupāda: That's it. Actually it is losing. Actually it is losing. Every day the price... Just like the price of rice has increased.
Jayapatākā: It is up and down.
Prabhupāda: Up and down, now... Take it. When it goes up it does not come down, generally. So this is practical example. Two months ago you were purchasing two rupees—now two-eighty. So where is the value of the money?
Gargamuni: If we invest in books... Just like this little pamphlet I printed. It cost me fifty paisa. If we sell it in one month...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: State Bank of India. That is better.
Saurabha: That is better. Then the Syndicate Bank and the...
Prabhupāda: So the charges will be four rupees.
Saurabha: Four or four and a half.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So best. Whoever gives the best.
Saurabha: And then one year in advance payment?
Prabhupāda: Yes, if we get from...
Saurabha: Of course, the location is excellent. It is... This is... There's two towers, and here is the road. Here is that, our road, going to our land in the back. Here is the main entry. Here is the temple in the back. So these two on the ground floor are meant for bank. So people can come right from here, and here is an entry. So place is the best for the bank. So they all want that place. So you think State Bank of India is the best?
Prabhupāda: No, as you think?
Saurabha: I don't know very much, but Gopāla said that the Indian Overseas Bank is an upcoming bank as well as Syndicate Bank, so they may be more eager for this.
Prabhupāda: Syndicate Bank is not very...
Saurabha: I also think to have a big bank is better.
Prabhupāda: Big bank is better. And who pays the best price.
Prabhupāda: One lakh rupees? No.
Saurabha: Well, it depends how many devotees are going to stay. But for a farm, I think ...
Prabhupāda: Say ten rooms.
Saurabha: Ten rooms.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: The gṛhasthas from Bombay could be moved over there.
Prabhupāda: No, gṛhasthas can live, go to the farm.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, they can go from Bombay to there. They can cultivate our farm.
Saurabha: For sixty thousand rupees we can build sufficient accommodation, and then the rest we need...
Prabhupāda: So we can spend up to one lakh and make more rooms.
Saurabha: Yes. And when you come there the house is sufficient for you to stay. It's very nice. Big rooms.
Prabhupāda: So we shall go in October.
Prabhupāda: Shri Ramdal(?) Gandhi?
Saurabha: He's the head man of that institute there. And then some very big European industrialist they are also involved. They've spent two crores of rupees on that complex. It's very well maintained also. I went into the building. It's excellent. But there is nobody.
Prabhupāda: Eh? Nobody. (break) So it is immediately cut.
Mahāṁśa: The door is ready, so when you go for a bath...
Prabhupāda: No, he can come.
Mahāṁśa: Now he can come?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Mahāṁśa Swami is nicely doing (?).
Hari-śauri: He's very sincere.
Prabhupāda: And everyone likes him.
Prabhupāda: Make a strong case immediately, without delay.
Pradyumna: Get a friendly lawyer.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay. Go ahead. Next...
Pradyumna: "In point, in Bombay, a huge plot was acquired in Juhu for rupees fourteen lakhs. They have put up a temple there with a barbed wire fence around it."
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Where is the barbed wire?
Pradyumna: They just put things to make it seem like we're... (laughing) What is the... Everyone is...
Prabhupāda: Yes, the barbed wire is there. No Blitz editor can go there. (laughter) No rogues and Blitz editors allowed. (laughter)
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I heard... Ācārya was telling me when he came from America first in the Hare Kṛṣṇa Land, that Blitz editor...
Prabhupāda: You write this. The barbed wire is there to keep away the dogs and Blitz editor.
Pradyumna: "Then point: At Vṛndāvana, the famed Kṛṣṇa spot, they are on a building spree. Already rupees twelve lakhs have been spent on an unfinished temple."
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This is bogus.
Prabhupāda: Let them say(?) unfinished. When it was finished it was more than twenty lakhs...Fifty lakhs. And the temple was opened by the governor of U.P.
Pradyumna: We have mentioned that.
Gargamuni: And enclose his two letters. He wrote very nice letters. Very beautiful letters.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.
Gargamuni: He wishes us all success, and he begs for your blessings. He begs for your blessings.
Prabhupāda: Yes, this letter should be... They should immediately be brought into court and charged the damage for fifty thousand dollars.
Prabhupāda: And what is British Empire? British Empire could not occupy the whole world. We are occupying the whole world.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: But what they've done is they opened a newsletter which Rāmeśvara Swami sent. And it must have been addressed to Gargamuni Swami. They must have stolen it from the postman by giving him two rupees.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. We are trying to expand our empire, and it is already done all over the world.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Okay.
Pradyumna: "Now we've become more than the British Empire. Even the British Empire was not as expansive as we are. They had only a portion of the world, and we have not completed expanding. We must expand more and more unlimitedly."
Prabhupāda: You also explain, that British Empire expanded by military strength. And we are expanding by Ratha-yātrā. We are expanding our empire simply by Ratha-yātrā.
Prabhupāda: They admitted, "Rival to Nelson Column" in Guardian even. So who is strong enough? We are stronger than British Empire. Simply by Ratha-yātrā we are conquering. And actually that is being done. What I have got strength? Forty rupees beginning. Simply Hare Kṛṣṇa and Ratha-yātrā, that's all. That's a fact. They can see, they have got eyes.
Pradyumna: "The Indian government has been rather slow in picking up the ISKCON signals. One reason being that the genuine Kṛṣṇa devotees in the administration had been mighty pleased in the beginning with the idea of exporting Kṛṣṇa consciousness to America."
Prabhupāda: Genuine?
Hari-śauri: That means the genuine ones are here in India, and they were pleased with the idea of exporting Kṛṣṇa to America. So that means that the ones in America are not genuine.
Prabhupāda: So "You are not genuine. Therefore we are not appreciating." Genuine they appreciate. "But you are not genuine. Therefore we are criticizing you."
Jayapatākā: I went to Writer's Building, I had four or five copies with me. I didn't go for selling. I went to see ministers. But all the peons, they were buying the Gītār Gāns from me. I sold out. People were coming up with rupees saying, "Gītār Gān." I didn't have any more.
Prabhupāda: Out of their own accord they...
Gargamuni: No, they've heard of it. It's becoming famous.
Jayapatākā: That's our inspiration, that if we can make Gītār Gān and Your Divine Grace famous all over Bengal, then we will feel that our mission...
Prabhupāda: Yes, I could not write any... I wrote some Bengali book, that is now... It can be collected from Devānanda Gauḍīya Maṭha. I continually wrote one book, Bhagavāner Kathā.
Jayapatākā: People are begging us for books in Bengali written by Your Divine Grace. We tell them that... There's no time.
Prabhupāda: That Subhaga translated. But his translations are not so...
Gargamuni: No. There's always trouble with translation in local languages, Hindi or Gujarati.
Prabhupāda: They do not know the philosophy.
Prabhupāda: He presented me one.
Jayapatākā: Many people ask that if the Gītār Gān could be put in Hindi.
Gargamuni: This Gītā Press, they have these little books selling for one rupee, and they've sold lakhs. If we can put Gītār Gān into many languages, it will be bigger than this Gītā Press.
Prabhupāda: So you can... It is poetry.
Jayapatākā: That's the difference, that Prabhupāda put it in poetry. Who has got that inspiration?
Prabhupāda: It is gān, gītā, song. One can chant it singing.
Jayapatākā: Some people say, "We want the Gītā. This is only gān." But then we have to say, "No, this has got the full Gītā. Everything is there. Every śloka is in here. Only put in gān form. But it is actual Gītā." Other people say, "I have so many Gītās." We say, "No, no, you can chant this with your harmonium or by khol and karatāla you can sing." So many ways the people are taking it.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they can sing very nicely.
Prabhupāda: It was a very good place. This Prabhākāra helped me. Ninety percent was... But if I did not leave, nobody could drive me, that was a fact. But I thought "Who is going to..., for litigation? She is the governor's wife, and she is pressing through collectors, through..." The manager who was in charge, he had some cinema house. So they had to renew the license, cinema house. And the collector pressed him that "Unless you arrange for this house, we are not going to renew your license." I thought, "Unnecessarily this man will be in trouble. I'll have to pay so many rupees, and she is governor's wife." And that lady came to me in Bombay several times. "You take my press. You have got so many publications." So I said "I can take your press. I have got money. But what shall I do with it? It is letter press. Now printing is done by offset." That press, Associated Press, is very good press. It was... They got so many government contracts. The whole telephone guides were printed there. But because it is letterset press, it is costly. The government got offset press, cheaper price. So that contract was cancelled. So for her nefarious activity she is punished. Her husband died. She has no more importance, and she was one of the trustees of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. So she was exempted. Now she's an ordinary woman. Press is not working.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. Enclose this quote.
