Allen Ginsberg: As it becomes familiar, it might spread a little. Part of the limitation is just a natural resentment or resistance, people wanting a prayer in their own tongue, in their own language. I don't know... So that is, for the same reason an American Indian chant would not take hold or even a Latin chant would not take universal hold.
Prabhupāda: Mantra, mantra means...
Allen Ginsberg: So that many of us will say, "Is it possible to find an American mantra?"
Prabhupāda: Mantra means the transcendental sound. You see. Just like oṁkāra.
Allen Ginsberg: So you think the very nature of the sound... Okay, but now, oṁ is an absolutely natural sound from the throat to the mouth. And yet even oṁ, natural as it is, sounds foreign.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore it is a praṇāma. It is accepted.
Allen Ginsberg: That also sounds foreign here. It's hard to get people to say auṁ even. 'Cause I tried in Chicago with auṁ and with Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: But there is no other alternative.
Allen Ginsberg: Well, we haven't been able to think of one yet, I'll tell you that.
Prabhupāda: That is his misfortune if they...