Travel (Conv. 1976)

Conversations and Morning Walks

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 2, 1976, Madras:

Yaśodānandana: This is the vehicle in which we travel.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Yaśodānandana: This vehicle is the vehicle in which we travel to all the different cities for making the life members and arranging all the programs in South India, this vehicle.

Prabhupāda: This is your own?

Yaśodānandana: We are renting.

Prabhupāda: When I was in South Africa...

Indian man (1): South Africa.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Johannesburg. This beach reminds me of that beach. You were with me?

Harikeśa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: All statues are crying here.

Morning Walk -- January 9, 1976, Madras:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...yata āyur-vyayaḥ param. Prahlāda Mahārāja said, tat prayāsaṁ na kartavyam: "This kind of endeavor you should not do, exploitation." Not exploitation. I mean to say, unnecessarily trying for developing economic condition. The modern civilization is: "Exploit nature and materially be opulent."

Yaśodānandana: It has been seen everywhere we travel that there is plenty of rice everywhere, there is plenty of food growing everywhere, but yet the government is advertising that there is scarcity of food in everything. But there is plenty growing everywhere.

Prabhupāda: And reduce population, kill it. Hiraṇyakaśipu was doing that.

Acyutānanda: Birth control?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Prajāpati. He stopped Prajāpatis to beget children.

Morning Walk -- January 18, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Even that is not achievement. To control the senses, that is not very great achievement. The great achievement, how we have become a pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa. So that will include everything. You haven't got to prepare gold, but if you want gold, Kṛṣṇa will send you. So why should I try for that and waste my time? Let me become fully Kṛṣṇa conscious. That is required. Kṛṣṇa.... Yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham: (BG 9.22) "I shall give you all protection. I shall supply whatever you want," Kṛṣṇa said. So I shall do such thing when Kṛṣṇa will be my protector and supplier and everything. He is all-powerful, so He will do that—if I require. I don't require anything. I.... Simply I have to become a sincere, pure devotee. But if I require something, it will come from Kṛṣṇa. Why shall I try for it? A rich man's son, he doesn't do anything for earning money. He knows, "My father is rich and as soon as I require money, he will give me. So why shall I become a big, big businessman and become a karmī?" Tasyaiva hetoḥ prayateta kovido na labhyate yad bhramatām upāry adhaḥ (SB 1.5.18). You try for that thing which you did not achieve so long, even if you have traveled from different species of life, different planets. For that thing you try, which you have not achieved. Simply you have become implicated.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: (laughs) This is nonsense.

Bhavānanda: "...our Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was born at Śrī Māyāpur, destined to remove the dark clouds which had overshadowed true religious thinking by traveling alone on foot throughout the length and breadth of India. Preaching His gospel of love, He brought about a religious upheaval which put an end to all religious conflicts and suicidal vissiferous(?) tendencies. The benign influence of His love philosophy made the whole of India a spiritually united cultural domain. Soul-enrapturing kīrtana music was organized from one end of the country to another. A neo-humanism based on love regarded as the highest objective of human existence held sway. The difference between man and man was forgotten, and the fundamental unity of human nature and human destiny was stressed upon. But in the early nineteenth century, true religion was at a very low ebb due to lack of proper publicity of literature and also for want of great ācāryas to propagate the cults in their true aspect. It was a dark period for the Caitanya or Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism when it fell from its highest transcendentalism to the lowest possible degradation because of so many abuses and evil practices which crept into it through plenty of pseudo-followers. Vaiṣṇavism was almost abandoned by the educated section of people. Its literature was hardly read. Kīrtana was looked upon not as a form of prayer but as a means of gratification by people of loose morals. Most of the Vaiṣṇava followers of the period lost their high standard of morality, their loving aestheticism, their intellectual superiority and devotional fervor, which were the main characteristics of the previous masters. The influx of Western ideas came in, and English educated people fell into the hands of Christians. Fortunately, at that time, we got a great Vaiṣṇava savant and scholar, Ṭhākura Kedāranātha Bhaktivinoda, who wrote widely and successfully created an interest among the educated public in Vaiṣṇava religion and literature. His discovery of Śrīdhāma Māyāpur, the birthplace of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, which was so long hidden from the public eye, gave a new impetus to its propagation. The age of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism set in. Thereafter, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura took hold of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism with a vow to propagate it in its true perspective, even as it was practiced with unparalleled and unprecedented transcendentalism by Śrī Rūpa and Śrī Sanātana Gosvāmīs, followers of Śrī Caitanya. In proper time, he got a great personality who readily shouldered the..."

Prabhupāda: Just see now. "He got a great personality." He is that personality. He'll also prove that.

Room Conversation -- January 19, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: And what is Rādhākamal Mukherjee?

Bhavānanda: " 'He has been a prolific writer and commentator and has traveled and discoursed widely in different parts of India. His profound illuminative discourses have everywhere created a genuine interest in Vaiṣṇava philosophy and in the dynamic religious movement he represents.' There may not be any doubt among the well-informed people that the Śrī Caitanya Maṭha, with its branches, Śrī Gauḍīya Maṭhas, throughout India and abroad, have been propagating the greatest religion, which, from a realistic point of view, has helped to build up a true civilization.

Morning Walk -- January 20, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: (break) "...whether you have got such buildings, whether you have got such books, whether you have got such disciples, whether you have traveled so..."? Then what they will, will be reply? Hm?

Jayapatākā: But they've got the āśīrbād.

Prabhupāda: Huh? Oh. They say that due to their āśīrbād?

Jayapatākā: No, he is saying that he is the counterpart, that he's got the āśīrbād.

Prabhupāda: No, āśīrbād, but what you have done for the āśīrbād. You are licking up the āśīrbād.

Child: Jaya Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hm. Jaya. He is also. (break) Vedic conception is that the birds and beasts, they should not be driven away. Let them eat as much as it like. They must eat also.

Morning Walk -- February 6, 1976, Mayapura:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, in the Sixth Canto, second part, I haven't read it yet, but I saw a picture of a big demon who was fighting, and everyone else was just like little ants.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. That was described in some English book, the man?

Hari-śauri: Gulliver's Travels.

Bhavānanda: Gulliver's Travels.

Prabhupāda: Ha, ha, yes. These rascals, they do not know there is Gulliver. They are thinking very big.

Bhavānanda: Also, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when there is some natural calamity... Like I read in the newspaper, four thousand people were killed immediately in Guatemala.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- February 19, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: (break) ...if does not become Kṛṣṇa conscious, he remains a fool and go on, all things foolish. I will suggest something; you'll suggest something; he'll suggest something. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ (SB 5.18.12). This is not...

Acyutānanda: Travel by the speed of mind.

Prabhupāda: Mental concoction... They'll never be able to come the right conclusion. Simply they'll create disturbances. That's all. Utpāṭyaiva kalpate.(?)Just see. He is working so hard, getting money. Still he cannot provide a nice dāya.

Acyutānanda: He'll gamble his money.

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Acyutānanda: They will gamble.

Prabhupāda: For gambling, they have got money, eh? (end)

Morning Walk -- March 14, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: So space traveling induces a man to accept God?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I think it's a material conception, that God is in the heavens, above the clouds.

Pañca-draviḍa: According to Bhāgavatam, these...

Prabhupāda: That is a fact. Beyond this material universe, very, very far away.

Hrdayananda: But another astronaut who went, he had religious experience, and after coming back he became missionary.

Prabhupāda: That is natural.

Sudāmā: Another astronaut went insane.

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Sudāmā: And another astronaut went insane, like a madman.

Prabhupāda: Hm. What was the reason?

Sudāmā: For his insanity? He could not explain.

Room Conversation With Radha-Damodara Sankirtana Party -- March 16, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Now everyone is issuing these traveler's check.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But these are issued differently. In American Express, they charge some money, but these are freely given.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā? Then why the American Express will remain if people will go there? Free service to the constituent, those who are customer.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think even to those who are not the constituents also.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā. The public also.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This happens to be our bank that we deal with.

Prabhupāda: Barclay Bank is big bank, American bank.

Morning Walk -- March 17, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Devotee (4): Going about five, six months, they have traveled all over.

Prabhupāda: Many people assembled on the way?

Devotee (4): Yes, because they were stopping in every village and distributing literature, giving away prasādam.

Prabhupāda: Hm. (aside:) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. (pause) Hm. It is dirty.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very much dust.

Rādhāvallabha: Thousands of people went through last night.

Madhudviṣa: I don't think we can prevent that, Śrīla Prabhupāda. So much traffic.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Foot traffic. I think it should be dusted off.

Rādhāvallabha: The whole display will be cleaned this morning.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (break) Tokyo, Japan, and Philadelphia.

Balavanta: That's Philadelphia.

Rādhāvallabha: That was when you were there, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Oh. Oh, yes. (pause) Therefore our mission is to bring Māyāpur everywhere.

Morning Walk -- March 21, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Hm. Five bighās. That we can do. If they agree, then let them give us. We shall do.

Jayapatākā: Lalitā Prasāda Ṭhākura was saying that.... He was feeling that one more interview with you was necessary. However, I'm reluctant to say to go today because I haven't seen him for a month or two, and I don't want a two-three hour trip to just go. Maybe nothing may come of it. That's why I'm thinking on the way to Calcutta there would be more..., wouldn't be much expenditure of time, I mean, as far as traveling goes. And let's say, if something comes of it, then it's all right. If something doesn't come, it's not such a great loss.

Prabhupāda: All right, we can do that. Then we shall go by the nice...

Jayapatākā: Oh, yes. The nice. There's only one little bridge. Other than that, everything is all right.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Jayapatākā: There's one bridge like we went over yesterday. That's a little.... Otherwise, everywhere...

Prabhupāda: No, no, bridge, it is in good condition or not? Sometimes it is.... Last time we went, that injured.... It made some damage.

Morning Walk -- March 22, 1976, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Vairagi Bhava.

Pañcadraviḍa: He showed up in Hong Kong. He said that "There are two great influences in my life: one Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who taught me service..., who taught me devotion," and he said, "Ramakrishna, who taught us service to man." He also showed up with one woman sannyāsīni or something.

Devotee: Service to man. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Especially woman. (laughter)

Pañcadraviḍa: And wearing saffron too. You gave him an offer he could travel and become..., and take part in our movement if he was willing to preach Bhagavad-gītā as it is.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Pañcadraviḍa: He did not accept.

