You should not give publicity. You must even in the beginning verify that we are not hippies. Hare Krsna movement is not for hippies. In many places this is a notion, that we are hippies

Expressions researched:
"you should not give publicity. You must even in the beginning verify that we are not hippies" |"Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is not for hippies. In many places this is a notion, that we are hippies"

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

So then you should not give publicity. You must even in the beginning verify that we are not hippies. Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is not for hippies. In many places this is a notion, that we are hippies.

Conversation Before Lecture -- April 29, 1969, Brandeis University, Boston:

Prabhupāda: So don't worry. Kṛṣṇa will give you better place.

Satsvarūpa: That was a disappointment, because we almost . . . almost had it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. No question of disappointment. In Los Angeles, we had so many disappointment. At last, we got very nice place. Now we are after bigger place.

Christian Kindler: Tell Swāmījī about the church we want to get.

Miss Rose: The church . . .?

Prabhupāda: Then that article has worked adversely?

Satsvarūpa: Yeah. The real estate man said if it had only come out a week later, he said: "You'd be in."

Prabhupāda: So publicity like this is not good for us, that people are thinking they are hippies.

Miss Rose: Yes. That's true, Swāmījī. Yeah.

Prabhupāda: So then you should not give publicity. You must even in the beginning verify that we are not hippies.

Miss Rose: I have to tell a lot of people like this myself.

Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is not for hippies. In many places this is a notion, that we are hippies.

Devotee: Montreal.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Devotee: Montreal, too, the same thing.

Miss Rose: Yes, but a lot of hippies have gone back to . . . they've went to Florida, Swāmījī. Thousands of hippies went back to Florida. They left Boston. But I don't know . . .

Prabhupāda: They are, most of them, in Hawaii also.

Miss Rose: Oh, there's some in Hawaii too?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Miss Rose: Oh.

Christian Kindler: Prabhupāda, I think he was worried because . . . (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . all right. We don't hate the hippies. We have nothing against. But these people misunderstand. That is . . . that is another thing. We welcome everyone. We have no such distinction.

Miss Rose: Oh, yes, yes. Everyone can come.

Prabhupāda: Never mind.

Miss Rose: Kṛṣṇa's good.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Christian Kindler: Kṛṣṇa wants a better place for us.

Miss Rose: Kṛṣṇa wants a better place.

Prabhupāda: And also it is a fact that many of our students have come from the hippies. (chuckling)

Haṁsadūta: Almost all of them. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: (laughs) So they are our best candidates. So you can advertise that, "We are not hippies, but we are converting many hippies to the sane condition of life." That's a fact. They are searching after something better, but they have no leader.

Miss Rose: Yes, that's true. That's it. They haven't got the leader to understand . . .

Prabhupāda: They have no leader. Now, if they come to us seriously, they get the right thing. But that is also their defect. When we propose, "Come and take this Kṛṣṇa," they don't want. They want that mariana (marijuana).