Maṇihāra: "ISKCON has generated many community farms like New Vrindaban, providing the ideal atmosphere of a busy, yet peaceful village, fully devoted to spiritual progress. Swami Prabhupāda has also established the first Kṛṣṇa conscious gurukula in the West, a primary school in Dallas, Texas, for one hundred boys and girls between the ages of five and fifteen. Soon after its success, many such gurukulas have sprung up all over the world. Aside from teaching reading, writing, mathematics, geography, etc., the gurukula teaches the child how to cultivate God consciousness. Once a year members of ISKCON journey to the Society's international headquarters at Śrīdhāma Māyāpur, ninety miles north of Calcutta, and the birthplace of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. It is the site of a ten crore rupees international Vedic village comprised of community farming projects, high-class gurukula school, free medicinal facilities, and handloom weaving center. An institute of Vedic studies is proposed to be established at this site. Other major ISKCON centers in India are in Vṛndāvana, Bombay, and Kurukṣetra, the site of a three-crore rupee international Sanskrit university. This project will be sponsored by Alfred Ford, a nephew of Henry Ford. This will be the cultural..."
Prabhupāda: Nephew, nephew of Ford, that's a fact. Alfred is from the daughter's side. So the present Mr. Ford, his nephew, certainly, because daughter's side. His mother is the daughter, granddaughter of Henry Ford. Alfred's mother is the granddaughter of Henry Ford. Therefore the present Ford is the maternal uncle of Alfred.
Commissioner: May I submit, Swamiji, therefore what we did was, these three hundred people, if they chant, three hundred rupees for a dāna-paṭha,(?) and two hundred rupees for him and a hundred rupees a...
Prabhupāda: No, no, brāhmaṇa, why he will take money?
Commissioner: It is, no, we are giving it as dakṣiṇā.
Prabhupāda: No, dakṣiṇā. But they are chanting in exchange of dakṣiṇā. Because you are giving dakṣiṇā, therefore they are chanting. And you stop that dakṣiṇā, nobody will come.
Commissioner: True. You are correct. (laughs) That we have told them. If they teach their own children, hundred rupees for him for teaching, forty rupees for a child who learns.
Prabhupāda: That they will do, but when the hundred rupees will not be sufficient, they'll give up.
Commissioner: One thing is that at least one child is learning in each and every...
Prabhupāda: No, I mean to say that is not the process. If you want to satisfy with money, and in exchange of money he wants to chant Vedas, that is not...
Commissioner: No, Swamiji, some of them didn't care either for the money.
Prabhupāda: Some of them maybe.
Commissioner: They don't have people. They said, "We don't have men even for our own missions."
Prabhupāda: No. How long they can go on with false pretense? And these people, they have no idea what is spiritual life. It is a profession for collecting money. So if you... We do not like to criticize. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kanayalal Munshi, he did not believe there is life after death or he did not believe there is Kṛṣṇa, fact. This is the founder. So what is their knowledge? And Vivekananda made Nārāyaṇa daridra. So this is their manufacturing ideas. They have no sound knowledge, vacant. They are misled themselves, and they will mislead others. This is going on. But if you say that, "You are the only man?" I can say, "Yes, I am the only man" at the present moment. You believe or not believe. And why? Because I am following Kṛṣṇa's instructions. That's all. I do not touch anything. That is our process. What Kṛṣṇa has said, we say, that's all. Therefore there is little success. I don't manufacture. I have no extraordinary power or I cannot show magic or jugglery of words. But I do sincerely to present what Kṛṣṇa has said. So if you do that, you'll be successful. If you do not do that, you'll never be successful. If you manufacture idea... We must know that we are defective. Our manufacturing of idea all defective. We must take standard instructions from Kṛṣṇa. Then everything... So if you stick to this point, then we can guide you. And you'll be successful. Guidance is Kṛṣṇa. Our duty is to present Kṛṣṇa. Just like somebody has sent you money order, 1,000 rupees. I am a peon. I am not giving you the money. The money is sent by somebody. But I do not open it, adulterate it—that is my honesty.
Prabhupāda: It is very difficult. Very difficult. You see. Big, big scholars, big, big politicians, they are supposed to be preaching Bhagavad-gītā. They take their photograph in front of Bhagavad-gītā, but without Kṛṣṇa. They'll never talk of Kṛṣṇa any time. Banish Kṛṣṇa. Even Gandhi has said, "My imagination of Kṛṣṇa is different." Perhaps you have read in his Gītā-Press edition.(?) Kṛṣṇa is speaking... Radhakrishnan said when Kṛṣṇa says man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ, he says "It is not to the Kṛṣṇa person." Kṛṣṇa says man-manā bhava mad bhaktaḥ, and he says it is not to the Kṛṣṇa person. Just see how misleading it is. And if a person like Dr. Radhakrishnan, Gandhi, misleads, then who will hear me? What I am? There is one big person in Bombay, he said that he has set aside ten lakhs of rupees for Gītā-pracāra. But when I proposed Gītā-pracāra means Kṛṣṇa pracāra, so he said, "No, I want Gītā without Kṛṣṇa." Everyone...
Prabhupāda: Get this cheap edition. You can order cheap edition. (break. Paṇḍita chants Śrī Īśopaniṣad and Gāyatrī. Prabhupāda speaks in Hindi, quoting Sanskrit ślokas.) (break)
Mahāṁsa: They will not part with even one thousand rupees. They're exactly what you described. And also these were the people who are with Śaṅkarācārya who came the first time when you had come here. They were with Śaṅkarācārya. And Hariprasad and some Marwaris were with our movement and these people were on the other side. So there was some conflict at that time. And Śaṅkarācārya came and you...
Prabhupāda: Śaṅkarācārya, he says that you are bhagavān.
Mahāṁsa: Yes. Also nirākāra. All these things they have been influenced. But practically now they are slowly coming to accept us. There is one Mr. Badanman who was the host of Śaṅkarācārya and for two and a half years he never came here, he never entertained the devotees.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. That would be poison.
Prabhupāda: Oh, there is no Kṛṣṇa...
Mahāṁsa: There is no Kṛṣṇa temple. What to speak of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. And their Deity is Kṛṣṇa, most of the Marwaris. So they will now slowly all of them will come. We had a very hard time. This Inani who was wearing the turban. He's the chief of the Marwaris. If he gives five thousand rupees, then all the Marwaris will give five thousand rupees in that Ganj area. Whatever he gives, the others will have to.
Prabhupāda: He is the head.
Mahāṁsa: He's the head. He himself never gave. And we went a hundred times to him.
Prabhupāda: And now he saw the film...
Mahāṁsa: Yes. And today also he was there in the morning. Now he will definitely give. You had also previously said that they are very conservative. But once they take it up, then they will take it up very nicely.
Prabhupāda: And I also explained, "Nā rūpya, nā rūpya." (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Huh? Beg, borrow, steal. Bring money and enjoy. They were selected Marwaris. This morning?
Mahāṁsa: Yes, these people are the head of the Marwari community. They don't know how to live. They live in these slums which we saw today. They live all around that area. They are crore-patis. They have crores of rupees.
Prabhupāda: To live very gorgeously is not good.
Mahāṁsa: But even their houses are not so clean, shabby.
Prabhupāda: Even though they're not... You cannot say not... They are clean. I have seen in Bombay even the poorest man, his house, and a Parsee gentleman, his house. Kitchen habits. A Parsee's kitchen is so nasty. And here you see this poor man's house, they are neat. Their utensils how much cleansed. I had been in Parsee kitchen. All the pots black. Nothing is cleansed. For eating they use this China. So clean or unclean cannot be understood. Simply washed. But so far the kitchen pots, all are... In our also, when it is handled by this European, American devotees, the black. Down, it is black. That should not be black. It must be cleansed.
Minister: Mostly it is utilized for that. Almost completely. Only one or two is mere what is called charity. The industry, there's been a wrong impression that we are working directly with industry.
