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Conversations and Morning Walks

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

We ask donation, that "We are simply depending on donation. If you like, you can pay." People pay. Yes.


Press Interview -- December 30, 1968, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: So with all these considerations, I came here, and I think I'm successful, yes.

Journalist: Doesn't seem like very many converts in that amount of time. How many followers other... (sneezes) Pardon me please.

Prabhupāda: That's all right.

Journalist: How many followers are there then, within...? Just a hundred?

Prabhupāda: Little more than hundred.

Hayagrīva: These are initiates who are strictly following. Of course, there are more and more people come to the temples. More people join us.

Journalist: How many temples are there?

Prabhupāda: We have got thirteen temples. Thirteen. One in this Los Angeles, one San Francisco, one in New York, one Santa Fe, one Buffalo, one Boston, one Montreal, one Vancouver, and Seattle, Columbus, and then London, Hamburg, in this way... Hawaii.

Journalist: Well, there's got to be more than a hundred people in thirteen temples.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes, more than a hundred, yes. About a...

Hayagrīva: I don't know.

Prabhupāda: Yes, I have got list. There are more than hundred.

Hayagrīva: Must be at least because that would only be an average of ten per temple.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Here we have got about twenty heads in this temple.

Journalist: About twenty. Where does the money come from to print Godhead?

Prabhupāda: God sends. (laughs)

Journalist: Well, yes, I was pretty sure of that, but God doesn't write checks and stuff like that. I'm just sort of curious. And I must say that...

Prabhupāda: God dictates you and you pay. That's all.

Journalist: I must say that that answer to that question is a very ambivalent answer.

Prabhupāda: (chuckling) Yes. I came here... You will be surprised. I came here with seven dollars only and the whole establishment expenditure is not less than, I think, five thousand dollars monthly. At least.

Journalist: That's sixty thousand a year. I mean, is it donated?

Prabhupāda: Five thousand is very minimal. I think it is more than that.

Hayagrīva: I have no idea.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because we are paying... This temple, we are paying four hundred, simply rent. Similarly each and every place we are paying three hundred, four hundred rent.

Journalist: Well, do people come to the services who are not disciples and devotees?

Prabhupāda: Yes. No, we allow everyone, "Come on, chant. Take prasādam." We offer this prasādam. Chant, dance, hear Bhagavad-gītā, and take prasādam, and go home.

Journalist: In other words, if they want to donate something, they donate.

Prabhupāda: Yes. We ask donation, that "We are simply depending on donation. If you like, you can pay." People pay. Yes.

Journalist: Yes. Is that how the magazine is published?

Prabhupāda: Magazine also, we take to the market and put it for sale. People purchase. So actually we have no steady fund.

Journalist: Oh, you don't.

Prabhupāda: No. We simply depending on Kṛṣṇa. But by the grace of Kṛṣṇa, our movement is increasing. It is not decreasing.

Journalist: That's good. I just am curious about this because it's a beautiful magazine.

Prabhupāda: So try to help us.

Journalist: Pardon?

Prabhupāda: Try to help this movement. Your America, there are so many rich men. If somebody comes and helps this movement, one or two, we can make very steady progress. We have no money. We are struggling very hard. You see? This boy is a professor in the Ohio University. So whatever he's earning, he's spending for this. Similarly, all the boys whatever they earn, they spend. But that is not sufficient, you see? We require to make propaganda. We cannot sufficiently publish this magazine. We want to publish it at least fifty thousand per month, but there is no money. We are publishing at most five thousand. (conchshell blowing)

Journalist: Who is blowing the Shofar in here?