Prabhupāda: That means he wants to cheat.

Talk at Radha-Govinda Mandir -- March 24, 1976, Calcutta:

Prabhupāda: Hm?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Our young children.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Yes. Very fortunate. That a small child, he'll take little grain of prasādam. He will not touch the big halavā. As soon as I'll give him a little grain, he'll take. Very nice.

Abhirāma: (break) ...travel on a coach like this, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Hm? Yes, in our childhood. Not so bad. At that time it was not so bad. In 1925 I purchased one Buick car. In our childhood days there was no electricity, and there was no motorcar. No. The tram car was drawn by horses in Calcutta. (break) ...quarter where our temple is situated. This is the best.... (end)

Conversation with News Reporters -- March 25, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: You are starving on account of your economic condition being bad or.... I cannot say anything. But they are also starving. You are poor by force, and they sometimes accept poverty voluntarily, just like the hippies. They have enough money. They are coming from very rich father and grandfather, but they lie down on the street, and the police comes and kick them, "Hey, get up! Get up!" Why? Why they have accepted this? So this kind of varieties we find everywhere-rich man, middle class man, and poverty-stricken man. Don't think that it is in India. I am traveling all over the world.

Reporter (1): Swamiji, what do you suggest to your disciples to arouse what you call Hare Kṛṣṇa consciousness or God consciousness?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Hare Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the purificatory process. If you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.... God is so kind. In this age.... It is meant for every age. Especially this age when we are so much fallen and so much suffering, and neither we are able to act very piously, therefore this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, if you chant, you gradually become purified. Then you come to your own consciousness.

Conversation with News Reporters -- March 25, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: So don't you think that we are self-sufficient? We are feeding at least ten thousand devotees daily, but we have no fixed income.

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.

Reporter (8): One lakh daily.

Prabhupāda: That is minimum. Sometimes we collect five lakhs daily.

Morning Walk -- March 26, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: That will depend on the preacher.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: In other words, will there be preaching centers in every town and village, or will it just be a question of traveling through and preaching to the people and ticking off that we've been there?

Prabhupāda: No.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I don't think so.

Prabhupāda: Traveling is essential. If possible there may be centers.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: But our ambition should not be simply to go to every town and village simply so that we can say we went to every town and village. We should actually try to...

Prabhupāda: No, why village? Everywhere you go, town, village, everywhere. Abaddha-karuṇā-sindhu, nitāi katiyā mohan, ghare ghare, kare dāna, like that. Abaddha-karuṇā-sindhu, nitāi katiyā mohan, ghare ghare durlabha prema, kare dāna. Brahmā durlabha prema kare dāna,(?)like that. So ghare ghare. Not only village to village but door to door. Yes.

Morning Walk -- April 10, 1976, Vrndavana:

Akṣayānanda: One boy I recommended for second initiation, but during the fire ceremony he was away on traveling saṅkīrtana for Vṛndāvana. Will he be able to take initiation from you and have the ceremony later, before you go?

Prabhupāda: He can be given.

Akṣayānanda: And he can offer in the fire later on. Very nice. He's a very good boy.

Yaśodānandana: Prabhupāda, there has been discussion amongst many of the members of the press and the Sanskrit editors regarding the actual place of Nṛsiṁha's pastimes. So I told them that on the occasion of our travel to South India we visited this place Ahobilam, and the paṇḍitas, they have scriptural reference from the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa and the Nṛsiṁha Purāṇa that the place is actually mentioned there, and it has been recognized by Rāmānujācārya and many of the great Ālwār saints. And yourself have already told me twice personally that this was the actual place where it happened. And on top of the mountain there, there is the pillar, iron pillar, which is the symbol of the spot where Lord Nṛsiṁha killed Hiraṇyakaśipu. So for the benefit of all of these devotees, they were just requesting your actual confirmation.

Prabhupāda: Confirmation or no confirmation, Nṛsiṁha-deva is our worshipable Deity, that's all. Why you are bothering where He killed Hiraṇyakaśipu? You worship Him, that's all.

Morning Walk -- April 14, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Our buses are bigger than this, I think. Eh?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Dr. Patel: This is a Matadar Campo(?), no? This is a Matadar Campo(?).

Devotee (2): (break) ...Deities with Acyutānanda Swami. He's going to travel down South India as soon as he's finished...

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, very nice. Better Gaura-Nitāi. Gaura-Nitāi is better.

Devotee (2): But Acyutānanda was explaining that people in South India don't accept Gaura-Nitāi so much as Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: Oh, all right. (end)

Press Conference -- April 27, 1976, Auckland, New Zealand:

Interviewer: How long do you intend to keep traveling and, and...

Prabhupāda: If I stayed four days in each center, it takes one year to travel all the centers.

Interviewer: Four days in each center takes you one year.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Three days.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We have got 102 centers all over the world.

Interviewer: So how many centers does that make it?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Over a hundred. A hundred and two.

Interviewer: Do you spend your whole year traveling, or is it only part of the year?

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Do you spend your whole year traveling, or only part of the year?

Prabhupāda: I am traveling either in Europe, America, Africa, Canada, India, everywhere.

Room Conversation -- May 2, 1976, Fiji:

Indian man (1): The traveler is the loser.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Guru-kṛpā: The traveler is the loser.

Prabhupāda: Yes, traveler is the loser. If you have no faith, then loser, you are loser. You will never understand. Therefore śāstra says, Mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ (CC Madhya 17.186). Big, big stalwart ācāryas, mahājanas, they are accepting. Therefore we accept. That is sense. And if you sit down, "No, no, I have no faith," you'll sit down and remain a rascal, that's all. Ādau śraddhā. Therefore faith is the first thing. Ādau śraddhā. If he has got intelligence, he'll see: "So many big, big.... Lord Brahmā accepts. Lord Śiva accepts. Vyāsadeva accepts. Nārada accepts. The ācāryas accept. So am I more than them? No. I will accept." And that is perfection of.... Mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ (CC Madhya 17.186). And if still you remain faithless, then you are rascal. Same example can be.... Quantas. So many hundreds are purchasing ticket. They have also never seen London, but on faith they're purchasing ticket. So you have no faith, you don't purchase; therefore remain here. Without faith you cannot begin to work.

Room Conversation -- May 4, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: Their sons also will read.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Already my father has noticed in his travels that some of his friends, their sons have joined our movement now too.

Prabhupāda: Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhaḥ, lokas tad anuvartate (BG 3.21). If these big men of the world, they take it, "Oh, yes. Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is genuine," then naturally it will be followed by the others. So here is a good opportunity to contact big men of the world. So utilize it properly. You.... Both of you are intelligent. Very cautiously deal with them. They will understand that "Oh, these people are very honest men of character and high knowledge and God conscious." That will make our movement success.

Morning Walk -- May 28, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: When one is actually in service, then he comes to.... "So I have enjoyed. Now, no I don't want. Now I want Kṛṣṇa." That is voluntary.

Devotee (2): But is it the guru? Does the guru give him that sense?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Guru is traveling all over the world, "Take this science." If one is fortunate he can take.

Devotee (3): Those persons who are atheistic, they say that God is created out of a necessity, that people have a necessity to have their father image, so therefore they create religion. This is their basic philosophy, that man creates his own religion. He creates it out of necessity. He needs a father image, so therefore he creates the idea of God.

Prabhupāda: Created? What is that?

Devotee (3): No. They feel that we have created, man has created the idea of God out of necessity.

Devotee (4): The atheists are saying that man needs God although there is no God. They are insecure in this world.

Prabhupāda: What is God?

Devotee (3): They feel basically that it's an idea. God is an idea.

Prabhupāda: Why it is idea? Explain. What for this idea? Why this idea is necessary?

Morning Walk -- May 30, 1976, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: So from so far distant place the heat is coming, and there is no brain behind it?

Devotee (4): It takes five minutes for the sunlight to reach us, and light travels at, what, 193,000 miles a second? I don't know. Whatever it is.

Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, such a wonderful things is there, and there is no brain behind it? Is it very reasonable proposal? It has come automatically. There is a chunk. Childish.

Devotee (1): Because it's too much beyond their conception, they say that it's simply imagination.

Prabhupāda: Ha?

Devotee: They say that simply because it's too much beyond their conception...

Prabhupāda: It's a fact. You see the heat and light. It is not the imagination. So who arranged so much heat and light? That is the question. It is not imagination. We have to manufacture a small bolt. It requires a big, big factory's brain. And this has come by chunk? Nonsense. And you have to accept it? These crazy fellows propose and we have to accept.

Morning Walk -- May 31, 1976, Honolulu:

Hari-śauri: I was telling you about that blob of garbage that was left out in the..., headed towards the harbor in New York. For the last fifty years they've dumped all the garbage in the sea, and now it's collected together, and it's coming back into the shore. They think that in about fifteen years time, if it travels at its present rate, it will be blocking the entire New York Harbor. So ecology means they have to try to find out ways and means of avoiding things like that.

Devotee (2): Useless waste products. They've discovered new ways in science how to use things which can be used and used again and again. For example, newspapers, instead of throwing them away, they can recycle them and make new newspapers.

Devotee (3): They also say they were going to recycle their own urine and stool and use it over and over.

Prabhupāda: How?

Devotee (3): Like in the spaceship. When they go to the moon they recycle their own urine and drink it over again. (laughing)

Devotee (2): Actually, Śrīla Prabhupāda, the most popular philosophy is (inaudible).

Prabhupāda: Madman. (laughing)

Room Conversation with Reporter -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Hmm.

Reporter: Does it...? Is it more difficult to do this when you're traveling a lot?

Prabhupāda: No. I..., my work is going on. By traveling also, I carry this machine. Dicta..., dictaphone. I dictate, and then my assistants, they write, transcribe, and then it is..., it goes to the Press. In this way my work is.... (noise comes from outside)

Reporter: I'd like to ask one.... Is your role in the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement in the United States particularly or worldwide? Ten years ago, when you first came to the United States, did you take a very active role in the organization, and I'm wondering whether you do much of that now?