Prabhupāda: No, no. That is... It should be utilized simply for the purpose of awakening the devotional, what is called-inspiration. For no other purpose. Just like in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is said nitya-siddha kṛṣṇa-bhakti. Kṛṣṇa-bhakti, nitya-siddha. This is our natural... Just like these Europeans and Americans, they have become Kṛṣṇa bhaktas. So what business they had to do with Kṛṣṇa? They're coming from Christian family, Jewish families, or some of them Mohammedan family. So what they have got to do with Kṛṣṇa? They haven't got to do anything with Kṛṣṇa. So how they have become a Kṛṣṇa bhakta? Even the... Just like he is coming from Parsee family, he is coming from Jewish family, he is coming from Christian family, he is coming from Europe, he is coming from America. So what they have got to do with Kṛṣṇa? We Indians or Hindus, we may have some concern with Kṛṣṇa, but what they have got? They haven't got anything to do with Kṛṣṇa. Now you pay them one lakh of rupees and ask them, "You become again Christian. You become again Parsee." Just see. Make them again Christian. Practical. These are young boys. You ask them, that "I'll give you good girl, I'll give you good money. You give up this Kṛṣṇa consciousness-come here." Ask them, make a test. They'll refuse, they'll kick out. How they have become? Therefore it is a fact, as it is stated in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, kṛṣṇa-bhakti nitya-siddha. Everyone has got Kṛṣṇa bhakti eternally. It is not artificial. They have not become Kṛṣṇa bhakta artificially. It is the eternal link that has been awakened.
Minister: They have said so many things in the name of śāstra. They have said so many things in the name of śāstra. That you are making it one is very good.
Prabhupāda: No, those who are approved śāstra is accepted by the ācāryas. Śāstra, which is accepted by the ācārya, that is śāstra. You cannot make. As you cannot manufacture religion, you cannot manufacture śāstras. Approved by the ācāryas. Ācāryopāsanam. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says also that you should know from the ācārya. Everyone. They are preaching Bhagavad-gītā with the purpose of killing Kṛṣṇa. Everyone. The politicians, the scholars, the rascals, and everyone. The main purpose is how to kill Kṛṣṇa. In Bombay I have got a very big friend, you know him. I do not wish to disclose his name. He has set aside ten lakhs of rupees for preaching Gītā. But he wants Gītā without Kṛṣṇa. Rāma without Sītā. Rāvaṇa's policy. Take away Sītā. Rāma will remain alone. So take away Gītā and cut Kṛṣṇa. But I cannot make any compromise I shall... My life is ended, now eighty-one. I do not... But so long I shall live I shall make no compromise, kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (SB 1.3.28). Dṛḍha-vrata. And that is a fact. Why shall I mislead people? They are searching after God, what is God. Here is God. Why don't you take it. See His activities. Aiśvaryasya samagrasya vīryasya yaśasaḥ. Tally with the formula of God, you see Kṛṣṇa is God. Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam. So whatever teeny effort I have got, I shall try to establish temples of Kṛṣṇa all over the world with my teeny income. I have got book sales. Kṛṣṇa has given me very good chance. It is beyond any dream. We are selling books sixty thousand dollars daily.
Prabhupāda: Twelve lakhs. So by selling my books. And I have sent him more than four lakhs, five lakhs from foreign countries. This is my fault. Similarly, in Bombay we are spending every month seven lakhs regularly. That is coming from foreign countries. And they are thinking that I'm taking bribe and acting as C.I.A. And C.I.A. have become Vaiṣṇavas with long śikhā and giving up all facilities of life and they are dancing with the C.I.A. People have no common sense that C.I.A. agent could stay in a nice hotel and enjoy life. Why so much vairāgya? Even my Godbrothers said that American government has given me two crores of rupees. Now we are planning to have a temple in Māyāpur where... What is, what is the economic estimates, where we shall spend how much money monthly?
Harikeśa: Two hundred thousand dollars monthly.
Prabhupāda: Two hundred thousand dollars monthly. (break) Nobody will be able to check it. He'll go on. That is Kṛṣṇa. Here is dictaphone. I work at night. I get up at half past twelve, one, and I write books. And daytime I'm engaged. And daily either ten page, twenty page written, that is sent to Los Angeles. You have seen our press? And they take care. How our books printed, have you got that film?
Mahāṁsa: I have it in 16 mm only. Yes.
Prabhupāda: You can show, they'll be... How in the American industrial process we are printing our books. I made the Book Trust, sixty thousand dollars they are selling. So as author, I could have derived from them at least six thousand, ten percent minimum. Six thousand dollars per day. Six thousand dollars means sixty thousand rupees. That could have been my daily income. But I take little khicuḍi from them, that's all. (Harikeśa laughing)
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Hundred and eighty thousand dollars a month.
Prabhupāda: No no no. Six thousand dollars means, say ten rupees.
Krishna Modi: Sixty thousand per day.
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.
Prabhupāda: It is a great credit that I am selling my books and bringing ten lakhs of rupees from foreign country in India.
Krishna Modi: That we will speak. And his mind is very clear. Brahmānanda his mind is very clear, very clear, and he is appreciating. And he is in our favor 100%.
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.
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.
Krishna Modi: This is their way, sir. They have to. They must do it. Because...
Prabhupāda: So you kindly speak to the Parliament that "This is the position, that he is working day and night..."
Krishna Modi: Oh no, I will speak very high about this. Let them, let the matter come. And if not come then we will take this matter. I will give the question. You please reply how much money is coming and in what way they are doing.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: One cooperation is that we can bring immediately a small vans or buses so that we can go village to village, town to town. If I get government permit then... Because here the buses are very costly, and at the same time they are not very good. But foreign buses... India hasn't got to pay anything but simply let us have and work in India. This much facility wanted. Besides that, our men, they are coming, spending ten thousand rupees and after three months or six months, "Get out, get out, get out." And Indians are not joining. Indians are not so sacrificing. But these boys they have sacrificed everything. I am sure if some cooperation is coming from the government I can very soon change the face of India. But I am not getting any facilities. We have experimented in Bengal, and here also, he is also going, saṅkīrtana party. But he could not do it in a large scale for want of facilities. And in foreign countries these boys are so sacrificing spirit, as soon as we give him some program, immediately they make arrangement. Immediately. We are going village to village with books in buses. Hundreds of buses are working.
Prabhupāda: It will be good for the country, for the whole nation.
Krishna Modi: And we will come Vṛndāvana also.
Prabhupāda: Please come. I am there for three weeks.
Krishna Modi: How many rupees per day for three days?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We have about a thirty-room guest house in Vṛndāvana.
Paramahaṁsa: You bring eighty persons with you, make nice arrangements.
Prabhupāda: If you want sir, that is charge. We charge.
Krishna Modi: That is... You must charge it.
Lokanātha: Our charges are very nominal.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: A donation to that temple.
Krishna Modi: That is perfectly correct. You must charge. If your members will get free.
Lokanātha: Yes. Each room has a fan, bath...
Prabhupāda: It is (indistinct).
Krishna Modi: That is perfect.
Prabhupāda: So this is the real platform of United Nation. Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati samaḥ sarveṣu (BG 18.54). At that time samaḥ sarveṣu. Na śocati na kāṅkṣati. They have no demand. These boys they are working so hard. They never ask a single paisa from me. It is not possible for me to pay these foreigners as salaried man. That is not possible. They get minimum four thousand rupees minimum. Minimum salary America is $400 dollars. That means four thousand rupees. So and they are getting $800, $1200, $2000. And poverty is unknown in America. They do not know what is poverty. I see here the milk they are standing in block. You can get as much milk as you want anywhere you go, any shop you go you take immediately. Anything. Building materials. You simply order to the suppliers, immediately everything is there.
Harikeśa: With four thousand rupees.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: He's in Rādhā-kuṇḍa, they say.
Prabhupāda: Just see.
Harikeśa: Really? He's in Rādhā-kuṇḍa?
Devotee: One boy came from Bombay, he told me, "If I leave I have to go."
Prabhupāda: When did he say?
Devotee: (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Then he's Rādhā-kuṇḍa.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: In Bombay you...
Prabhupāda: He has taken four thousand rupees and gone to Rādhā-kuṇḍa.
Devotee: Yogānanda is in Govardhana?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No. Yogānanda is in Delhi. He's going to come here.
