Interviewer: Your Grace, have you been to New Zealand before?
Prabhupāda: Twice. When the Deity was installed, I installed personally. Then I think I came last year here.
Interviewer: You're the leader of how many disciples or devotees throughout the world?
Prabhupāda: Personally, I have got not less than ten thousand. But I was deputed by my Guru Mahārāja to make propaganda in the Western countries. So this movement... Of course, I have started in the Western countries, but in India it is very common movement, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Everyone knows.
Interviewer: Are you at all concerned about the, what seems to be an increasing number of gurus and swamis throughout the world?
Prabhupāda: That I could not follow.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The question is: "Are you concerned with the increasing number of gurus and swamis around the world?"
Prabhupāda: No. We are concerned that in spite of so-called education and advancement of civilization, people have been kept in darkness about real knowledge. So it is our little attempt to awaken them to the real platform of knowledge.
Interviewer: Well, what do you hope to achieve by your short visit here to New Zealand, where you don't have a very big following at all?
Prabhupāda: Just to encourage my disciples. They're also trying their best to spread this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. So if I occasionally visit, they become encouraged. That's why.
Interviewer: Is your movement still growing? It was very popular here in the Beatles' era and so on and so forth.
Prabhupāda: Yes, George Harrison is a good boy. He likes me. He has given us a big house in London about 200,000 pounds' worth.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's 250,000 pounds.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Interviewer: So would it be true to say that perhaps without George Harrison of the Beatles the religion wouldn't be as well known as it is today?
Prabhupāda: No, not like that. That is not that. But in the Western countries nobody comes forward to give us some contribution. But this boy is very nice, he gives us sometimes some thing. He gives, and another boy, who is the great-grandson of Mr. Henry Ford—his name is Alfred—he also helps us. But mostly we get our income by selling these books. We are selling books daily about $200,000 daily. That is our main source of income. And I have made a trust will in which fifty percent of the collection is spent for reprinting the books, and fifty percent is spent for spreading this movement.
Interviewer: One thing, New Zealand cities are passing bylaws which seek to ban the chanting of your disciples in the streets. Do you get much opposition like this?
Prabhupāda: Yes, but we don't depend on the city authorities; we depend on Kṛṣṇa.
Interviewer: But does it worry you that your disciples perhaps annoy city officials by their chanting and their activities in the streets?
Prabhupāda: The city authorities, they like our chanting?
Interviewer: They're annoyed.