Prabhupāda: No, although the volume of work has.... (break) ...a hundred times, but these American disciples, they are helping me, so I haven't got to work personally so much. I simply give the instruction and they carry out, but the work has increased voluminously, there's no doubt it. I came here alone in 1965 without any help practically. Where to live, where to sleep, there was no destination. Sometimes some friend's house, sometimes some friend's house, practically loitering on the street. And in this way were passed more than one year. I arrived here in 1965 in September, end of September, 17th of September, in Boston. Hm. Is it Boston?

Devotee (1): Yes, Prabhupāda.

Morning Walk -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But what about the people, like the men on the ship who say they have jumped on the moon? Are they lying and being paid off, or are they just.... What, I mean what is the actual position? Some men are getting on a television saying, "We landed there, it was like this, it was like that."

Prabhupāda: No, I saw that television, at that time, the whole thing broke wrong. There was a press representative. He protested. I was protesting from the beginning, but they could not show how they jumped, at the last. Going, going, going, but at the time of jumping, melancholy. Ceylon jumping melancholy.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But I mean they do, these men who are space travelers, they say "We did land on the moon." Now are they lying?

Prabhupāda: No, they, but the television was showing. They could not show this.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Jumping on the moon?

Prabhupāda: That was not shown.

Morning Walk -- June 7, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: If there is service and, on my fasting, service will be stopped, then I can take. First consideration, service. Now if somebody feels weak, he can take mahā-prasāda, render service.

Rāmeśvara: That priest that has now become your disciple, he's joining Satsvarūpa Mahārāja's party. He's very interested, and Satsvarūpa Mahārāja has said he would like him to come to travel together and study.

Prabhupāda: Very good.

Nalinīkaṇṭha: In the West, people are generally unfamiliar, I think, with the philosophy of Śaṅkara, yet in your books you devote so much argument to defeating Māyāvāda philosophy. I was wondering if it is within every conditioned soul's heart to be an impersonalist. Is it.... Does every conditioned soul have the propensity for impersonalism?

Prabhupāda: No, they cannot understand God; therefore it is impersonalism. It is due to their poor fund of knowledge. So most people are in poor fund of knowledge.

Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: So if he wants to come forward. (break) Go on reading.

Hṛdayānanda: "When the mind is in the mode of goodness, his activities are good; when the mind is in the mode of passion, his activities are troublesome; and when the mind is in the mode of ignorance, he travels in the lower species of life. It is clear, however, in this verse, that the conditioned soul is covered by..."

Prabhupāda: Ignorance means completely lost of all independence. That is ignorance. Complete loss of, even little intelligence, all lost. In the modes of passion, there is little independence, and in the modes of goodness, he has got full independence whether to remain in the struggle for existence or go back to home, back to Godhead. Brahma jānāti iti brāhmaṇaḥ. That is real knowledge platform.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Another imagination. These are actual facts.(?)

Hari-śauri: They just made up different compositions of bones and then drew some outlines on them.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are imagination.

Hari-śauri: But you said in Hawaii though that there are some animals that are as big as skyscrapers?

Prabhupāda: Yes, these are birds. It is far from this earth though. They travel from one planet to another.

Rāmeśvara: So these bones that they have found of these gigantic animals, they were all living underneath the water.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: Not on the land.

Prabhupāda: Maybe. But the list is there: jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi. There are 900,000 different forms, and how many we have seen? There is information in the śāstra. Paśavas triṁśal-lakṣāṇi. Three million different types of animals.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Impersonalists are neophytes. My Guru Mahārāja used to say, "With poor fund of knowledge." Their knowledge is imperfect.

Rāmeśvara: Yesterday you were telling a reporter that it is not possible for modern man to travel to the moon, but in your Second Canto you describe that in a previous age of Kali the men had created mechanical means for going to other planets, and they were creating havoc all over the universe, and Lord Buddha appeared to stop their nonsense.

Prabhupāda: Lord Buddha?

Rāmeśvara: I remember.... (break)

Prabhupāda: ...they are all mythology. Do they not say?

Rāmeśvara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Therefore, I'm stressing on this point, that it is not mythology. It is fact. It is history. (break)

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

Prabhupāda: Johannesburg. From the downtown, the Indian quarters about ten miles or fifteen miles away. Indian.... African, black quarters, they are not allowed even to enter the city. They require a pass. If any black man enters the city without that passport, he will immediately be taken to police. The bus for the black man is different from the white man. I think Indians also they have got separate bus. But the bus in which the white men travel, the Indians and the black men are not allowed. Gandhi tried to adjust this injustice, but he failed. Then with determination he went to India, that "I must drive away the Englishmen." These South African white men, mostly they are Englishmen and Dutchmen. Originally, they were Englishmen and Dutchmen.

Dr. Wolfe: Prabhupāda, the strange thing is that the fiercest racists in South Africa are the Boers, the Afrikaners...

Prabhupāda: That is Englishmen, Dutchmen, Dutchmen.

Magazine Interview -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Not necessarily.

Interviewer: You feel that you can continue to make those serious travels?

Prabhupāda: Well, I began my traveling in foreign countries at very ripe old age, seventy years. Ten years I'm traveling. This is the fifteenth tour all over the world.

Interviewer: Are you surprised to see the popularity of your teachings in the last few years?

Prabhupāda: I think it is becoming popular.

Rāmeśvara: He was asking if you are surprised that it is being, that your books are selling so much and that so many devotees are coming.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Neither anybody has written so many books within ten years.

Magazine Interview -- June 10, 1976, Los Angeles:

Rāmeśvara: To see that the original teachings that Prabhupāda has given are not in any way changed.

Interviewer: Well, nothing more? Then ah, thank you, and I wish you well in your travels.

Rāmeśvara: We have given him many books to read and magazines, so he's already preparing the article from that material we have given him.

Prabhupāda: For a common man it is little difficult, but it is very easy. We are talking of the spiritual platform, but common man does not understand what is spiritual, although it is very easy. My body, your body, is moving on account of spiritual spark. That's a fact; everyone can see. As soon as the spiritual spark, soul, is off, the body, it is simply lump of matter. That is a fact; everyone can see. But still they are not serious to understand what is that spiritual spark. There is no education. Mostly they are thinking there is no spiritual spark, the body is moving.... How it is moving? What is their explanation?

Rāmeśvara: Chemical combination and reaction.

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: I've been visiting your buses, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and managing the book distribution with the buses. It's going very nicely. Ever since Māyāpur all the boys have doubled their collection and distribution. And as soon as all the debts from New York temple are paid, then more and more books can go. We'll try to do everything. (break) The men are just like the army. The van leaders, bus leaders. So everything is very efficient, clean, and very high-powered. (break) ...just two years ago, when we left India, that you wanted an army of sannyāsīs and brahmacārīs always traveling, distributing books.

Prabhupāda: (looking at plaque) Commissioners?

Hari-śauri: Commissioners of Parks and Boulevards, William Livingston Jr., President; Fred Gunter, Vice-President.

Ambarīṣa: Sperimus meliora.

Hari-śauri: (indistinct) generibus. Some Latin inscription on the bridge.

Ambarīṣa: It means to increase their happiness they have built this park. Melior means increased happiness.

Prabhupāda: (break) ...Kṛṣṇa there is no happiness. All imagination.

Morning Walk -- June 13, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: ...two vans.

Satsvarūpa: Besides this, well, we have so many more. Ghanaśyāma and the men in the library party, they have three vans, and then the men who finance their travels, they have two vans, so that's another five.

Prabhupāda: Along with this van, another van goes?

Satsvarūpa: Yes. And since we have this and the Deity worship, the collecting has increased and the book distribution, because now they're more regulated and it's not so difficult.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They have a kitchen in the back, Śrīla Prabhupāda. And a shower and toilet, a sink. It's complete.

Prabhupāda: Small house.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, traveling.

Prabhupāda: This is fulfilling Caitanya Mahāprabhu's desire: pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi-grāma. (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126) Go to every village and town. So you are doing very nice to satisfy the Lord. He wanted this. Pṛthivīte nagarādi—all over the world. So when He meant all over the world, naturally He meant all the people of the world. Why Indian? Pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi-grāma, it will include all the villages, towns, all over the world. That means all people of the world should take up this. Bhārata-bhūmite haila manuṣya-janma yāra (CC Adi 9.41). The Indians' duty is to carry the message, give it to the other people, and then they'll do. (break) ...a worldwide movement, not any particular. They may not misunderstand that this is Indian or Hindu. It is not that. Kṛṣṇa is meant for everyone. So, we shall have to go?

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Why, in different season, the day is longer and shorter?

Rakṣaṇa: The time that Lord Vivasvān takes to travel across the sky differs.

Prabhupāda: Who travels? You say.(?) Sun is fixed up, they say.

Devotee: According to their theory, it is fixed up.

Prabhupāda: According to our theory.... We don't say theory. According to Bhāgavata statement, in this season, the sun runs slow. In the other season, the sun runs fast. That is understandable. But if the sun is fixed up, why in some season if is going fast and some season it is going slow?

Mādhavānanda: Their theory is because the earth is tilted on an axis, that during the winter season the sun is hitting at a different angle, and therefore it's different time. They say that the earth is rotating also, and the axis is turning from one side to the other, so that north is sometimes...

Prabhupāda: Where is the question of going fast and slow?

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Where is the question of going fast and slow?

Jayādvaita: They say that because the smaller portion of the earth..., the earth is spherical, and by the top it's smaller, so when that top side is pointed toward the sun, the sun is, as the earth turns, the sun is hitting each place sooner in each day. So it's going, traveling less distance on that surface. Then when it turns the other way, it has to go more distance. Some..., they have some concocted idea. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: (laughing) All concoction. That is not explanation. This is nice explanation, that in this season the sun goes faster and in this season the sun goes slower. That is quite understandable. Just like you are walking. Sometimes you walk slow, sometimes you walk fast. That is possible. (pause) So you can convert the down room, one of the down room as reception, like this. This should be Deity room.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Mādhavānanda: Now everyone wants to travel by air. In some large cities, the airports are so crowded, there is so much traffic overhead, that now they have to develop means of...

Prabhupāda: All accident takes place while coming down. Or while going up. On the sky there is no danger.

Devotee: They call it traffic control system in the sky. Just like there is traffic on the road, they call it the traffic control system. They have so much traffic in the air.

Prabhupāda: What they control?

Hari-śauri: They keep them flying around the airport until there's room for them to come in.