Prabhupāda: This is his taste. Sit idly, and become famous as very good scholar.
Prabhupāda: Restless, that's all. Mind not fixed up. Restless. Now what he'll do with that four thousand rupees? It is very good program. If I get some thousands of rupees and sit down in Rādhā-kuṇḍa and eat, that is very good idea.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I think we can find him. We know where he is.
Prabhupāda: You can find him, that is not difficult, but what is his mentality. Why he has gone to Rādhā-kuṇḍa if he was teaching here? You cannot rely upon him. When he'll go (indistinct). Rādhā-kuṇḍa, Rādhārāṇī's place, if anyone thinks that it is very easy to remain in Rādhā-kuṇḍa, the topmost place. Rūpa Gosvāmī has spoken—he must speak about Rādhā-kuṇḍa.
Prabhupāda: You can find him, that is not difficult, but what is his mentality. Why he has gone to Rādhā-kuṇḍa if he was teaching here? You cannot rely upon him. When he'll go (indistinct). Rādhā-kuṇḍa, Rādhārāṇī's place, if anyone thinks that it is very easy to remain in Rādhā-kuṇḍa, the topmost place. Rūpa Gosvāmī has spoken—he must speak about Rādhā-kuṇḍa. But what he has spoken about other things?
- atyāhāraḥ prayāsaś ca
- prajalpo niyamāgrahaḥ
- jana-saṅgaś ca laulyaṁ ca
- ṣaḍbhir bhaktir vinaśyati
- (NOI 2)
So Rādhā-kuṇḍa, who will live Rādhā-kuṇḍa? One is topmost devotee, and if he mixes with third-class devotee, how he is fit for living in Rādhā-kuṇḍa? There is no difference between Rādhā-kuṇḍa and Rādhārāṇī. So how you can jump over Rādhārāṇī? Rādhā-kuṇḍa and Rādhārāṇī nondifferent. How you can enjoy Rādhā-kuṇḍa by swimming? You cannot touch with your feet even Rādhā-kuṇḍa. You can take little water and keep it on the head. That is respectful to Rādhā-kuṇḍa. Of course, things are going on like that, but strictly speaking, Rādhā-kuṇḍa should be respected as Rādhārāṇī herself. That is Rādhā-kuṇḍa consciousness. Highest Rādhā-kuṇḍa consciousness. And if you want to live in Rādhā-kuṇḍa, then why he has taken four thousand rupees from Girirāja?
Akṣayānanda: Then clothing is more? Clothing is more? Maintenance?
Prabhupāda: No, everything. Hundred rupees per head. You do not require to collect. I shall pay five thousand.
Harikeśa: There should be a budget here.
Prabhupāda: Budget is there. Hundred rupees per head. Fifty men if you keep, it is five thousand.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We can keep less. We don't want fifty.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. It will be less. But I'm prepared to pay you five thousand rupees for fifty men. Not more than that. That I can pay. You do not require to collect. You sit down. But work hard here. Not that eating, sleeping. No. That cannot be. That cannot be done. They must be engaged twenty-four hours. That is wanted. It is not a lazy free hotel. Anyone lives, he must be engaged twenty-four hours. Kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ (CC Adi 17.31). If he has no work, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa here. That should be done.
Prabhupāda: Everything is nice. Only to be managed. Only to be managed. So I am prepared, I'll pay you. Even if you have no money I'll pay you five thousand rupees. Keep fifty men.
Akṣayānanda: I don't think it's necessary for you to pay.
Prabhupāda: So if necessary, I'm prepared. That's all right.
Akṣayānanda: No, it's not necessary.
Prabhupāda: Then thank you. That is another thing. But fifty men you can keep. Fifty men you can keep. And there is collection in the box. There is collection by prasāda, so many other things.
Indian man: And the altars.
Prabhupāda: That should be engaged fully in Deity worship. Not extravagant. That I shall see. I shall remain here. How things are going on. I shall manage myself. I shall see how things are going on. So anyway, fifty men, five thousand. No more twenty-five thousand. Forget. No more twenty-five.
Harikeśa: That's three rupees a day.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Haṁsadūta: If it's three rupees, thirty paisa a day for eating, soap, and toothpaste...
Indian man: See the shop here. See all the shop whether they have got money or not. You have opened a canteen here and you can note from there who has got money.
Prabhupāda: No, money they have got. There is no doubt. They are not coming from poor country, either poor. No, we are welcoming provided he is reasonable. Simply to exploit, that is not good. That is not good. What do you think? In our Indian system, if somebody goes to a sādhu's āśrama, especially gṛhastha, immediately he pays fifty rupees, hundred rupees. He'll not stay more than three days, four days. But he knows "The sādhu, wherefrom he'll bring money? Take." They are paying without staying. Just like yesterday this man came, and you have seen so many people come. In your country also it is done. That is up to the man's conscience. That I have come here, so I require to stay. Pay something. But not that... That should be properly expended. So anything can be done very nicely provided there is good management. I do not see any difficulty. I am present here. If there is any difficulty, ask me. I shall advise. (Hindi) Per head hundred rupees is sufficient. Not more than that. Even, how many devotees are here now?
Akṣayānanda: We have sixty. About sixty. There are, many women are there. Normally there has been about...
Prabhupāda: Up to fifty I take charge. I shall pay hundred rupees per head.
Prabhupāda: You should be very much encouraged.
Haṁsadūta: No, the money that I put aside to start that farm, to buy some irrigation equipment and so forth-initial investment—I gave it to Mahāṁsa on your order one lakh of rupees. I gave him one lakh.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This is for construction, and he's going to take it back.
Prabhupāda: No, that is for construction. That is not for the farm.
Harikeśa: No, no, that money, I intended to use for the farm. But it took so long to get that farm. So when we gave it to...
Prabhupāda: No, that can be... That I guaranteed. That I guaranteed one lakh, that if he does not pay, I shall do it. That guarantee still.
Prabhupāda: For washing cloth you require soap. But does not... You require everything, but because you are spending without any sense... So I calculated yesterday the whole thing, Deity worship, Deity pūjā, will require five hundred rupees per month.
Akṣayānanda: I had requested for the flowers, Viśvambhara said twelve rupees you had decided last night.
Prabhupāda: Twelve rupees, thirteen rupees...
Akṣayānanda: Twelve, thirteen. Actually today, I wanted for today but the flower man was not able to... We could not catch him in time. But from tomorrow it will start, definitely.
Prabhupāda: The thing is that one who is cheating you, he will cheat in twelve rupees, also he will cheat in fifty rupees.
Prabhupāda: Two rupees. Āṭā and ghee, two rupees. Then other preparation, another two rupees.
Akṣayānanda: He'll tell me everything Prabhupāda. No need to...
Prabhupāda: No, no, why don't you hear? You are hearing now. Four rupees to prepare all the plates. Four rupees, say five rupees. So five rupees, monthly 150 rupees. So we are offering four times. So 150 rupees four times.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Six hundred rupees.
Prabhupāda: Six hundred rupees. So take another four hundred rupees, make one thousand. It should not go more than five hundred to one thousand. You spend.
Prabhupāda: So I am speaking of the Deity, not for all. For all others hundred rupees per head, five thousand rupees. Here puri, kacuris, and other things, all the best things. But general is not for puri, kacuri, and... They are general food. We are not going to supply puri, kacuri, halavā to everyone.
Akṣayānanda: No, never. Never have.
Prabhupāda: Only for the Deity.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Others are just dāl, sabji, rice, cāpāṭi.
Prabhupāda: Everything. Everything calculated.
Akṣayānanda: I believe you, Prabhupāda. But to make it practical I want to see every item. The cost, the weight, and everything.
Prabhupāda: It is already calculated.
Prabhupāda: And he's trying to do something. The same "something." He was at home, the same woman and same man. And again also here the same woman and man, and trying to do something. But he has no customer. He has only customer how to cheat these Europeans and Americans. Surmā merchant. As if surmā is not available in the market. And he advertises "This is my special formula, and this is this, this is this. You take it and give me five hundred rupees and go away." He cannot sell outside. Otherwise, why he's sticking to Vṛndāvana? Thinking the fools and rascals the Americans are. I shall introduce. (Hindi) That this material world has become nothing. You come to something. (Hindi) If anyone wants to go to Bhagavān then he has to make this material world voluntarily nothing. Niṣkiñcanasya. Niṣkiñcana means nothing. You understand, you translate. You know the meaning of niṣkiñcana. Kiñ-cana means something and niḥ means not. Then nothing. So one who has made this material world as nothing. How it is made? Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā (BG 18.54). Because with this something, as soon as one will stick to this something, he'll suffer.
