Prabhupāda: Rūpa Gosvāmī. He was finance minister in the government of Nawab Hussain Shah in Bengal. But when Lord Caitanya started His movement, he was captivated and he resigned his service, government service and joined Him. And he wrote immense literature, Gosvāmīs. And that Desai was talking that Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, he says, rūpa-raghunātha-pade haibe ākuti kabe hāma bujhaba se yugala-pīriti: conjugal love of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, one can understand when they go through the literatures presented by these Gosvāmīs. So his first book is Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. Devotion of, Nectar of Devotion. That is very authorized book. Quotation from various Vedic literature about Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and the different stages of relationship with Kṛṣṇa, śānta-rasa, dāsya-rasa, admiration. God is Great. This is also one stage, appreciating the greatness of God. Then further development, dāsya-rasa, willing to serve. Oh! God is so great, and I must serve service because everyone of us are serving somebody. So why not serve the Supreme? Nobody is free from service because we are constitutionally the servant. Either we become the servant of the Great or māyā. Just like in any condition of our lives, we have to abide by the laws of the state. If he says that we don't abide then come to prisonhouse. You will be forced. Similarly, māyā and Kṛṣṇa. If we don't abide by Kṛṣṇa, then come to māyā. He cannot be free. That is not our position. Freedom is frustration.
Finances (Conversations)
Conversations and Morning Walks
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: But when you go to the government state, they are equally important. They are distributing the finance everywhere. So similarly either you take material energy or spiritual energy or marginal energy, all energy of God's, Kṛṣṇa's, but they are acting differently. So, so far I am marginal energy, if I am under the control of the material energy, that is my misfortune. But if I am controlled by the spiritual energy, that is my fortune. Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha daivīṁ prakṛtim āśritāḥ (BG 9.13). They take shelter of the spiritual energy. They are mahātmā, and what is their symptom: bhajanty ananya manaso, simply engaged in devotional service. That, that is required.
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Our predecessor ācārya, Rūpa Gosvāmī, he was finance minister in the Mohammedan government. He was. When he resigned, the Nawab was not very satisfied, that "I cannot relieve you because you are my right hand man. If you resign all of a sudden in this way, then I shall arrest you." There is a long history. So that's a fact. The brāhmaṇas were kept. So the advisory committee of the king... Now, as I was going to speak, Candragupta, Candragupta, just the lastest Hindu king, Candragupta... Candragupta is the age of Alexander the Great because at that time, during Candragupta's..., little before Candragupta, Alexander the Great from Greece, they went to India and conquered some portion. So this Candragupta, when he became emperor, he had his prime minister, Canakya. Perhaps you heard this name, Canak... Ca-na-kya.
Woman Interviewer: What about work, though? Does one have to give up one's job?
Prabhupāda: You have to give up these bad habits and chant these beads, Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. That's all.
Woman Interviewer: Would I have to give any financial support?
Prabhupāda: No, that's your voluntary wish. If you give us, that's all right. Otherwise, we don't mind.
Woman Interviewer: Sorry, I didn't understand.
Prabhupāda: We do not want, depend on anyone's financial contributions. We depend on God, or Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: One building society and one bank combinedly would have financed the whole thing, but he sent us a letter that said only two-thirds, they would finance two-thirds.
Prabhupāda: So he is not very intelligent. A missed opportunity.
Mr. Arnold: See, I went to the Midland Bank, to various departments, and I found out almost to within a penny what exactly what it would raise. Of course, some of the people that put in the bids it happened were Midland Bank customers. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I did it, and I...
Prabhupāda: The bank was prepared to finance it, and he missed that opportunity?
Dhanañjaya: There wasn't even a thousand... At the time, there was not one, even one thousand pounds in the temple fund, and they were going for a two and a half, one and a half million deal.
Prabhupāda: No. The bank was prepared to finance. That is the point.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: So actually, in this, at the present moment, they have invented so many technology, but this technology is missing. Janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi (BG 13.9). Nobody wants to die. And where is that technology, to stop death? What so you think? You are financing many technological institutions, businesses. Why don't you finance an institution which is giving instruction how to stop death?