Prabhupāda: That already they are doing. When there is no space, they send news, that "Don't come down." So they come like this.

Garden Conversation -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: So the airport is also becoming a problem.

Hari-śauri: Everything's a problem without Kṛṣṇa.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: When we are traveling on the road we see so much land not used. And we think "Why not take everyone out of the factories, let them plant fruit and flower trees along the roads all over the country and build beautiful ponds. So everyone can bathe when they walk, for refreshment." Just like in Caitanya-caritāmṛta. I think Nṛsiṁha Brahmacārī, he was building a road for Lord Caitanya, very nicely.

Prabhupāda: No, they will create slaughterhouse, brothel, then liquor shop, gambling house. That's all.

Mādhavānanda: This is our biggest book distributor of the men-Pañca-tattva dāsa. One day in the airport he distributed three hundred Śrīmad-Bhāgavatams in one day. That is the record.

Prabhupāda: Hardbound Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam?

Pañca-tattva: Yes.

Prabhupāda: How did you sell so many? Unless you have got supernatural power.

Room Conversation with Ambarisa and Catholic Priest -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Śrutikīrti: We took a few pictures that you could see. We took some pictures for you to look at of the restaurant. It's still being built, so there's not actually that much to see. This street that it's on is very heavily traveled all day. This is taken at about five o'clock in the morning, so there's no one there. It's still under construction, you can see all the cinderblocks inside. But it's all glass building.

Prabhupāda: It is being rented or purchased?

Śrutikīrti: That's still being worked out. I think...

Ambarīṣa: I think we're going to purchase.

Śrutikīrti: I think Ambarīṣa is purchasing.

Prabhupāda: The back building? That is a different building?

Room Conversation with Ambarisa and Catholic Priest -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Mmm. Hari-śauri's one defect is he cannot cook. (laughter) Otherwise he is duplicate. Except cooking. He knows very good cooking.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He can eat though. He can eat prasāda.

Śrutikīrti: So I can travel and cook?

Prabhupāda: Cooking and.... A young man must eat. Why one should be like me?

Śrutikīrti and Ambarīṣa: Jaya. Jaya, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) (tape continues after guest's entrance)

Stansky: ...the very best.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation with Ambarisa and Catholic Priest -- June 14, 1976, Detroit:

Stansky: I wanted to know whether it would be all right to keep the log and to write at the..., work out the outline for the book. You told me to go ahead. So I will do that. Basically, this is what I wanted to do. I would like to continue with the group. I would like to travel with the group and keep an accurate log and start an outline and see possibly within a year's time I will have sufficient material to start the book.

Prabhupāda: That's nice, huh? You like this idea?

Devotee: Yes.

Prabhupāda: (Hindi) These boys who are working for this movement?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: How do you like our men, the devotees?

Stansky: Oh, I'm very, very impressed. This impressed me to begin with, their enthusiasm, their joy, and their complete surrender. This is what...

Prabhupāda: This is the qualification.

Room Conversation -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Time difference the same? No time difference?

Hari-śauri: I don't think so. Oh, we'll have to go through customs though. It's Canada, so we have to travel through customs.

Prabhupāda: We require passport? Visa? You've got?

Hari-śauri: I think so. Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja already has it sorted out. My U.S. visa allows me to travel outside the country and come back in unlimited amount of times. I don't.... In Toronto also, one boy there was telling us that the priest that was selling that church, he said that he would rather burn it down than sell it to us. But because this Indian man bought it for us, then we were able to get it.

Prabhupāda: Ah, yes. It was sold to somebody else. But because it is an old church, the government municipality would not allow to break it. Then the man who purchased, he was obliged to sell to us.

Conversation with Clergymen -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: The thing is that I have established so many centers. So I have to go from one center to another just to encourage them. Otherwise I am old enough. I am eighty years. So traveling is not very good job for me, but still I do it just to encourage them.

Kern: Do.... Your lines of authority then come from you, or is it an elective authority?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everything is work on higher authority.

Kern: In other words, there would be no election. Like if you go to San Francisco...

Prabhupāda: No, I have got my secretaries. I have got about twenty secretaries who are in charge of some group of temples.

Morning Walk -- June 18, 1976, Toronto:

Prabhupāda: Every few steps, there is a shop, young girls, wine, and a man is sitting.

Hari-śauri: Germany is very famous for its beer festivals. Germany. It's very famous for it's beer festivals.

Prabhupāda: Beer. Yes. Sadānanda told me. He was drinking beer in barrels. (laughs) He told me.

Hari-śauri: They even have a mug so big that it takes one gallon of beer at a time.

Prabhupāda: And they drink.

Hari-śauri: Yes. It's possible in the summer season, one of the big tourist attraction is to go to these big beer festivals. And you can go, they last about a fortnight, one week or a fortnight, and you can travel down the Rhine Valley and move every week to a new beer festival, like that, all through the summer. It's a big tourist thing. (end)

Morning Walk -- June 6, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He's back in Europe. This letter's from Germany. He mentions that he's getting some more buses and about fifteen more men to come along with some preaching equipment. They plan on leaving early August and are reaching there late August sometime. And so far he mentions that he still has no definite idea how to keep the buses in India, so the other buses will be coming out and two more buses will be coming in. This is his plan. Then he mentions that he had some correspondence with Lokanātha Swami, who's heading up the traveling party while he's in Europe, and Lokanātha Swami mentions they've been doing saṅkīrtana in Darmashala on the way up to Sri Nagar, Kashmir. And he says they are doing well everywhere they go.

Prabhupāda: India, everywhere they'll be received very nice.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Prasādam distribution has now been started as a regular part of the program. And they did one program in a town called Dalialama. Immediately two monks and one British hippie joined the party.

Prabhupāda: Two monks means Buddhist monks?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Possibly.

Morning Walk -- June 6, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: Advertising?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Like this. He says "I want to make one banner and poster: 'Now you can join the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. Travel all over the world preaching Bhagavad-gītā. All expenses paid. Free food, lodging, etc. No qualification necessary. Apply ISKCON.' " It's like army recruiting.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) No qualification.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: And he mentions the situation in Germany, at least the devotees are becoming a little stronger now. Saṅkīrtana is going on nicely.

Prabhupāda: That's all that we want. Saṅkīrtana must go on.

Answers to a Questionnaire from Bhavan's Journal -- June 28, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Then go on.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Question number four. Even a well read, widely traveled, and enlightened editor like the late Śrī Frank Moraes... I think that's how you... M-o-r-a-e-s. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Who is he?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I don't know. He's late though.

Dhṛṣṭadyumna: He has died, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He's dead. He was enlightened. "...equated Hindu ethos with castism." He equated that Hindu culture, or Hindu ethos, and castism is one and the same. "Will the fundamental values of Hinduism be in any way affected by the eradication of castism, towards which a concerted effort is now being made at all levels?"

Prabhupāda: But it cannot be done. This is another foolishness. Because Kṛṣṇa says, cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (BG 4.13). But the difficulty is the caste system is coming on account of false notion that a brāhmaṇa is the son of a brāhmaṇa. That is caste system. But Kṛṣṇa does not say. He says, "By quality and work." He never says, "By birth." So this so-called castism in India that is a false notion of cātur-varṇyaṁ. Real cātur-varṇyaṁ means guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ. One must be qualified. And how one is qualified? That is also described. Satya śamo damo titikṣva ārjava jñānaṁ vijñānam āstikyam. So there must be education. It is not that to abolish the caste system which is contaminated by false conception, or birth right conception.

Room Conversation -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: I heard that Ambassador, you have made some engagement?

Vipina: Prabhupāda, he, I got a call from his secretary, and I've been working on it and I've been to his house once. He has a very nice stately house. He had requested that maybe you could come there to his home, and your servant and Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa were thinking it might be hard for you to travel there. So we're trying to convince him to come here.

Prabhupāda: Ah. There is no question of insisting. They cannot help us in any way.

Vipina: No, not at all.

Prabhupāda: I have tried all these. They are useless.

Vṛṣākapi: We have written all the Parliament and we have asked them to come, but they are too busy.

Prabhupāda: So you go and take rest.

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

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Next point says, in the column of matter, it says it has temporary complex forms in association with life. On the other hand, life is immutable. From Bhagavad-gītā, it has neither beginning nor end. Now this is what actually we find when a living entity is in association with matter, now matter tends to the form, into definite specific forms. Like human body has a specific form, like that, other living entities have forms. But this is only due to in association with life.

Prabhupāda: Yes. As he desired, so he got a form. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1). The form is offered by the Supreme Absolute Truth, as he desires. Just like the cloth has no form, but as the customer desires, the tailor gives a form suitable to his desire. Similarly, material world means we have got varieties. In the spiritual world also we have got varieties. Because we are originally of varieties of form, we are getting these varieties of body, being influenced by the modes of material nature. So I'm desiring that if I get such body, I can eat even stool. So God gives you, "All right, you take this body. Become a pig and eat stool." This is going on. Why? Your desiring. You eat, actually. So īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati (BG 18.61). He's friendly, He's sitting in everyone's heart, and the living entity is desiring. So bhrāmayan. Desiring means he wants to go here and there. Bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni (BG 18.61). He gives a particular type of yantra, machine. This body is machine. Body is machine, everyone accepts. This is a machine. If we want to go to India, we ride on a machine, airplane, and go there. Similarly, bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni. We want varieties of life, and God gives us a particular machine to ride on and travel, go to heaven, go to hell, become a dog, become a cat, become a demigod, become a tree. This is going on. Transmigration of the soul. God gives us a particular type of body, and we change from one machine to another. This is transmigration.

Morning Walk -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. There is another nonsense. Why they are checking the flow?

Vipina: The water is too rough for the boats to travel, so they made this artificial canal so boats could travel without getting wrecked, and they could transport their items of sense gratification in that way. They used to have mules that pulled the boats with ropes alongside here, these pathways, pulled them through the canal.