Prabhupāda: Because he gets money. One who has got money but no children, he takes some adopted son. So the adopted son thinks that "I have got so much money," and he has never worked. He is spoiled. I have seen many adopted son, our... Got lakhs and lakhs of rupees, and in one night he's spoiled everything. Simply after woman and wine. I have seen it. There was one gentleman, Narendranath Singh. Very big, palatial building and very rich man. And I have seen him when he was finished. He was friend of big, big person, Raja Maharlel (?). And one day I saw in Calcutta, there was raining and he was sitting in a rickshaw. And no friend. He had known practically all big men of Calcutta friend. Nobody is coming. "Well Narendra, you are sitting. Come on in my car." Nobody. I was (indistinct). And he was drenching, there was heavy rain. And sitting a... And he was keeping Rolls Royce car.
Prabhupāda: Thank you. You can go and play. You cannot understand.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Go and play. "In London, George Harrison donated a big castle which is now called Bhaktivedanta Manor. We have purchased many buildings and converted them to temples from the sale of our books. What is wrong if a portion of Bhaktivedanta Book Trust sales are transferred to India for construction of temples? Fifty percent of Bhaktivedanta Book Trust income is spent for further publishing and the other fifty percent is spent to build temples all over the world. In fact, Blitz should appreciate this because Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda's books are bringing valuable overseas currency into the country without any cost to the Indian public. Point seven. Blitz: In Bombay they have put up a temple with a barbed fence around it. ISKCON There is no barbed wire around the temple. We invite Blitz to show us the barbed wire." There's no barbed wire. "Point eight. Blitz: Already rupees twelve lakhs have been spent on an unfinished temple in Vṛndāvana. ISKCON: Blitz does not know that the Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma temple in Vṛndāvana was completed and officially inaugurated by Dr. Chenna Reddy, governor of U.P., in April, 1975." They are saying the temple is still being made. "Point nine. Blitz: Their major center seems to be in Orissa, the land of princes and paupers. They have built a center close to an atomic energy commission complex. ISKCON: How foolish. Our major center is not in Orissa, but in Śrīdhāma Māyāpur in West Bengal. Māyāpur is the birthplace of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, an incarnation of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. We are coming in Lord Caitanya's disciplic succession and therefore we want to develop Māyāpur and make this an international center. In Orissa, we do have two devotees living in three huts in Bhuvaneśvara. They are living on a piece of land that was donated by one of our life members from Calcutta. If at all it is near the Atomic Energy Commission, it is only by coincidence."
Prabhupāda: It was donated by the late governor and Central Minister. Nityananda Kananda.
Indian man: Return means to utilize it properly.
Prabhupāda: No return also gradually, not at a time. Because if you take five thousand rupees, pay at the rate of five hundred rupees.
Indian man: (Hindi) (break)
Prabhupāda: ...is concerned, that is our home, Aligarh.
Indian man: Aligarh.
Prabhupāda: Money is concerned, you'll get any amount. Now organize and (indistinct).
Dhanañjaya: Now, another thing I wanted to ask. Many devotees were asking me if we could make a Deity of Your Divine Grace.
Prabhupāda: That is not very, well... That is not immediate. We shall see later on. You can make. That we shall see later on. Not immediately. Immediately you make this arrangement.
Prabhupāda: I have seen, Gandhi wanted to organize a program, village (break) ...in the field, that this program for constructing toilet in the village, they have spent so much. You know that? The first business was toilet. To restrict them to pass stool here and there, they must have. Now in constructing that toilet paraphernalia, (indistinct), they... Therefore it failed, village organization. Not for that purpose. There were many purpose. Because they had no engagement, so why they should remain in the village? There are so many attraction in the city, and they get money. The factory-wallas, they're inviting, "Come here. You shall get twenty rupees per day." Why shall he remain in the village? So if you can organize in the villages, they are interested in chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra and getting nice prasādam, then... One must have some attachment. In the city there are so many artificial attachments. So on what ground they'll remain in the village? Mind, always remember this. Unless you have got some attachment, there is no possibility. Gandhi's program was very nice, village organize so that they may not come to the city and help the capitalists. Remain satisfied in the village. But where is that satisfaction? That is the failure.
Lokanātha: If they add the holy name to their lives, they will...
Prabhupāda: Yes. If they could understand that. That will be helpful if you chant. Therefore Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu's statement will never be false. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12). If they chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, then gradually the dirty things accumulated within the heart will be cleansed. And if he comes to the understanding, clear idea, that "I want to eat something and my necessities... So if I get my necessities, primary necessities of life, and satisfaction of mind, then why shall I go to city?" That they can have very easily. If they follow the instruction of Bhagavad-gītā, that "Your first necessity is food." So produce food here. Kṛṣi-go-rakṣya-vāṇijyam (BG 18.44). And you'll find here so much land is lying vacant. Because they have gone to the city for twenty rupees daily to manufacture Goodyear tire. And who will work here? Now I have seen in Delhi, the government is advertising, "Go back to the village." Rascal, you are manufacturing wine and keeping them engaged whole day in the work. So after being tired, he requires some wine. And why he'll go? And no spiritual education, no cleanliness. Simply inviting "Go to the village" they will go?
Lokanātha: Just a propaganda.
Harikeśa: Abortion.
Prabhupāda: Yes, also. Otherwise, we have seen in our childhood how happy people were. They were. Simple. If one has five rupees income per month he's happy. I've seen it. Husband, wife, a small family. If he has got five rupees income, they can maintain very nicely, happily. Why not? Suppose he has got five rupees income. The rice was selling at four rupees. So two person, say one-fourth kg., one-fourth share each. A gentleman cannot eat more than that. So means half a share. And the whole month, fifteen share. It is about one rupee eight annas. And further, one rupees eight annas add for vegetables and other things. With three rupees they can maintain, the husband and wife. And two rupees still there. He can spend for other purposes. I have seen it. Fresh vegetables, rice, this and... Just like with banana leaf. The pots were of earthen, the wife is cooking and she's utilizing dry foliage as fuel, a little temperature, everything is cooked. The husband takes one banana leaf and spreads, and the wife gives sufficient rice, vegetables. And things were so cheap. I have seen it. And fresh.
Haṁsadūta: And I'm convinced Prabhupāda, that in this temple, right here, you can make every week at least two, three life members, and you can sell thousands of rupees worth of books. Yesterday I started one man, this boy Ikṣvāku from Germany. I said, "Just go around and greet people and show them around and sell them books." And the first few hours he sold seventy rupees worth of books. And if I have a few people who just walk around and they walk right up to the guests and say, "How do you do? My name is so and so. I come from New York. What is your name? Where do you come from?"
Prabhupāda: Last night all visitors came, all respectable gentlemen.
Haṁsadūta: Last night four people came, they were all big businessmen. One man had been working in a big business in Germany. He spoke German perfectly well. He was an Indian man. He lives in Agra. And so many people. Because Vṛndāvana is the heart of India, every Indian comes once in his lifetime to Vṛndāvana...
Prabhupāda: Oh yes.
Prabhupāda: The servant should be kept only when it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, everything should be done by us.
Haṁsadūta: I understand that, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: They are paying two thousand rupees.
Haṁsadūta: Till now, as far as possible, I've let a number of people go already. But until I can get the devotees to do these engagements, I can't let the servant go.
Prabhupāda: No, that's all right, but devotees why they shall not do?
Haṁsadūta: Well, that is the...
Prabhupāda: If they are unwilling to do then they must remain in the guesthouse as a respectable guest.
Prabhupāda: That is false accusation. There was no such charge. Besides that, we do not have many contributions. We have got contributions, big lumps of money. One of my disciples is the great-grandson of Mr. Henry Ford. So he has given a big contribution, and he's always prepared to spend for me. He has got enough money. Another boy, George Harrison, Beatle, he has given us the London temple. It is worth about fifty-five, sixty lakhs worth. So we don't get any money, but they have given us many buildings. And our main source of income is the selling of these books. We are selling books daily all over the world, five to six lakhs rupees.