Banker: But as I understood it, you were encouraging death as a form of liberation. Isn't that my understanding? That that was the ideal?
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is the symptom of material nature.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So this yajña means to satisfy the Lord. Yajñārthe karma. So when you miss this yajña, then everything becomes disturbed. When you become godless then the whole thing will be disturbed. And practically also, if you pay income tax, then government arrangement is everything, nicely going on. And as soon as stop income tax, then whole thing... There is no finance, there is deficit, this, that, so many things. So yajña is yajñārthe karmaṇo 'nyatra. Everything should be done for the Yajña, for Viṣṇu. Then everything is in order. In Kali-yuga, other, costly yajñas are not possible. Therefore yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyaiḥ. Saṅkīrtana. But these rascals will not take. If you say that "This simple yajña, you take it. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. All problems will be solved," they will not believe. They will not take it. They are so misfortunate.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: "And this is the balance." And these are general (?) report. That's all.
Jayatīrtha: Right. Yeah, we have...
Prabhupāda: The financial means what they have collected, what they have spent.
Jayatīrtha: Right.
Prabhupāda: And general reporting: "Yes, everyone is chanting," or "He is not chanting in spite of warning," like that.
Prabhupāda: Hm? Financing?
Jayatīrtha: Gurukula is having some serious financial difficulties. So Jagadīśa has made a proposal, which we'll discuss.
Prabhupāda: So everyone's son is there, all devotees' son. So from every center some contribution should be given to the Gurukula.
Jayatīrtha: Jaya. That was my proposal. That becomes a kind of tax.
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is very kind of you, but there have been so many attempts to cut down this movement, but they are cheated. They could not do so.
Dr. Gerson: May I try to help?
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is your real business. In India also, they are still making so much propaganda. They are making propaganda that "These American devotees, they are CIA." (laughter) This propaganda is very strong in India, making the people against these American boys who are preaching. So this is going on. They financed one film, "Hare Krishna." That is spite against us. But still, those who are sincere, they are praising, "Yes, this is a real."
Prabhupāda: So that will never be made, because you will never finish your business. That is the difficulty.
Guṇārṇava: Saurab wrote me letter, and he told me that all remaining works have to be financed by the guesthouse, any money that was made from the guesthouse had to be utilized in finishing all works.
Prabhupāda: And where is guest? So many things unfinished. It looks so bad. And you say everything is all right. What is all right? Do you know what is all right?
Prabhupāda: Why don't you become an example yourself?
Lilāvatī: So to live amongst them, we were thinking, is very important.
Prabhupāda: You become an example by your behavior. Example is better than precept. (break)
Jñāna: ...to attain the necessary finances to support the programs here.
Prabhupāda: Beg. Sell book. That's all. Otherwise how you get finance?
Jñāna: One idea is to have a farm that we sell fruit or vegetables, like that.
Prabhupāda: If you open farm for financial help, then it will not be successful. You should take to farming for supporting yourself. That's all. Grow your own food. Grow your own cloth. There is no need of financial help from outside. You get your food grains sufficiently, rice, dahl, wheat, vegetables, milk, sugar. Bas You get everything. From these five, six items you should be economically free. That you have to do, not for trade to get money. Then it will be failure.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
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.
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...?
Prabhupāda: It doesn't.... The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement does not depend on any material condition, any material condition.
Prabhupāda: ...two vans.
Satsvarūpa: Besides this, well, we have so many more. Ghanaśyāma and the men in the library party, they have three vans, and then the men who finance their travels, they have two vans, so that's another five.
Prabhupāda: Along with this van, another van goes?
Satsvarūpa: Yes. And since we have this and the Deity worship, the collecting has increased and the book distribution, because now they're more regulated and it's not so difficult.
Guest: I see both of you standing together, I don't see you apart. That's why I'm here right now.
Prabhupāda: Thank you. This boy is also nice. He comes to me. He offers me. He has given one great big estate in London. He financed my first Kṛṣṇa book. It required nineteen thousand dollars. So I asked him, that "I have no money. If you can pay, I can print." So he gave immediately. I have admitted. You have seen my Kṛṣṇa book? Show him.