Prabhupāda: It will grow mosquitoes, mosquito plant.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Mosquitoes. When the devotees came back from India, many got malaria, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Conversation with Prof. Saligram and Dr. Sukla -- July 5, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: It is a machine manufactured by the material nature under the order of Kṛṣṇa. So actually it is not my body, it is Kṛṣṇa's body. Kṛṣṇa has given us. He has given you a particular type of body, He has given me a particular type of body, so many. Yantra, machine. Just like on a machine, motorcar, we sit down and travel here and there. So we wanted to travel in a certain way so we require some machine, and Kṛṣṇa has given us this machine manufactured by material nature. Mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ suyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10). So Kṛṣṇa is within the core of heart of everyone. He knows what I want. He's giving us facilities. We wanted to enjoy this material world, and He's still giving direction, "All right, you want to get this facility, sit down on it and travel as you like." So we are getting different machines. Sometimes the human body machine, sometimes dog machine, sometimes cat machine, sometimes demigod machine. We are desiring all these things. American machine, Indian machine. When you are in Indian machine you are thinking "I am Indian. My business is to satisfy Indian interests."

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: You can just make smaller.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: All right.

Rāmeśvara: We had a good success because we sent out all the householders to the parks. During that holiday everyone goes to the parks. So the householders took their children and they set up a tent, and one of them stayed there babysitting and all the others went out distributing your books. So in that way they went out on traveling saṅkīrtana.

Prabhupāda: What is the name of that boy? He sold one Caitanya-caritāmṛta to a chemist?

Devotee: Praghoṣa?

Hari-śauri: No, not Praghoṣa, he's originally from New York, big, heavy, thick-set boy. Begins with J.

Prabhupāda: One chemist of (indistinct), he sold one book, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, then he talked with me, he's pleased.

Hari-śauri: He sold him a Caitanya-caritāmṛta and then he brought him over and Prabhupāda spoke to him.

Prabhupāda: New York climate is very nice?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very nice, like Calcutta.

Arrival Comments in Car to Temple -- July 9, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: New York climate is very nice?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Very nice, like Calcutta.

Hari-śauri: On July Fourth Prabhupāda went and drove into Washington to see the fireworks.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Really.

Hari-śauri: In the evening we had traveling kīrtana all around the city.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think this is enough, Prabhupāda? I'll tie it together now.

Prabhupāda: No, no.

Hari-śauri: Kīrtana, the reaction was amazing, people were dancing and chanting and waving, Prabhupāda was in ecstasy.

Prabhupāda: Very nice.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: New York climate is very nice. Sometimes now it rains a little bit, then shining. So just like Bengal.

Rāmeśvara: I observed that these devotees at New York, they've practically given up sleeping this past week to prepare everything for your arrival.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) They are so kind to me.

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

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Here is an article called "Travels Beyond the Body: what is it that travels, and what is it that's seen?" They're talking about traveling beyond your body. Here's an advertisement, "Because I have taken the mystery out of transcendental meditation, I will teach you to master transcendental meditation in a single evening." "About the author." Then it says, "Free private mantra based on your own name, selected by the great Norbell, translated by his special Sanskrit system, so that no one else in America has the same mantra twice. No other system of transcendental meditation..."

Prabhupāda: What is this? Maharishi?

Morning Walk -- July 12, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: (microphone rattling) That is the test. Kṛṣṇa says na māṁ prapadyante mūḍhāḥ (BG 7.15). Anyone who is not Kṛṣṇa conscious, he's a mūḍha. (microphone rattling more) It's a fact.

Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, in Los Angeles I asked you about this one verse in the Bhāgavatam where it says that in a previous Kali-yuga the materialists were able to travel to other planets. And then it said Lord Buddha appeared to stop them, that they were creating havoc. But you said that was possible in this age also that they may be able to do that.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (devotees offer obeisances) (break) (in car)

Rāmeśvara: ...can't ever go to these other planets.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they can go.

Evening Darsana -- July 13, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: Oh. No, you live I know. Sometimes you go out.

Mr. Kallman: Much traveling, but we've come for the parade.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Mr. Kallman: Down Fifth Avenue.

Prabhupāda: So often you come to the temple?

Mr. Kallman: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. Hm. So? (break)

Devotee (5): Two hundreds places, universities, schools, government institutions, big ministers, temple managements for all,...

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.

Interview with Newsweek -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: What do you mean by retired life?

Interviewer: I mean are you giving up your position as spiritual leader?

Rāmeśvara: She means now you are going back to India. Does that mean you are retiring from traveling all over the world preaching?

Prabhupāda: No, she said that spiritual life... "What do you mean by spiri...?"

Hari-śauri: Spiritual leader of the movement.

Rāmeśvara: Managing and everything.

Prabhupāda: So why you are asking this question.

Interview with Newsweek -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: No, I am not taking any very great active part. They are doing. I am simply reading.

Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda is saying that the disciples are working so hard.

Interviewer: Oh, I see.

Rāmeśvara: But I was explaining to her that you are traveling all over the world, visiting your centers, and at the same time writing so many books.

Prabhupāda: That may be lessened. That may be lessened, but that does not mean retirement.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He may not travel as much, but that doesn't mean retiring from spiritual life, because spiritual life goes on continuously at all times...

Interviewer: I didn't mean that he was retiring from spiritual life.

Hari-śauri: From management.

Bali-mardana: His main work is his books, so he'll continue that.

Interviewer: I was wondering if he had a successor to do... Do you have a successor to take your place when you die?

Prabhupāda: Not yet settled up. Not yet settled up.

Interview with Newsweek -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: I have got branches everywhere. Just like I am coming here after traveling so many branches, similarly I am going to India.

Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda has no fixed home.

Prabhupāda: I want to see that every center, things are going on nicely.

Interviewer: Oh, I see. I thought you were not returning to the United States.

Cyavana: He has traveled the world sixteen times around?

Prabhupāda: Yes, sixteen times.

Cyavana: Sixteen times around in ten years. So this is a common thing for Prabhupāda to do.

Prabhupāda: Just to inspect things, how they are going on.

Rāmeśvara: Just to inspect things.

Interviewer: But you might want to come back to the U.S.?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Why not.

Interview with Newsday Newspaper -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Interviewer: Was it difficult for you to give up what you had been doing in order to devote full time.

Prabhupāda: No, it is the Vedic system that at a certain age they should give up family connection and completely devote for God consciousness. In the beginning, twenty-five years, he should learn from guru about Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then, if he is able, he does not become a family man, but if he is unable or circumstantially, he may become a family man. So he can remain a family man up to fiftieth year and then he retires from family life. He travels in holy places with his wife, and sometimes he comes home and sometimes he goes home. In this way, when he's practiced to give up family attachment, then the wife goes back home to the care of her elderly children, and the man takes sannyāsa, and he remains alone simply for spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This is Vedic system.

Interview with Newsday Newspaper -- July 14, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: We are not idle creatures.

Rāmeśvara: We are publishing his books and sometimes he is ahead of us by seventeen volumes.

Interviewer: How do you spend your days? You do an awful lot of traveling I understand.

Prabhupāda: Traveling is going on throughout the whole world and wherever I go, at night I write books.

Bali-mardana: Translates.

Prabhupāda: Translate. And daytime I meet devotees.

Bali-mardana: Manage.

Prabhupāda: Manage.

Interviewer: You arrange the marriages?

Bali-mardana: Manage.

Prabhupāda: They have to ask me, final decision is taken from me. From all over the world, from all over the world letters are coming some problem, some problem, some problem. Although I have got about twenty secretaries, still they have to consult, I have to give them advice.

Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: I'm planning to India, and from India to Europe, that is my business.

Bali-mardana: Travels.

Prabhupāda: I travel.

Interviewer: I mean you aren't leaving this country for good. You're a permanent resident, right?

Prabhupāda: Who said?

Interviewer: I don't know, I just heard that somewhere.

Prabhupāda: From where?

Interviewer: I don't know, somebody said it.

Prabhupāda: How can I answer this? Somebody madman must have said it. (laughter)

Interview with Religious Editor Of the Associated Press -- July 16, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: How can I answer this? Somebody madman must have said it. (laughter)

Interviewer: I'm just checking it out, but there's nothing to it, huh?

Prabhupāda: I am touring always.

Bali-mardana: He's always traveling.

Interviewer: Where is your main home?

Prabhupāda: My home is back to home, back to Godhead.

Interviewer: Is where?

Hari-śauri: Back to Godhead.

Bali-mardana: With God.

Prabhupāda: That is my real home. That means every temple is my home.

Morning Walk -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: (beak) ...in this bus.

Kīrtanānanda: Oh, you traveled in the bus. Yes, it was comfortable.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda, there's about two hundred and fifty devotees here now.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. Make the whole city your (indistinct).

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's very nice. We can handle all of these devotees, I think, very comfortably.

Prabhupāda: All facilities are there.

Kīrtanānanda: Kṛṣṇa is giving all facility. (break)

Prabhupāda: ...distributing free, thirteen hundred or thirteen thousand?

Kīrtanānanda: Thirteen thousand.

Prabhupāda: Daily.

Room Conversation -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Hari-śauri: Like Satsvarūpa Mahārāja's traveling bus.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Right. It has a bathroom in it. That's going to accompany the parade in case at any time you require it, that will be right there. So it can go alongside the cart. At four o'clock we'll arrive, and at about four-thirty Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja will give a short introduction for you, and at four forty-five you'll speak. So at four forty-five you're expected to give the lecture. It begins at two o'clock at Fifty-ninth Street for two hours. Then by five or five-fifteen the whole thing will be over. So I wanted to know what time you would like to join the parade.

Prabhupāda: So you suggest.

Room Conversation -- July 17, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: It will take about four, five hours.

Indian man: No, two and a half hours. Two and a half hours.

Prabhupāda: Traveling is little difficult for me. So there are many Indians?

Indian man: There are about hundred and fifty Indian people. Thirty percent of them are Ārya-samājīs. They don't believe in anyone except doing (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: Second edition of Muhammadans.

Indian man: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Ārya-samājī means another edition of the Muhammadans.

Indian man: Some are Śiva followers, Śaivaites.

Prabhupāda: The Ārya-samājīs, they do not believe in God, so how they are Śiva followers? Hodgepodge. No sāmajīs but hodgepodge.

Morning Walk -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: They propagated the Thames River as very big river. And when I first saw it, it is canal. (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Canal. And the Ganges they said was nasty. Thames was a river and the Ganges was...

Prabhupāda: Jamesford, Lord James. That Jamesford is a village only. Some big man, little, take the title lord and go and become governor there. And when some Indian comes they say that Lord Jamesford was traveling in third-class compartment in railway.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: These buildings are not actually made of this stone. They are made of brick, covered by stone.