Interviewer: Five to six lakhs...
Prabhupāda: Rupees. Per day.
Prabhupāda: And by this collection, from this collection, we are bringing money in India. We are bringing money in India not less than ten lakhs of rupees per month. Our buildings and temples are going on in Bombay, in Vṛndāvana, in Navadvīpa. So we have got at least ten lakhs of rupees expenditure for these temples, and that I am bringing from foreign countries. So if by laboring hard at night in this dictaphone, I write books and I sell them in the foreign countries and I bring the money here for spending in India, do you think it is faulty?
Interviewer: One American professor who is a teacher of Hinduism there, in some of the universities you mentioned, she said, I asked him a question about ISKCON, and she said, "Well this thing is creating a bad impression in the sense that people are accosted everywhere, in the streets, on the airport, at the bus stand. They accost you and force you to buy their literature, to buy their books. And this is creating a revulsion.
Prabhupāda: So why you are forced? Suppose as preaching work... In our childhood we saw the Christian preachers were also standing on the road. So if we stand on the road and preach and sell our books what is the fault?
Interviewer: I put that. He said you are doing what the Christian... (break)
Prabhupāda: No. The government allowed them, the Christian people. The government is allowing us also. Then where is the fault?
Interviewer: The fault is...
Prabhupāda: That is your imagination, fault.
Haṁsadūta: We're printing locally now. The same books, but local printing so that they can be afforded by the public.
Prabhupāda: Yes. When we print locally it will be sold at half-price.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This Bhagavad-gītā for example, it's going to be sold to the masses at fifteen rupees in about three weeks. We are printing the Indian edition with 48 color plates. The government of India is giving us concessional paper for printing. They are very pleased with our... We're getting lot of concessional paper so we are expanding the printing.
Interviewer: What is the price of this edition?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: This is, in America it's seven dollars, seven dollars ninety-five cents.
Prabhupāda: And what the home member has said?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: The home minister recently said that he wants this movement to be spread all over the world. One of the prominent people said he wants this movement to be spread all over the world.
Interviewer: Now, sir, from your lips, how to attain this Kṛṣṇa consciousness and to maintain it?
Prabhupāda: Once you come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you will maintain.
Prabhupāda: We spend for Kṛṣṇa. Just like spending it, lakhs of rupees in Bombay for Kṛṣṇa.
Hari-śauri: Yeah, I agree.
Prabhupāda: Every month.
Hari-śauri: We just have to show them how many books we are printing and everything, too.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hari-śauri: It's not that we're letting the money sit and accumulating.
Prabhupāda: No. I am daily canvassing Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, "Print book! I don't want to keep the money in the bank, convert into the books and keep it in our..." I am asking.
Prabhupāda: Oh, hm. (break) ...just in front of our house, attached to our house. That means the house belonged to one of our relatives and her son, stepson, he sold the whole house to a Marwari without the knowledge of this, my, she was in relation grandmother. So when the house was sold in those days, about say about 100 years ago, not 100 years, about 90 years. In Mahatma Gandhi road, most important, that Mullik's house you have seen? That was one of the Mullik's house, for 12,000 rupees. One bighā of land and grand building. So it was unknown to the stepmother, the stepson sold it. Then she appealed to the high-court that, "I belong to a respectable family and this my spoiled stepson has sold the house without my knowledge, then where shall I go?" The high-court considered that, "The drunkard son has sold at a cheap price, and she's belongs to a respectable family, where she'll go?" And the high-court order was, "The half of the house shall be used by this lady. During her lifetime, you cannot take possession," the Marwari who purchased. So under that grandmother, we used to live. Therefore this half portion of the house was a Marwari school. So it is just like our temple and this. So my father first admitted me in that Marwari school. So I learned this devanāgarī there, for a few days I was going. I was the only Bengali student there. Because I was little, my father thought that instead of going outside the house, within the house there is a school, get him admitted. The school name was Visuddhana(?) Marwari Vijnala(?), something like that, and later on they constructed huge building Visuddhana(?). Then the house was vacated. So in the beginning I was admitted in a Marwari school and I learned a little Hindi there, that's all.
Prabhupāda: We have applied for 350 acres of land from the government. The process is going on. If we get, then we shall spend crores of rupees for... The description is...
Jagadīśa: "Within the next ten years, according to ISKCON plans, the Māyāpur project will extend to a complete Vedic city with fifty thousand inhabitants, its own university, airport, and stadium. It will also claim the world's largest planetarium with 410 foot high Temple of Understanding..." (break) ...civilization.
Dr. Kneupper: It sounds like a beautiful project. That is near Bombay, now?
Prabhupāda: No, that is near Calcutta.
Dr. Kneupper: Calcutta.
Prabhupāda: About sixty miles.
Prabhupāda: Eight hundred?
Mr. Saxena: Eight hundred rooms. Very big temple and the daily income is about more than 1500 rupees per day, donation. I still get from three months. His speech is at nights, their sannyāsīs. But if you see that practical life, you realize all this tīrthas, what you call? They are no more tīrthas now. All (indistinct) use that word shopping centers, what we call. I have been to the Sivananda Ashram. Some Cidanandaji is there. Sivanandaji is no more. When I went to Yoganiketan, there is one Gangesvarananda...
Prabhupāda: Cidananda.
Mr. Saxena: Cidananda is there.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, up to date since 1970, we have sold 1.5 million.
Devotee: And every day we sell more.
Prabhupāda: Ha, yes. All these Kṛṣṇa consciousness books, we are selling daily five to six lakhs of rupees. All over the world. I have estimate. That religious book (Hindi). It is full of religion and philosophy, still they are selling.
Mr. Saxena: That is an achievement.
Prabhupāda: We have got, not only in west outside India, in India, we have got standing order from all universities, libraries, and many other places. Complete standing order value is 40,000 rupees.
Mr. Saxena: This is one aspect, of course, appreciable, but another aspect is that of teaching. That should be...
Prabhupāda: Teaching is going on.
Prabhupāda: When I first came in Vṛndāvana I stayed in the Keśī-ghāṭa. That is very palatial building. My room was as big as this. Yes, as big. Plus one side room, plus one entrance room. I was paying fifteen rupees. And I could see whole Vṛndāvana, Yamunā, from the top my house. It is very nice, very palatial.
Hari-śauri: That's in the big building on the, right on the side of the ghāṭa?
Prabhupāda: Which gate?
Hari-śauri: That's in the big building right on the side of Keśī-ghāṭa?
Prabhupāda: No.
Hari-śauri: No?
Prabhupāda: No. There is a big building, Bharat Maharaja, yes, Bharatpur, just by the side of that house. It is in the corner. The door is in the corner. The road is going this way in the corner. It is stone. Face is stone. Good building, but... (break) ...in thought of Kṛṣṇa, outside cleaning by oil and soap. Soap. Bāhyābhyantara-śuciḥ. This is quite comfortable, not very chilly, within this room.
Vāsughoṣa: Even the poorest of men. Just like before, when this temple wasn't here and we were chopping away at the rocks in the foundation, we were paying twenty rupees a day for those men. And we were told that ten rupees every day would go for wine for those same men. Ten rupees out of the twenty they would immediately spend to drink. Even poor people. So many of them.
Prabhupāda: And because we are trying to stop this thing in Europe and America there is agitation that "These people are propagating brainwash. How is that a man who will not eat, drink? This is brainwash." They spend ten rupees out of twenty rupees. Eh?
Vāsughoṣa: Yes, we were told like that, that they would take their twenty rupees pay and then they would go and spend ten rupees and on alcohol, drinking, toddy. (break) I was in... Last time at the festival in Māyāpur I was riding from Māyāpur to Calcutta. And so one man was saying that "Oh, fish, 80 paisa a kg. How much are potatoes?" I asked. So even their hard-earned money, so much more they spend just to eat meat, to enjoy their senses. It doesn't make sense in any way.
Prabhupāda: And that also, they cannot live on meat. They must have vegetable also. Without vegetable, simple meat-eating will not help them. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (Hindi) Jaya.
Guest (2): (indistinct) ...must be punished.
