View source for If you want your thoughts to be passed on to other people, why do you sell the books and make money out of them?

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{{terms|"If you want your thoughts to be passed on to other people, why do you sell the books and make money out of them"}}
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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="RoomConversationApril201976Melbourne_0" class="quote" parent="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="80" link="Room Conversation -- April 20, 1976, Melbourne" link_text="Room Conversation -- April 20, 1976, Melbourne">
<div class="heading">Otherwise you'll not read it. If I give you free, then you'll think, "Ah, this is something nonsense. They are giving free."
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Room Conversation -- April 20, 1976, Melbourne|Room Conversation -- April 20, 1976, Melbourne]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Carol Jarvis: ...is in fact a happy one, getting up very early in the morning...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, it is. It is. Just like if you are suffering from some ailments, so you have to follow some rules and regulation so that you may be cured. Do the doctor not prescribe so many things, that "You don't eat like this. You don't do this. You do this"? There are so many don't's and do's. So if you really want to become happy, you have to follow some don't's and do's.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: Your Divine Grace, can I ask you how old you are now?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: How old?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: I am eighty years old.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: And do you think the Kṛṣṇa movement has helped you? Are you a fit man for an eighty year old?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: At least all my contemporaries have gone away. (laughter) All my young friends and childhood friends, there are no more existing, my relatives. And.... So I am moving still all over the world.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: Can you see an age that you could live until? Could you predict how long you might live?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, if.... You see, this body is so made that it must end, but before ending, you must be competently Kṛṣṇa conscious. Then, next life, you become permanent in life, in knowledge, in blissfulness. That is required.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: Many people find it very difficult to reconcile the spiritual way of life in the Kṛṣṇa movement with the great financial resources the movement also has. Why do you need any great financial...?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: It doesn't.... The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement does not depend on any material condition, any material condition.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: But you make a lot of money out of the sales of your books, etc.; there is begging in the street each day.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. But there are many beggars. They do not get money. We get money. We are not beggars. We are giving books, knowledge. Do you think we are beggars?</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: If I could use the example, perhaps, of your temple, which has a lot of very rich material things in it. I wonder what significance that plays in your spiritual life.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So what do you mean by spiritual and material? Do you know the distinction? Then I'll show you spiritual. And do you know?</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: Well, the material...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: I say that in the temple there is nothing material, all spiritual, but you have no eyes to see to it.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: I wonder if you could lead an equal sort of life without the richness of the temple.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, you can do. You can live at your home like us. We are giving the example. You can live also like that. That is spiritual life. If you follow the same rules and regulation and live like that, that is spiritual life.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: You told me earlier that you make thousands of dollars a day...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: ...out of the sales of your books.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: If you want your thoughts to be passed on to other people, why do you sell the books and make money out of them?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Otherwise you'll not read it. If I give you free, then you'll think, "Ah, this is something nonsense. They are giving free."</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: Not necessarily give them free, but perhaps sell them for a price that pays for the cost of producing them.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So when they pay for it.... When they pay for it, they will try to see "What these books are saying? Let me see." And if you get free, then you may keep it in your rack for hundreds of years. So that is not the.... But after all, we have to print these books, so who will pay for that? We have no money.</p>
<p>Carol Jarvis: Well, what happens to the rest of the money, though, that is collected in the streets?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: We are increasing our movement. We are opening centers. We are printing more books. This is my books. I have made a Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. That is my will, and I have given my will that fifty percent of the collection should be spent for reprinting the books and fifty percent should be spent for spreading the movement. So there is no question of material profit.</p>
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