Prabhupāda: But they are very nicely made. It is not possible now to construct such nice...

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Kīrtanānanda is constructing like this, though.

Prabhupāda: Yes. What is this building?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Museum of Natural History. Actually, it is made of stone. The museums are...

Prabhupāda: Government building, they can stand at the cost of taxpayer. (break) West Central Park?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Central Park West, it's called.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: My Guru Mahārāja was in favor of preaching in the city because you can get many men.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But do you think I should travel a lot, or what is the best thing?

Prabhupāda: Both things should be done.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Both. So if you... We were hoping that you could give us another chance by coming back next year.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, I'll come.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But you do say that to a lot of different temples, but we will try to make this doubly big.

Prabhupāda: Always, so long I live, I must come.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: I'll come.

Bali-mardana: Then you do not have to travel so much.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And we will make all arrangements. This year is nothing. Next year we will make ten times more arrangements if you come, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: From anywhere, I'll come.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We will make all arrangements for you.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That you do.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This was only a trial.

Bali-mardana: We have to perfect it now. We have learned that many..., certain things did not go as perfectly as they could have, so now we are going to repair and make it perfect.

Prabhupāda: Now, by this, Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is advertised. Apart from all over the world, at least in New York it is, that "There is some movement."

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: That I shall consider.

Bali-mardana: They may come here. We will make... We have guest rooms.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We can make an airline office by which they'll get a reduced rate, and they can travel here, travel agency, and they can come here very inexpensively to visit you, and we can give full accommodations. If somehow we can keep you here, we will do anything required.

Bali-mardana: At least for a few months. That is all.

Prabhupāda: Which month?

Bali-mardana: During the summertime.

Prabhupāda: July?

Bali-mardana: July, August.

Room Conversation -- July 18, 1976, New York:

Prabhupāda: From my childhood I liked this lemonade. I think it was cost, in our childhood, three paisa.

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)

Room Conversation -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: So why your cloth is so dirty?

Pṛthu-putra: I just traveled with him.

Prabhupāda: For a sannyāsī it is very nice. So people may not dislike it, but for a sannyāsī this is very nice.

Bhagavān: He's doing very nicely, Pṛthu-putra. He's having many preaching engagements.

Prabhupāda: Very good. That is wanted. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam amalaṁ purāṇam. So when the whole lot will be delivered?

Bhagavān: End of August.

Prabhupāda: End of August? Oh.

Room Conversation -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: So give Bhagavān prabhu nice prasādam. Our, the devotees only eat prasādam.

Bhagavān: My prasāda was sitting here. I'm sorry to hear that you are so sick. You are sick.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Should have, cough, to stop.(?) The coughing is continuing and practically no appetite, and palpitation of heart. Going up the step is.... So how under this condition I can travel? It is not...

Bhagavān: Very difficult

Prabhupāda: Yes. When you came back from India?

Pṛthu-putra: Three months ago.

Prabhupāda: From Vṛndāvana?

Pṛthu-putra: From Bombay. I was last in Bombay.

Bhagavān: You have been like this for some time?

Prabhupāda: It has begun from New York, eh?

Hari-śauri: Yeah, you had kidney trouble in New York, and then immediately after that, coughing and.... When we came on the plane it grew worse.

Prabhupāda: One doctor came, he gave me three bags of tablets.

Room Conversation -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Why not? Our Kṛṣṇa is most luxurious person. He is never poverty-stricken. Always with gopīs, cowherd boys, killing all demons.

Jayatīrtha: Harikeśa Maharaja and I were discussing last night about your travel plans, and we were debating on what was actually the best place for you to go. So someone was saying Tehran, someone was saying Paris farm, like this, but the point that came out was that as far as health is concerned, India is not the best place for you to go at all.

Prabhupāda: India.

Room Conversation -- July 26, 1976, London:

Hari-śauri: It's not just that. It's the problem that you have to fly from France to somewhere else and then from somewhere else back to India. I said the main problem is that if you do go to France, then it means a great deal more traveling than would be involved in simply flying to India, because you'd have to travel back and forth to the Paris farm. Then you would also have to stay in Tehran, up and down like that in the plane, and then again fly to Bombay.

Bhagavān: But he doesn't have to stay in the farm for just nine days. He can stay there for long time.

Prabhupāda: If the health suits, I can stay there. If the health improves, I can stay.

Pṛthu-putra: Air India is direct from Geneva.

Prabhupāda: I shall not stay...

Pṛthu-putra: I came back from Bombay to Geneva by direct plane.

Prabhupāda: Yes, there is plane.

Conversation with George Harrison -- July 26, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: Bring little. So I am very much pleased that you take so much trouble to come here.

George Harrison: It's my pleasure.

Prabhupāda: Yes, give a little for drinking. You want little more?

George Harrison: Are you ever going to stop traveling?

Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa's desire. I don't want, personally, but if Kṛṣṇa wants, that is everything. We have got more hundred and two centers, different parts of the world.

George Harrison: Still six more to go.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (laughter) We have got a very nice house in Detroit. If you sometimes go there...

George Harrison: Whereabouts?

Prabhupāda: Detroit.

Radio Interview -- July 27, 1976, London:

Prabhupāda: If one is going to pass M.A. examination, he must be qualified. Not that all of a sudden one becomes M.A. He must be qualified.

Mike Robinson: So what are you doing now? You've come to England for a brief stay. I gather you travel a lot.

Prabhupāda: Just to guide my disciples and to see how they are doing things, that's all.

Mike Robinson: And do you do that, or travel around the world, don't you.

Prabhupāda: Yes, but now I am getting old. So it is little difficult for me. Still I have to do and come and see.

Mike Robinson: And that is your mission in life, is it, to...

Prabhupāda: Yes, I have established it, I want to see that it is not spoiled.

Mike Robinson: I see. Can you tell me how you feel led, you know, how you are guided to do what you do?

Prabhupāda: Well, there are the books, just like I also told you, the literature.

Room Conversation -- August 2, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Bhagavān: To buy some trucks for traveling.

Prabhupāda: He's good preacher. He's now distributing books very nicely. You are also good distributor books. Huh? In the beginning she was distributing nicely. So preaching is our life. The more we preach, the more we are successful. Yāre dekha tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's preaching.

āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra' ei deśa

yāre dekha, tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa'

(CC Madhya 7.128)

This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Every one of you become guru and deliver the residents of your neighborhood. Ei deśa. Wherever you are living, just deliver them. Become their guru. How to become guru? It is not difficult. Yāre dekha tāre kaha 'kṛṣṇa'-upadeśa (CC Madhya 7.128). What Kṛṣṇa has said instruct them. You simply repeat it, that's all. You become guru. So this should be preached all over the world. You learn from Bhagavad-gītā and repeat. You simply say, "Kṛṣṇa said four things: man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). 'Just always think of Me.' Kṛṣṇa said. 'And just become My devotee.

Meeting with Italian Printer -- August 5, 1976, New Mayapur (French farm):

Prabhupāda: Liberty means whatever you like, you can do. That is liberty. But at the present moment, you cannot do that. Just like you want to go to the moon planet, you cannot do that. But when you are spiritually liberated, you can go anywhere you like. Still, in this material world there is a planet which is called Siddhaloka. The inhabitants of that planet, they go from any planet to any planet. But still, they can not go to the spiritual world. But Nārada Muni, he can travel anywhere. He travels over all the spiritual world and material world. There is no restriction.

Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Dharmaḥ projjhita kaitavo 'tra (SB 1.1.2). Kaitava means cheating. Cheating type of dharma is rejected here. This karma-kāṇḍa, by performing some ritualistic ceremony you may go to a heavenly planet, but what benefit you will have? That one has to understand. You can enjoy there materialistic, highest type of materialistic civilization means eating, sleeping, mating. These things you can get, but you have to come back again. Kṣine punye martya-lokaṁ viśanti (BG 9.21). So what benefit there is? No benefit. Just like in British period, some Englishman was made viceroy of India. Then after five years they sent to London, again with his bag, marketing in the street. This has been seen practically. Lord such-and-such, he's traveling in a third-class compartment with a bag for marketing. But so long he was viceroy, oh, so much honor, so much prestige. So where is that prestige now? These ritualistic ceremonies are like that. For more years you become viceroy, and then again fall down. That is your Nixon. What is the position of Nixon now? He is ordinary man. That's all.

Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: That you cannot do. Just like we are, although we are interested fully in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, it doesn't mean that we do not live in a house, we do not eat, we do not use motorcar, we do not use typewriter, dictaphone. We are using everything. But the purpose is different. We are traveling and paying heavily to the air companies. Whenever I travel, at least five, six men go with me, and one round trip world travel means sixteen thousand dollars or sixteen hundred dollars?

Atreya Ṛṣi: Sixteen thousand. About five, six people, one round trip is about twelve thousand dollars.

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.

Evening Darsan -- August 10, 1976, Tehran:

Atreya Ṛṣi: Friday Śrīla Prabhupāda is traveling. And Thursday at 11:30 you're going to see that building.

Prabhupāda: I think within so short time it will (not) be possible for holding a meeting.

Atreya Ṛṣi: For a short time?

Prabhupāda: No, because there are two days only. On Thursday we have got already engagement.

Atreya Ṛṣi: Yes, we have an engagement for Thursday.

Prabhupāda: Then tomorrow only. So I don't think it will be possible.

Mr. Sharma: Thursday evening it is not possible?

Prabhupāda: No.

Atreya Ṛṣi: We're going to travel already into town once Thursday. We got some Persian puffed rice. They make puffed rice.

Prabhupāda: I'll take. You first of all give them.

Atreya Ṛṣi: We'll go downstairs and have prasādam.

Prabhupāda: All right. Thank you very much for your coming. Jaya. (end)

Evening Darsana -- August 11, 1976, Tehran:

Jñānagamya: His father was attached to British in India. He traveled in India during his boyhood in South India.

Prabhupāda: In my young age I had one Afghani friend, he belonged to the royal family. What is the king? Some of their brothers were banished in India. Who was the king? So one..., the family were staying in Allahabad. His name was Sen, Sen Aband(?) like that. So he was my friend. He was coming to me and we were talking. Amar Lakhana(?), his brother, he belonged to the royal family.

