View source for He's asking how does our sankirtana activities relate to God consciousness, the selling of books and collecting of donations?

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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1976]]
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<div id="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="section" sec_index="5" parent="compilation" text="Conversations and Morning Walks"><h2>Conversations and Morning Walks</h2>
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<div id="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="9" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1976 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1976 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="InterviewwithNewsdayNewspaperJuly141976NewYork_0" class="quote" parent="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="212" link="Interview with Newsday Newspaper -- July 14, 1976, New York" link_text="Interview with Newsday Newspaper -- July 14, 1976, New York">
<div class="heading">So if I sell a book to you, you read because you have paid for. Then you'll get benefit... Unless you purchase, how you'll get reading?
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Interview with Newsday Newspaper -- July 14, 1976, New York|Interview with Newsday Newspaper -- July 14, 1976, New York]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Interviewer: Your movement has been criticized.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Well, how it is criticized? How it is criticized?</p>
<p>Interviewer: People have said that it works against the family, it works against Western society, that you...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, here is a family man.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Hm?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Here is a family man.</p>
<p>Interviewer: I'm sorry.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Here is a family man.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Here is a family man. How you say it is against family? There are so many families here, children. You have seen our class in the morning?</p>
<p>Interviewer: No, I have not.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: All family members, children, husband, wife, they are present there. How do you say it is against family? Wrong criticism. This is...</p>
<p>Interviewer: Are your followers encouraged to visit with their...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, first of all you take your answer one by one. You say, "against the family." It is a wrong. It is a wrong propaganda. Oh, there are so many families in our society. It is a society. There are family members. There are brahmacārīs. There are sannyāsīs and vānaprastha. Whatever situation is suitable for you, you can accept, and in any situation, you can become God conscious. That's a wrong propaganda, that we are against family. Here is a wife of a boy. They have family. There are so many families. Why do you say like that, "We are against family? It's a wrong. You should note it especially that this type of criticism is envious. It is not proper. We invite all families, children, husband, wife, "Come on. Take Kṛṣṇa consciousness."</p>
<p>Interviewer: I've been accosted at airports, on streets, places like that by devotees, and I've been told that you operate drug centers and a number of other things.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Drug centers?</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: He means we're curing people. Places where people will become cured from the bad habit of taking drugs. That's a drug center.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. But our people are all free from all that drug disease.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: He is saying that he has simply met devotees at airports and other places where they approach him to maybe ask for some contribution, to see if he's interested, and they say that they are representing some drug center, something like that. So what's the question?</p>
<p>Interviewer: Well, and they think how to sell literature and... Is that the way to God consciousness, by selling and soliciting? Is that...?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, no, if you are...</p>
<p>Interviewer: How does that fit in?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: If you are God conscious, naturally you give up all intoxication habit.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Yeah, but just going out and selling and accosting people on the street...</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: He's asking how does our saṅkīrtana activities relate to God consciousness, the selling of books and collecting of donations.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So if I sell a book to you, you read because you have paid for. Then you'll get benefit.</p>
<p>Interviewer: How does it benefit the seller?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Hm?</p>
<p>Interviewer: How does it benefit the person who works on the selling...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Unless you purchase, how you'll get reading?</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: How does it benefit the person who is selling the book, the devotee.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Oh, devotee.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: How is he benefited by selling books to others?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: But he... He is giving service to Kṛṣṇa. He's not charging anything. If we appoint some bookseller, you have to pay, but we haven't got to pay. Out of his love for Kṛṣṇa he's doing that.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: See, our men who distribute these books, they do not receive salary.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: It's like welfare work.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is the sign of love. That is in material field also. There are so many philosophers, scientists and artists, they have done out of love for their subject matter, not for payment. That is love.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: But aren't they also purified spiritually by doing this?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. This spiritual realization means the more you give service to God, you become spiritually profited, in any way.</p>
<p>Interviewer: What are some of the other, aside from...? I mean, I see people selling things. What other practices are involved?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Then you stay one day, whole day and night, and see practically, from morning four o'clock to night ten o'clock, how we are engaged in different practices.</p>
<p>Interviewer: You rise at four?</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Three-thirty.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: In this temple three, three-thirty.</p>
<p>Interviewer: And chant.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: Chant, study.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: You go any room of this house. You'll find simply Kṛṣṇa consciousness.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: Preparing for the morning services.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That you can describe, the whole day's program.</p>
<p>Interviewer: What's the purpose of that rising? What's the purpose of that, the rising at 4:30, the chanting and study?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: It means to be fixed up in (indistinct) spiritual life. Just like in military there is training. You must have to do at this time this thing, this time, this time... So any training means regulated life.</p>
<p>Interviewer: What is the most important part of it?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: The most important part is how to become Kṛṣṇa conscious.</p>
<p>Interviewer: Yes, what's the most important practice.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Practice, yes. This is practice.</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: Which devotional practice...?</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: He is asking whether one technique is more important than another.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Everything is important. Everything is important. You cannot say, "This is most important; this is less important." Everything is important.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: But suppose someone cannot live in our temple. Then we may recommend to him at least chant Hare Kṛṣṇa in your home...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: And take Kṛṣṇa prasādam and read the books.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: And follow the regulative principles.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: And follow as far as possible...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Refrain from sinful life. What are the sinful life?</p>
<p>Bali-mardana: No illicit sex, no gambling, no meat-eating, and no intoxication.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: We find that these activities disturb the body and the mind. They are not compatible or conducive for spiritual practices.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Just like a diseased man. If he wants to be cured, there are something, prohibition, "Don't do this. Don't eat this." So it is also curing the diseased mind and to bring him in the spiritual platform. So there are something "Do's," something "do not." That's all. That is everywhere.</p>
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