Ambarīṣa: It seems like a very nice idea.
Prabhupāda: You also like? So finance this project. (laughter) Vedic planetarium.
Ambarīṣa: Where will this be?
Prabhupāda: Māyāpura. My idea is to attract people of the whole world to Māyāpura. So we are just trying to acquire three hundred fifty acres of land from the government. It is going on under consideration. Some men are against and some are in favor. But those who are against, they have counted ninety?
Prabhupāda: Wholesale business is better than retail business. My father was a wholesale, cloth seller, cloth merchant. So, he liked wholesale business, not retail.
Mr. Kallman: The wholesale is much better. It's more financial...
Prabhupāda: A little profit, but aggregate is better.
Mr. Kallman: The volume is more.
Prabhupāda: Yes, volume is more. In those days, he was making cloth business, he was making profit one anna or two paise per piece.
Prabhupāda: I am training each one of them as leader so that they can spread extensively. That is my idea.
Interviewer: So, in other words, you started this whole movement here in the United States ten years ago. Would you say that the United States had the most active, financially, group of followers.
Rāmeśvara: She wants to know, seeing you chose the United States to begin this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement ten years ago, now do you find that in the United States there is the most active membership financially speaking. In terms of contributing to this movement, supporting the movement, is the best field America?
Prabhupāda: No, without finance we can go on.
Rāmeśvara: Without finance we can go on.
Prabhupāda: Caitanya Mahāprabhu did not have any financial help, but His movement is going on. It does not depend on a..., on financial. It is independent. Spiritual movement is independent of any material help. That is spiritual movement.
Interviewer: But how would you be able to carry out your educational or book publishing program if you did not have a financial backing?
Prabhupāda: How I am managing now?
Interviewer: But now you are doing well financially.
Prabhupāda: You are stressing on financial help but my reply is that this movement does not depend on financial help. That is the reply.
Bali-mardana: In the beginning...
Prabhupāda: Any time, it does not depend on financial help.
Hari-śauri: On the boat to the ship's captain.
Interviewer: There was a process...
Prabhupāda: I mean to say, "What is our financial arrangement?" Why these questions are being raised? This is not interview about the movement. They are very much interested about our financial help.
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda's observing that they are very interested in our financial backing.
Prabhupāda: That is my opinion, that instead of spending so much money for films, if you spend some money for propagation of book distribution... Any advertisement is good, it never goes in vain, but the film advertisement is very expensive. Very, very expensive.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: It is very true. Very expensive and very much endeavor.
Prabhupāda: Advertisement never goes in vain, that's a fact. But if it is too much expensive, it touches our financial position.
Prabhupāda: The one encouraging thing in this movement is that our books are being very much appreciated. In all universities, foreign and Indian, libraries, professors, learned scholars.
Indian man (3): Yes, they'll branch out and... It's a great service.
Prabhupāda: We are selling books to the extent of sixty thousand dollars daily. That is our only hope, that we shall not be financially in difficulty. People are taking our books very nicely. People are accepting our literature.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That is six weeks from now.
Harikeśa: That's all right. They're also going north and preaching and he's having a very hard time getting his financial position down. He has no men. Two, three, four men. He's having...
Prabhupāda: How he'll return my fifteen thousand?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That Mahāṁsa has taken.
Prabhupāda: I do not know Mahāṁsa's taken. He has to return it.
Haṁsadūta: So this may be a problem in this case. The thing about brain washing is not at all important. The important thing is if they look into our financial...
Prabhupāda: That is our BBT trust...
Haṁsadūta: Activities.
Prabhupāda: That by the sales of, sales proceeds, we 50% printing expansion, temples.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, Hindi is essential. It is not difficult. The same principle as Sanskrit. Reading and writing, that's all.
Jagadīśa: So far as the financial situation, I've discussed with Bhagatji and it seems that the best idea is to open a separate gurukula maintenance account with co-signers Bhagatji and Rūpa-vilāsa, so that... Because there's so much...