Guest: That's right, that must be before 1936 though.

Prabhupāda: Yes, I am talking between 1925-30. So this same friend was coming to me and we were talking. I think at that time Afghanistan was under British influence? No.

Room Conversation -- August 12, 1976, Tehran:

Prabhupāda: Monthly, no year.

Harikeśa: Those traveler's checks there?

Prabhupāda: Traveler's check I'll keep now. It may be required.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: And monthly to India or to America?

Prabhupāda: India or America.

Ātreya Ṛṣi: Because America is cheaper, because if I send it to India, if small amounts go...

Prabhupāda: So you send to America.

Arrival Conversation -- August 13, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Oh, I see. We are always traveling, they should give us some concession. Every time we get checked. Actually, the government should have given us the best facilities because I am distributing India's culture all over the world.

Devotees: Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda!

Prabhupāda: Unfortunately, I am not receiving encouragement from the leaders and the authorities. This is India's glory. History will say. (prasāda arrives) Give it, yes, you can...

Hari-śauri: Pass it out.

Prabhupāda: All people are responding all over the world. They... Money, men, strength, everything they are supplying. But we are not getting very good encouragement from India. Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission is that every Indian should become guru and preach the instruction of Kṛṣṇa.

Arrival Conversation -- August 13, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Jaya. Take prasāda and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, that's all. And we have now nice buildings. Live there peacefully, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Bas. This is my success. If I see that you are living very nicely, chanting very nicely, then all my labor is successful.

Hari-śauri: Hare Kṛṣṇa. So if all the devotees would like to leave now, then Prabhupāda can rest a little bit from traveling.

Harikeśa: You can distribute prasāda in the hall.

Prabhupāda: Oh, you are older than me.

Older man: Your blessings.

Prabhupāda: Live peacefully, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. It is for you, so many buildings. Let devotees come, live here peacefully, and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, that's all. That I want.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: There's a lot of devotees visiting Bombay.

Prabhupāda: How many you are housing?

Room Conversation -- August 14, 1976, Bombay:

Indian Doctor: It is the greed of the human being.

Prabhupāda: Yes, but the mission should be, human being should be meant for doing good to others. Para-upakāra. That para-upakāra spirit is gone on account of losing our own culture. Otherwise, India's culture is para-upakāra. India was open, "Come everyone, learn." Lord Jesus Christ also came here. All the Chinese, learned scholars, they used to come. The history is there. And India was open. Gṛhe śatrum api prāptaṁ viśvastam akutobhayam. This is Indian culture. Even the enemy comes, "Yes, please come, you stay." But later on, they took advantage: "Oh, they are very liberal, enter there." And still we are liberal. "Please come here, stay here and take prasādam free, and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa." Open to everyone. I shall manage anyway, I shall travel, still I shall lay down my life and bring money. Come here, stay. Still we are liberal. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's mission, janma sārthaka kari' kara para-upakāra (CC Adi 9.41). First of all, make your life successful by Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the fact.

Jayapatākā: Actual facts is... That would help, if such a letter was given. Then on the basis of that, we cal also go and preach or talk, or we can show that to the local people that "this is..." Because they keep thinking that we are coming on our own. Because you are outside traveling, they see us only, and they think we are independent.

Prabhupāda: No, in every letter heading there is my name, "Ācārya, Founder-ācārya."

Gargamuni: That is their stupidity. But if some, that one direct letter, short letter, then if we have a copy I'll show that to the CID there, that "This, Prabhupāda has written to the Minister of Home. This is in answer to your question."

Prabhupāda: Then take that copy.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: So, so far the building is concerned, that is already settled up.

Jayapatākā: Yes, that's all set up.

Prabhupāda: Then what other?

Jayapatākā: There were some other lighter matters. When I was traveling in my preaching, then last time in Māyāpur, when that Haridaspur, when they offered, you mentioned to me that you liked that we develop these holy spots. So just as a matter of convenience, whenever I was near any holy spot that you mentioned in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta I would go and just visit the place. So in my tours, one place I went to was very nice, and that sevaite, he spontaneously, when I showed him all your work, he offered me that he would like to give the temple to you. That temple is much, much more developed than Haridaspur. That's the temple of Maheśa Paṇḍita.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Jayapatākā: When I was traveling in Burdwan, there we saw the big palace of Maharaja of Burdwan

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Jayapatākā: Gigantic. He has given that to the university. Then we did a kīrtana at his... He has one temple of Rādhā-kānta. That's present ācārya is about a twenty-two-year old boy. He's in the sampradāya of Nimbārka Svāmī. So he doesn't know anything about, very much about spiritual life, although he is following the tradition. That's such a vast... That building is vast. I can't explain to you how big that is. It's at least five times bigger than our building in all ways, and... It is a huge compound. He has got much land in the name of the Deity. So he's becoming a member because he wants to read your books to understand about Lord Caitanya and spiritual...

Prabhupāda: Now for making member you should be very clear so that no misunderstanding takes place. Books, we shall give five books.

Room Conversation About Mayapura Construction -- August 19, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Not renting. Purchase.

Gargamuni: Well, the only thing is with these flats in Calcutta, they are so mismanaged, these new places. They become a slum in two months. In Bombay the flats are managed nicely, but in Calcutta when they build a new one, within two months the whole thing is filthy dirty. The elevators don't work. It's not worth purchasing a flat. I have one now. I am renting. It's on the twelfth floor, and the members of our traveling party stay there. There is nice water and so many things. But the building is so mismanaged. Who wants to stay there more than a year? We need our own place. Then we can keep it clean and nice.

Prabhupāda: Where is that own place?

Gargamuni: Well, there are buildings that we can get. In Balijunj we have some offers. That's if this park doesn't come through. If the park does not come through, then we can...

Prabhupāda: Yes. First of all all try to make... This is the best place in Calcutta.

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

Prabhupāda: Anyway, they are feeling the weight. Now they are feeling the weight. That is the progress. Otherwise, if our movement would have been a trifle thing, the government and newspapers they would not have taken care. Now they are feeling that this movement is going to be more and more important, all over the world.

Hari-śauri: They can see we're having an effect.

Pradyumna: The more we go with these traveling parties also, from town to town.

Hari-śauri: Most of the general population, they're already convinced.

Prabhupāda: First thing is that when you take śālagrāma-sevā, wherever you stay, this worship must go on daily.

Pradyumna: Yes, nitya-pūjā, nitya-sevā.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That you cannot... One day, if you are sick, your wife will do that. But that half an hour pūjā must continue. That you must decide.

Meeting With Member of Parliament, Mr. Krishna Modi -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda is always traveling. (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: This is the only hope. Kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet (SB 12.3.51). Throughout the whole world the situation is not very good. Now there is drought, no water. All over the world. I have seen whole Europe, all the fields are now gray, no green. (Hindi)

Krishna Modi: India this year is very good rains. Beyond expectation. And also this crop is very good. (Hindi)

Prabhupāda: Parjanyād anna-sambhavaḥ. Nature's work is there. As soon as there is sufficient rain you get sufficient crops. And yajñād bhavati parjanyaḥ (BG 3.14). Kali-yuga, this age, the yajña is hari-kīrtana. Yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyaiḥ. (Hindi)

Krishna Modi: Who can do this thing?

Prabhupāda: We can do that. We can do that. Provided there is cooperation.

Morning Walk -- August 31, 1976, Delhi:

Prabhupāda: They do not know how to eat on the whole. India knows how to eat. (Pause) I have traveled all over the world, and this is my experience. Nobody knows how to eat.

Devotee: Nowhere at all, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Only India. (break) ...every province they have got different dishes. Because the woman, they are trained up how to cook very nice.

Devotee: I even see these boys when I was in Chandigarh, in a dish next door to the temple we were starting there.

Prabhupāda: Woman is meant for that purpose, how to make nice palatable dishes.

Evening Darsana -- September 1, 1976, Delhi:

Indian man (3): And now you will remain here in India for some time?

Prabhupāda: That I do not know. I, actually, now it is little troublesome for me to travel all the year.

Indian man (3): You are just gone from (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: Rest, if I rest then there may be... Because I am dealing with all neophytes. If I don't keep them alive by personal presence... Still they are doing nice. I have appointed twenty secretaries all over the world. I am training them. They are managing. Managing nicely. I have been in New York and Los Angeles and Hawaii, all big, big centers. London, Paris.

Indian man (3): Oh, it's a very great. Your program for Kurukṣetra and etc. and the...

Prabhupāda: Program was that they promised to give me land.

Room Conversation -- September 5, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: ...Sannyāsī should go on preaching, preaching, preaching, preaching. Practically, I was sitting here in Vṛndāvana, in Rādhā-Dāmodara temple. So at the age of seventy years, nobody goes out. At least from Vṛndāvana nobody goes at the age of seventy years. But Kṛṣṇa asked me. I thought that I must go, Guru Mahārāja wanted it, Caitanya Mahāprabhu... Let me try. So if I had not gone then this institution would not have developed. So this is practical. Mahataḥ nirvicaraṇam.(?) Mahātmā, they must move. So when there is absolute necessity they may stay. Otherwise, they must move. Move on, move on, move on, move on, move on. No staying. That is principle. No staying. I am this old age, I cannot move... My... I... So many... Still I am traveling all over the world. I am simply interested that whatever I have done, it may not be vanquished in my absence. Let me go and encourage them. Otherwise, I have no capacity to move now. But still I am moving. Only for this purpose. Girinaṁ grhna-cetasam.(?) So a sannyāsī must move. A sannyāsī must not stay anywhere more than three days. That is the principle. So he was moving, but his moving is creating disturbances here. Therefore I have stopped. And besides that, a temple is nirguṇa. A sannyāsī is forbidden to stay anywhere else, but in a temple he can stay for more than three days provided there is business. Otherwise, there is no necessity.

Room Conversation -- September 5, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Let him explain, don't...

Haṁsadūta: When we come to a center, naturally there are certain men who want to go traveling. Not all men want to go traveling, but there are definitely some who want to go traveling. And if they come to me, what should I do? Tell them, "No, I'm sorry"?

Prabhupāda: No, no, traveling, if somebody wants to travel, what he is, first of all you must know. A brahmacārī, a sannyāsī, they are meant for preaching. Not gṛhasthas.