Prabhupāda: Eh? Naturally. Suppose if there is some infectious disease, the doctor says, "Don't go there." And if you go there, you'll be infected. You'll suffer. How the doctor can protect you? Doctor's duty is to warn you not to go to that area, "It is now infected with smallpox." But in spite of doctor's instruction, if you go there and if you infect that disease and suffer, then it is your fault. When a man is hanged by the judgment of the court, do you think that the high-court judge is inimical to that person? He's giving judgment to other persons that "This one must make one lakh of rupees from that person." And next judgment, "This man must be hanged." Does it mean the high-court judge is partial? He's simply giving judgment on the merit of the particular case. So there is no argument that "Why God has created so many varieties?" God has not created. You have created. Man is the architect of his own fortune. Fortune and misfortune you have created. So we have to suffer or so-called enjoy. There is no enjoyment here. It is simply suffering. But because you are under māyā, you are thinking suffering as enjoying. Just like a hog is eating stool. Other man is becoming... "Very abominable!"
Devotee (7): Fifteen rupees.
Prabhupāda: Fifteen rupees?
Mahāṁśa: Kilo or whole?
Devotee (7): Whole thing.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi)
Devotee (7): Ten kgs. Ten kgs altogether.
Prabhupāda: Ten kg.
Devotee (7): Approximately he is selling ten kgs.
Devotee: 1.50 a kilo.
Mahāṁśa: It's high priced.
Prabhupāda: Higher... (Hindi conversation over price) Pañca-rūpya, you can take?
Devotee (7): I told him but he said "I will better go there and sell it."
Prabhupāda: All right.
Prabhupāda: What is the market price?
Mahāṁśa: Of those vegetables?
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Mahāṁśa: To be about a rupee a kilo.
Prabhupāda: So how many kilos it is?
Mahāṁśa: He says there's ten kilos.
Haṁsadūta: We should have bought it.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Haṁsadūta: We should have bought because when we go we have to spend money for gas, five rupees.
Devotee (4): Of course, paying a Hyderabad price.
Devotee (7): He is going there.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Mahāṁśa: You want him to come, Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: No, if you offer him little more, if you pay...
Mahāṁśa: Ten rupees less.
Haṁsadūta: He said for ten rupees he will sell it.
Prabhupāda: Not less than that?
Hari-śauri: We might get it for seven or eight. We said five, he said ten. We used to get it for...
Mahāṁśa: Now he'll come all the way here.
Prabhupāda: He's going?
Mahāṁśa: Is he coming?
Devotee (7): He's coming.
Devotee (4): Should we have a marketplace, Śrīla Prabhupāda, where they come to bring their produce?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Six rupees? (Hindi) Eh?
Devotee (8): He's saying thirteen rupees.
Devotees: (laughter) Oh!
Prabhupāda: Tell seven rupees.
Hari-śauri: Seven. Tell him seven. (Hindi) He's going.
Prabhupāda: Seven?
Devotee (2): He agreed for ten rupees.
Prabhupāda: So do you think we shall take?
Devotee: Yes, so much petrol and...
Prabhupāda: All right, ask him.
Devotee: He must give the basket also.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He has good basket. Give him ten rupees.
Hari-śauri: With the basket give him ten.
Indians: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: So how far our temple, it is?
Hari-śauri: Just after the trees.
Prabhupāda: Oh. All right. This brinjal and this jhiṅgā will make very nice vegetable. Simply I'll show you how to do it. You'll like it.
Mahāṁśa: They give very nicely. We have had programs there, Prabhupāda, since three years. We've collected lakhs of rupees from there and thousands of books have been distributed there.
Prabhupāda: This I have heard even.
Mahāṁśa: You have heard, yeah.
Prabhupāda: So go there. What is the...? Make this.
Mahāṁśa: They can start today? The boys are ready. They want to move but it's just the leaders which have not decided on getting it done.
Prabhupāda: So decide now. What is difficulty?
Mahāṁśa: If you can give one bus they can go immediately.
Prabhupāda: What is the money? How much?
Mahāṁśa: We don't have enough money. It will cost at least a thousand rupees or more, the whole thing, at least a thousand, maybe more. We don't have so much money right now.
Prabhupāda: So I'll pay you thousand. But... You pay me the rent, I'll pay you thousand. Yes. What is the rent per day?
Mahāṁśa: I'll get it free, without rent.
Prabhupāda: Then don't purchase.
Harikeśa: The whole field.
Prabhupāda: Yes. People have lost the program. These rascals they draw all these men to manufacture Goodyear tire and eat store (?). This is going on. Modern man, they draw all these man, "Come on, I shall pay you 20 rupees daily. Prepare Goodyear tire, and eat store. Take paper. Purchase store. That's all. This is going on. What brain they will have? Twenty rupees they get and they spend ten rupees for wine, and five rupees for cigarette, and fooding, say five rupees. No ghee, no milk. Soul killing civilization. And again this soul killing civilization. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness... Hm, what you wanted to say?
Devotee: This, your Dr. Ghosh, where he is staying...
Prabhupāda: Mm.
Prabhupāda: We shall like that they will come here and stay and remain our twenty-four hours' son. That is very good also.
Mahāṁśa: Only thing is that in the beginning, because they do not know us very well, they will demand some salary. I told you previously that now I am paying them hundred rupees and 125 rupees for family.
Prabhupāda: So why 125? Hundred rupees sufficient. If they are eating and we are giving shelter, then a hundred rupees sufficient.
Mahāṁśa: Hundred rupees... If they have a family, then his wife works also and his children who are grown up, they all work. Everyone works.
Prabhupāda: So they'll also work. So that you have to decide. Manage so that there is no misunderstanding. Simply management required. So you... The best thing is that you should sit together...
Tejas: Without fail we have to meet every evening. There shouldn't be any... Without fail every evening we should meet.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That will be all right.
Prabhupāda: That's all. That will be... Do that. So open account.
Haṁsadūta: Also that lakh of rupees which I gave him last year.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is his.
Haṁsadūta: The temple should pay it.
Mahāṁśa: Yes, that one lakh rupees I will pay from the four and a half lakhs. You told me to put everything into your account. So should I put the four and a half lakhs into your account or should I put one lakh in this account and then three and a half...
Prabhupāda: Anyway, give him. That's all.
Prabhupāda: 102, big, big āśramas. And we are feeding twenty thousand men daily without any income. The God sends. Yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham (BG 9.22). We are spending twelve lakhs of rupees per month in New York and similarly other centers.
Guest (6): Twelve lakhs also in Delhi center only?
Prabhupāda: New York. New York.
Guest (5): Where do you get these funds?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Guest (5): Where do you get these funds?
Prabhupāda: God sends.
Guest (5): God?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guest (9): And that was in '67.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It was registered in..., by at the end of '66, July, '66, and then it took some time to find out some place. So in '67 I found out some place.
Guest (9): But you don't have an overall budget of all these 102 āśramas.
Prabhupāda: I have my book trust. The daily collection of book trust is five to six lakhs of rupees. Daily.
Guest (9): Daily. Oh, book trust. Oh, by the sale of books.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. And I have asked them, "Fifty percent, you print books again, and fifty percent, you spend." That's all. Same thing.
Guest (9): Spend on what?
Prabhupāda: Spend for this purpose, propagation. That is my mi... And if I would have taken some royalty, then my daily income would have been not less than 75,000 per day.
Prabhupāda: If you say my idea then I become one of you. (laughter) So I don't want that. I say I am foolish man. I have no idea. Whatever Kṛṣṇa says, that is idea. Just like a child, he speaks the words of the father. If the father... The child asks,"Father, what is this?" The father says, "This is a stick." So if the child says, "That is a stick," so that is correct. He may be a child. Because he repeats the words of the father... (Hindi) If the people are fools and rascals, then other will be fool and rascal. Śva-viḍ-varāhoṣṭra kharaiḥ saṁstutaḥ puruṣaḥ paśuḥ (SB 2.3.19). (Hindi) If you accept Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme then where is the question of interpretation? (Hindi conversation) But who accepted? This is a fact. You try to understand that before me for 200 years so many swamis, yogis were there. Not a single man became Kṛṣṇa conscious. (Hindi conversation) He is not teacher he is cheater. Why should you change Kṛṣṇa's words? That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu, yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). Don't manufacture. What Kṛṣṇa has said, you say. Just as a child he can say, "This is a stick." "How you have learned?" "Father said." That's all. (Hindi) I started this business with forty rupees. (laughter) (Hindi) Yes when I went to New York they allowed me only forty rupees. (Hindi to end)
Prabhupāda: Forty-three lakhs worth of books we have sold in one week.