Prabhupāda: So then some of them, they are getting money.
Jagadīśa: Yes, the parents are sending money.
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Gargamuni: Śrīla Prabhupāda, there's also another program which I think requires some financial assistance, is this boat program. In one month they sold ten thousand books, a group of ten men. And they go to so many villages. And I think if we can get a mechanized boat, a larger boat, they can go to so many places which usually takes so much time, because generally for them...
Prabhupāda: Mechanized means...
Gargamuni: A diesel engine.
Prabhupāda: First of all, we have to know where he is. Then we can give. What is his position? Then we can give him. Just like diagnosis. You have to see what is the disease. Then we give medicine.
Rāmeśvara: One of the symptoms of the disease is that all of the people are engaged in artificial work, and the whole world is interdependent. It is very complex system of world trade, world finance.
Prabhupāda: But we have nothing to do with that.
Prabhupāda: And they were supplying. They want interest money—"Never mind against our country." Therefore Hitler decided, "Kill all the Jews."
Rāmeśvara: These banks in the West, they supported Lenin. They made it possible to finance his revolution.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They have got money. The Jews have got money. They want to invest and get some profit. Their only interest is how to get money, no nationalism, no religion, nothing of the sort. Therefore it is not now; long, long ago... Therefore Shakespeare wrote "Shylock, the Jew."
Hari-śauri: Yes. "Shylock."
Prabhupāda: "One pound of flesh." The Jews were criticized long, long ago.
Prabhupāda: Yes. "Our Guru Mahārāja went to America with this hope—that Indian culture and American money combined together will save the world." That's a fact. Everything requires money, but we are securing money with hard labor. If money little easily comes, we can make very nice program.
Gargamuni: Yes. I told him that "If you can finance some of our programs, we can hold huge pandals."
Prabhupāda: American government can finance to any point. The present president is religious temperament, so why not arrange a meeting with him?
Brahmānanda: And they're even talking that maybe the government will give financial grant.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They are afraid that these Kṛṣṇa conscious men may capture the government.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Some of them are saying like that, "This organization, the Kṛṣṇa con..., is a very powerful organization, and their ambition is to take over the world."
Rāmeśvara: We made a resolution that Jayatīrtha would go there initially, and then, after a few months, Ātreya Ṛṣi would go there to give him some advice for his financial problems. One of the reasons that the devotees are feeling pressure is lack of money, or bad money management.
Prabhupāda: No, that is a good, good idea.
Satsvarūpa: No. What we resolved is that Bhagavān dāsa would stay in his present zone: France and Italy and Sweden and Amsterdam; but that as far as Jayatīrtha, he would visit Paris and New Māyāpura to assist with the financial problems there, and after some time...
Prabhupāda: Jayatīrtha and Ātreya Ṛṣi, both.
Satsvarūpa: Ātreya Ṛṣi would also go visit in June to try and help with the financial problems. And then...
Prabhupāda: What is the actual financial problem?
Bhagavān: There was just a little cash flow since last Māyāpura. We spent a lot of money coming here. And this year a lot of saṅkīrtana devotees were ill.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "3) There will be a BBT budget meeting every week in L.A. at which all Press expenditures will be discussed and approved by Rāmeśvara Mahārāja, and a monthly financial statement detailing the Press expenditures will be sent to all the trustees."
Prabhupāda: This unnecessary expenditures like Sanskrit department and art department, this should be curtailed. We require money for Bhaktivedanta Institute.
Prabhupāda: Yes. "You have joined together to defeat me. Why don't you preach jointly? What do you want? That I shall also join and we shall jointly preach. Do this. You are divided amongst yourselves, and you have joined together to defeat me." Śrīdhara Mahārāja is the leader.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Of that group.
Prabhupāda: Mādhava Mahārāja also
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Mādhava Mahārāja is.
Prabhupāda: For the last forty years they're fighting in the courts. They indirectly wanted me also to join them. "He has got money. If he joins, then our monetary, financial help will be there." That is their...
| Page Title: | Finances (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Vrindi, Serene |
| Created: | 21 of Dec, 2008 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=38, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 38 |