Haṁsadūta: No, not gṛhasthas. I'm not taking any gṛhasthas.

Prabhupāda: So if a brahmacārī, gṛhastha, yes, if he wants to travel, so there is no objection.

Room Conversation -- September 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: The only reason I'm talking this is because now it's really tight. We can't take... They have air conditioned room...

Prabhupāda: Yes, they should go and preach and bring some collection.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: They're just relaxed, resting for a month.

Akṣayānanda: A month is too long, Prabhupāda said. Prabhupāda said three days a sannyāsī should stay and then he should go and travel. The wheels should be turning. I'll talk to him.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Because this just adds up. A ten people party staying here for a month...

Prabhupāda: Yes, they've always come, so there must be some control.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Few men are here from Haṁsadūta's party who eat with us. All this just adds up then our budget cannot be maintained.

Akṣayānanda: I'll preach to him.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Air conditioned room.

Prabhupāda: That is another thing. They're our men.

Room Conversation -- September 6, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Rolls Royce. When he was rich man.

Akṣayānanda: Sometimes while traveling I've met some very old rich men lying on their deathbed dying. I approached them to help us. They will not give a single penny. It is all going to the son, and the son is atheist. In the house there is everywhere Kṛṣṇa's picture. Very difficult. They don't know that Kṛṣṇa is giving them a chance. They die, within days some of them can die. They are lying on the bed, passing stool and urine. So rich. But they do not care to help this movement. So many people like that. We have to become very expert. (end)

Garden Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So that is done by medical men also, so what is the excellence. Huh?

Hari-śauri: One man said that once he was traveling in his car and a train came, and the train hit the car and he was thrown out, but somehow or other he survived. He said he was thrown out to the left hand side and the train stopped, came to a sudden standstill just as it hit the car. So then he said he went to see Sai Baba, and then Sai Baba looked at him and he said, "Oh, you have been in an accident and your car was hit by the train. But I stopped the train and threw you to the left and therefore you were not injured." Like this. And he also mentioned that at that time you should think of God.

Prabhupāda: If he can do so, can he save him from death? If he's so powerful.

Indian man: That is very easy. I can also do that. (laughter) I know the trick.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: What is the trick?

Indian man: I'll not tell it to you. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: No. These tricky things are... They have no...

Hari-śauri: Sometimes he conjures up different items in his hand. Like he can conjure up a watch. Or there's a particular type of nut that is found in Nepal. So some American scientist was trying to get him to...

Prabhupāda: You have found out that portion?

Pradyumna: I'm just, I'm getting...

Room Conversation -- September 9, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: ... because as soon as the ship stopped, Commonwealth Pier, Boston, the immigration department came and took their papers. So I entered America in Boston. There was no checking in New York. The ship stopped in Boston. The official entrance was done there. Then when I came to New York, it is just like one day's travel.

Harikeśa: And then you went directly to Pennsylvania? By bus?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Then one agent, appointed by my host, Gopal Agarwal. He was in Butler. So he arranged with some professional what is called, host.

Harikeśa: Travel agent?

Prabhupāda: Maybe travel agent. He came to see me, that "I am sent by Gopal Agarwal, so I'll arrange for your dispatch. You come with me."

Hari-śauri: Dr. Agarwal was your sponsor?

Prabhupāda: Yes. His father came to see me some time in Agra. Agra. His father, mother came.

Room Conversation -- September 16, 1976, Vrndavana:

Haṁsadūta: We had this experience when we were traveling with our bus from Calcutta to Vṛndāvana. We would want to buy watermelon from people who were growing right on the bank of the river, and he would have huge piles. And he would say, "No, I'm not selling. I'm transporting these to Delhi, where one cannot get watermelon." He's getting five times the price he would get in his local...

Prabhupāda: And from Vṛndāvana, we have seen, they are exporting that drumbeats? Vṛndāvana?

Hari-śauri: Drumsticks.

Prabhupāda: Huh? Drumstick. So the transport is a dangerous thing.

Haṁsadūta: Yes, this is a scheme.

Prabhupāda: A local man cannot get. He's starving. And the man in big cities, he's doing nothing, he simply has got paper to sign and paper money he's attracting. All production. And they are starving. This is modern civilization. Everything, milk, vegetables, fish, everything, this chānā. Otherwise, within the village you can get everything. Village economy. Everything very cheap. And as soon as they got these transport facilities, the local men, they could not eat, and these lazy rascals, they are getting everything. Big, big cities like Calcutta, Bombay, they (have) millions of population. They are not producing anything. The producer is different man. They are simply artificially cheating them by paper money and they take. This is modern civilization.

Room Conversation -- October 31, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Hm. I have no where experience.

Hari-śauri: Haṁsadūta Mahārāja has traveled around...

Haṁsadūta: You can do it from here even. You can start track from Vṛndāvana.

Prabhupāda: I think some car has come?

Akṣayānanda: Maybe that's Bhīma, I'll check.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Hari-śauri: Maybe you could do it from Bengal, from Māyāpur.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Hari-śauri: Do the villages there.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So he was, "Here is a book of cow protection, cow protection." He has written one book to take care of the cows. So one old man called him, "What you are selling?" Now, "I am selling this book." "What is that book?" "Maintaining the cow." So, "Why you are selling? First of all give this book to your mother because you are no better than cow, so she will learn how to give you protection." That means he wanted to impress upon him that "Cow protection doesn't require any education. You have written a book? So you are such a rascal, cow intelligence. Better give this book to your mother. She will maintain you. Don't sell it. Everyone knows how to give cow protection." So similarly, this sex literature, there is no need of sex literature. Sex literature is there in Sanskrit also. That is how to restrict sex. For what purpose one should indulge in sex, that is called Kāma-śāstra. I have seen this Freud philosophy became so prominent that sometimes in the year... 1940's maybe. So one young woman was traveling, and another young man was traveling. So they began to discuss about sex very openly. And both of them unknown. Still, they engaged themselves in discussing the sex literature, without any shame.

Room Conversation -- November 15, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Hari-śauri: "Purport: The cloud of dust covered the entire horizon, but when drops of blood sprayed up as far as the sun, the dust cloud could no longer float in the sky. A point to be observed here is that although the blood is stated to have reached the sun, it is not said to have reached the moon. Apparently, therefore, as stated elsewhere in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the sun, not the moon, is the planet nearest the earth. We have already discussed this point in many places. The sun is first, then the moon, then Mars, Jupiter and so on. The sun is supposed to be 93,000,000 miles above the surface of the earth, and from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam we understand that the moon is 1,600,000 miles above the sun. Therefore the distance between the earth and the moon would be about 95,000,000 miles. So if a space capsule were traveling at the speed of 18,000 miles per hour, how could it reach the moon in four days? At that speed, going to the moon would take at least seven months. That a space capsule on a moon excursion has reached the moon in four days is therefore impossible."

Prabhupāda: (chuckles) So my reason is alright?

Hari-śauri: Oh yeah.

Prabhupāda: Modern scientists (Hindi—about challenge)

Guest: (Hindi conversation)

Prabhupāda: Whatever Mars going? Finished.

Room Conversation -- November 15, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Jagadīśa: He wrote me a letter. He met one of our travelling parties and he heard that I was here and he was interested to, in our educational program. So I invited him to come here, perhaps to teach Hindi, and so he's here.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Devotee: Prabhupāda, this is some honey, this is from my wife. And this is from Viśakha, Yadubara's wife from Los Angeles. She asked us to... And this is from all the devotees in San Diego, this is ghee.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Guest: Cow ghee?

Devotee: Yes. They heard that you were in need of some ghee, so they have... (indistinct) (pause)

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Morning Walk -- November 17, 1976, Vrndavana:

Akṣayānanda: He's okay now. (break)

Prabhupāda: No cloud. In the street it is very disturbing. (break) ...party, they are also touring? No.

Mahākṣa: They have groups in different towns. They have in Birelli and Harpur. They don't travel and preach. I've met them in Ghaziabad also. They were the same. They were very envious, and they would not help. Also in Harpur they were the same. (break)

Prabhupāda: Like our poison, (?) more. Mm?

Mahākṣa: Oh yes. The people are gullible. They do not know. They are more attracted to us. But we are not always there.

Prabhupāda: Occasionally, you find cities. (Break) You cannot speak Hindi, still they like? Huh?

Mahākṣa: They like us.

Prabhupāda: They like our kīrtana.

Morning Walk Excerpt -- December 4, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Haṁsadūta: The roadway is always difficult. It's better if you travel by air. (break)

Prabhupāda: They are dangerous road.

Devotee (1): The roads are not very good.

Haṁsadūta: Tribhuvanath is in Gujarat, is that right?

Devotee (1): Gujarat, right.

Haṁsadūta: He's collecting to get the bus fixed. (break) Another one, a small one. (break) The day Your Divine Grace... (break) ...so much danger with these machines. Not a... (break)

Devotee (1): It's very old. Many Arabs are here.

Prabhupāda: Oh.

Room Conversation -- December 7, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: So why? Why he does not want to go?

Mahāṁśa: He wants to go traveling for a while.

Prabhupāda: So that cannot be. So traveling means you have asked him to...?

Haṁsadūta: No, I haven't asked him any... It's the same problem. Whenever I go somewhere there are always certain men; they want to go.

Prabhupāda: No. Nobody can go without sanction. This is sense gratification, "I want to." This is not good.

Jagadīśa: The temple right now is in lack of a full time manager. Mahāṁśa Mahārāja spends most of his time here, and I can see that the temple management is not going right.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Not very nice. So do you require...? But you also do not remain here.

Room Conversation -- December 27, 1976, Bombay:

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.

Room Conversation -- December 31, 1976, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hari-śauri: Does that mean Prabhupāda will have to travel?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Delhi to Mathurā. It's only ten minutes flight. Fifteen minutes. Vṛndāvana to Mathurā it's only fifteen minutes.

Hari-śauri: Last time it was an hour. Almost three-quarters of an hour when we traveled from Vṛndāvana to go to that program.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Vṛndāvana to Mathurā is not more than fifteen minutes.

Prabhupāda: Fifteen to twenty minutes.

Page Title:	Travel (Conv. 1976)
Compiler:	Mayapur
Created:	09 of Oct, 2011
Totals by Section:	BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=113, Let=0
No. of Quotes:	113