Guest (1): Girirāja said that's the main source of income for this movement, as a matter of fact.
Prabhupāda: Yes we are getting ten lakhs of rupees every month from that book department.
Guest (1): Yes, that's the main source. Because I inquired with him that whether it is not something to do with CIA, wherefrom your money comes?
Prabhupāda: Just see how foolish. The CIA, American CIA, they will pay us, (laughter) and these boys, CIA boys, will come and dance with me. (laughter) Just understand how these Indians have become rascals. They have no common sense.
Guest (1): Perverts I would say. Perverts.
Prabhupāda: And that is being supported, "Oh, they are CIA."
Prabhupāda: Cinmayananda is atheist. Atheist. He does not believe in Kṛṣṇa.
Guest (2): He has donated over three hundred books in that haṭha-yoga, that can...
Guest (1): Yes, in U.S.A., Santa Cruz.
Prabhupāda: Yes, he took some lakhs of rupees from Birla for distributing the Gītā. I know that.
Guest (2): He has also translated Gītā.
Guest (1): Shh! Swamiji's saying is this, that Gītā is interpreted by different people in different way. That is true. Understanding of Gītā is a very big...
Prabhupāda: He does not present Bhagavad-gītā as it is. According to his own whims... But the original śloka is there.
Guest (1): But interpretation is his own.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: There is no question why. We'll understand it.
Prabhupāda: No, no, that's all right. So the visa problem is a great problem for us because in India for conducting our movement, we have to import the white men. Our Indians, they are not joining. So that is a great problem for me. They have to come, and they have to go again. And each time, coming and going, ten thousand rupees. And that is happening at least for hundred cases every year. Ten thousand, hundred times. Just imagine. This is my economic problem. Therefore I'm asking, "If you are Englishman, please stay." Because here, in India, they will see that "The white man dancing, let us see." They will never join. They are busy with their own affairs. They will advise, "Do this, do that," but they will never come. This is my position. Practical. Therefore I'm begging the Englishmen, the Canadians, the Australians, "Please come and stay." Because huge establishment, who will manage? I am managing with them, but there is economic question. For each person I have to spend ten thousand rupees at least and such hundred case... This is the position. The Indians are not interested. They are not interested.
Prabhupāda: You are covering, but those who are not interested, why they should pay more? That is my point.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No. But... Yes... But the answer is, we have established a double pricing system, for all foreigners are paying fifteen rupees for single room, twenty-five for double. And the Indians are paying eight and fifteen.
Prabhupāda: When they understand that you have got such discrimination, they are dissatisfied.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: No, what we have done, we have added in various different points like extra bedsheet, one rupee, extra this... We have added in these extra points. So the total does come to fifteen and twenty. I have spoken to all the travel agencies, and they are willing to go along with us. In fact, they think that fifteen and twenty-five is very cheap. But I then explain to them that we can't make it any more because we are in competition with...
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.
Prabhupāda: So keep some price for that.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. That will be like a separate book, five rupees, with some illustrations...
Prabhupāda: Make that.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And then like we can have some... People are very much into beads...
Prabhupāda: And dancing.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: So we'll have some neckbeads they'll take with a small statue, Deity, pendant of Viṣṇu.
Prabhupāda: So then there is one artist. He has come to paint pictures. Explain. He will give you. Yes.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Oh, yes, very good.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Another thing, that... I don't think they are very serious, that... They have paid that 250 rupees rate? This bank? They wrote they are going to pay.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Last I heard when I left is they had got their approval to pay two hundred rupees, but they haven't paid so far.
Prabhupāda: No, they have written 250.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They wrote 250? Viśvambhara told me...
Hari-śauri: I saw that letter, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: No, you don't beat me with shoes. He never beat them the shoes. He said, "Well we don't like you." If I say, "Do this," and it is not good, I mean, I'm not wrong in that way I suppose. I'm open to correction.
Prabhupāda: No, no. English civilization is not good. What was the wrong? I say repeatedly again and again, he ruined the Manchester cloth business, he developed Ahmedabad cloth. The result is we poor men, we were paying one rupee six annas per pair, now we are paying thirty rupees. Money is going... Instead of going to the pocket of the Englishmen it is going to the pocket of Mahadevia. (laughter)
Dr. Patel: English people, they, I mean, ruined their whole industry of... Bengal textile industry was ruined by Britishers. They cut away the thumbs. That is... I'm sorry, sir...
Prabhupāda: Therefore why mahātmā? The same business you are doing, why you say mahātmā? If you are doing the same business...
Indian: Well, I don't know. It will be a big program there from part of (indistinct) mission. They've spent four lakhs rupees.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They never... I never thought they had so much money even for their own projects.
Indian men: They collect from the big Sikhs. (indistinct) He is very influenced. For Kumbhamela, all the Marwari want to wash off all the sins they did. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: So explain with that purpose. At least, they are sensible. (break) You cannot give up these four things: yajña, dāna, tapasya. So yajña for the brahmacārīs, begin yajña. And dāna for the gṛhasthas, and tapasya for the sannyāsīs. Yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma na tyājyam, Kṛṣṇa says. Do not give up this. "I have become sannyāsī, therefore I'll give up my tapasya also." Sannyāsī means the life of tapasya. If you give up tapasya also then what remains? How you become a sannyāsa? Yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma na tyājyaṁ kāryam eva tat. It must be continued. And again He stresses yajño dānaṁ tapaś caiva pāvanāni manīṣiṇām. Even if you think that you have become very great, "Now I'm very exalted personality. I don't require. I have become paramahaṁsa," No, no, no, no. This yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma, even if you are very exalted, still, it will purify you more, these things. Yajño dānaṁ tapaś caiva pāvanāni manīṣiṇām. In any condition of life these things cannot be given up. So those who are in sense, gṛhasthas, they must give in charity, at least fifty percent of their income. That was shown by Rūpa Gosvāmī. He, fifty percent.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: He's also dying now, Tejiyas told me. He's old now.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. He's of my age. Not less. But he's after three, four wives. His business is to go from one wife's house to another wife's house and each wife's house, expenditure of ten thousand rupees per month. (chuckles) He's a very funny businessman. He has made his wife director and they take money. So to avoid income tax... So, huge expenditure. Each, one house. Income tax cannot say, "Why you are maintaining?" (indistinct) That is not their business. It is comparison. Just like Bhogilal, he's maintaining big, big establishment. So I became his guest for fifteen days. He wanted to stay. I stayed for fifteen days. I first, my requisition was that he you must give me exclusive typewriter for writing my books. So he gave me. And if I would have asked for typewriter he would have given. But I was working with my broken typewriter. I went to our Tīrtha Mahārāja in Māyāpur, that "You give me a room (Śrīla Prabhupāda taps on table) and a typewriter, (tap) and print my books. (tap) Give me some (indistinct) (tap). I join you."
Prabhupāda: That was through Hanuman.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Everybody is now taking credit for helping. Now that you are so big everybody says, "I did this. I did that, I did that."
Prabhupāda: No, actually, these Dalmia started with four thousand rupees.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They're nice people.
Prabhupāda: Oh yes.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I met two of them. They were...
Prabhupāda: He gave me twice funds. Four thousand once, five thousand. Five thousand he gave me when I went to America for the second time.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They gave fifteen thousand about three months ago for gurukula in Vṛndāvana.
Prabhupāda: Oh. No, they are sympathetic.
Prabhupāda: (indistinct)
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: So Prabhupāda, I was just finalizing today this year's festival when the devotees come. I think instead of having a festival, a pandal in Delhi like we had last year. We had one in Ludhiana and Mathurā. In Ludhiana Caityaguru promises that he can raise money for the whole thing. Our devotees won't have to spend a penny. In Delhi if we do a pandal it will require an investment of at least twenty thousand rupees. If we do our festival in Ludhiana, book distribution I calculated will be as good and no money will be invested. We have a festival in Mathurā in Janma Bhumi. Every evening by buses devotees will go from Vṛndāvana to Mathurā. You wanted to have a big program there, you remember? When I was in Vṛndāvana. So we can invite different leaders also.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
| Page Title: | Rupees (Conversations 1976) |
| Compiler: | Mayapur |
| Created: | 29 of Oct, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=207, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 207 |