Expressions researched:
"magazine"
|"magazine's"
|"magazines"
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes. I made a study. I asked the men in our party, when they were all gathered, to raise their hand if they had received a book before joining our party, and every single one of them had gotten a book before joining the movement—without exception. They were attracted through reading a book or a magazine.
Prabhupāda: I talked with that police officer. He has published. In Chicago.
Hṛdayānanda: Your interview, those articles that you had spoken about, against Communism, are very, very brilliant. Actually we were struck with wonder to see the different arguments. Very, very important for South America because there the Communism is popular among the young students.
Prabhupāda: They read it?
Hṛdayānanda: Yes, we just published it in our magazine.
Prabhupāda: Oh. So they like that argument?
Madhudviṣa: Yes, she gave him our magazine.
Devotee (1): (indistinct)
Madhudviṣa: There was no security.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Madhudviṣa: There was no security around him. He just was standing there on the sidewalk out in front of one hotel after this luncheon.
Prabhupāda: Mm.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I've read some of your old Back to Godhead magazines, and actually you've been saying the same thing all along, with the same force also. Some of your critiques of Dr. Radhakrishna's Bhagavad-gītā and modern science...
Prabhupāda: You have read?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: "Scholars Deluded."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's our best means of advertising, that magazine.
Mahendra: Every day, the mail order department is delivering to the airport, or to the post office, a big stack of books to be mailed out.
Prabhupāda: So why not ask them to make a post office here, ISKCON post office?
Rāmeśvara: We have given him many books to read and magazines, so he's already preparing the article from that material we have given him.
Prabhupāda: For a common man it is little difficult, but it is very easy. We are talking of the spiritual platform, but common man does not understand what is spiritual, although it is very easy. My body, your body, is moving on account of spiritual spark. That's a fact; everyone can see. As soon as the spiritual spark, soul, is off, the body, it is simply lump of matter.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (showing Prabhupāda newspaper) There was one newspaper at the Indian Embassy printed in Canada, it's called The Indian Calling. On the back page they have one supplement they took from Back to Godhead magazine.
Prabhupāda: It is ours?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes. This is printed by the Indian community, one man, Anand Singh, and he included part of an article from the Back to Godhead magazine. There's one article in here also, the front page is a whole.... There's a racket they had going, these people, this man. He went to India and he found one widow, and he said, "I am a personal friend of the Prime Minister of Canada. Give me money, I'll take you to Canada. You can come.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: This is the end of that article, then the magazine goes on.
Prabhupāda: They have not replied even. (break) "Simple Living, High Thinking." "Then and Now: the Right to Distribute the American Dream." Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So instead of giving books to the members, they can read the books in the magazines. One magazine should be given free always to the members.
Dhṛṣṭadyumna: Well, Śrīla Prabhupāda, we've distributed about 70,000 magazines so far this month. So I think we'll reach 100,000 in this month. Even though we are getting much harassment from the police, still we are going on.
Prabhupāda: Why harassment? What is the fault?
Kulaśekhara: Have you been receiving the past copies of the magazine, Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Kulaśekhara: Have you been receiving the past issues?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda read the last issue in Hawaii. I remember you read through the last issue with a brown cover in Hawaii.
Prabhupāda: So how you make this double color. Twice printed?
Devotee (2): It is explained in Back to Godhead magazine that (indistinct) serve Kṛṣṇa, serve God. If someone tells you that he is guru (indistinct).
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: So to accept a spiritual master must mean that one is in ignorance and one is enlightened.
Prabhupāda: For ignorance there is no need of guru. An ignorant cannot inquire about God. Intelligent man can inquire about God.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Your Back to Godhead article in this last magazine, "They can make a 747 jet, but not a tiny mosquito." Very thought-provoking.
Prabhupāda: With pilot. 747, you have to pay expert pilot, but here with pilot. Make this. Simply talking. Not only mosquito: at night we see so many, just like full stop, the same mechanical, flying from here, there, from here moving. Airplane, exactly in the form of... Similarly standing and... That is our challenge. Challenge this. Go in public meeting.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It was on the cover of one Back to Godhead magazine.
Hari-śauri: But it's in one of the books.
Pradyumna: Lord Caitanya did the same thing. He did the same thing, and it was compared Kṛṣṇa also had done.
Prabhupāda: If there is no such acceptance, where is religion?
Hari-śauri: It just becomes a show. Religion nowadays has degenerated so that people more or less accept it just as some moral code now, because there's no knowledge of God.
Prabhupāda: So where is that morality?
Hari-śauri: (laughs) There's no morality either.
Prabhupāda: While hunting, drinking, meat-eating, is that morality?
Mr. Davis: Everyone's body, therefore the thing we have in common is we are all a part of the spirit.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is fact. We are part and parcel of the supreme spirit, God. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ (BG 15.7). "All these living entities, they are My part and parcel." Qualitatively, we are one. Just like a small particle of gold is also gold. It is nothing else. Similarly, we being part and parcel of God, we have got that godly qualification. God can create. We can also create. That example I have given in my last magazine, that we have created this big 747 airplane, but we cannot create a mosquito. That is also plane, with pilot.
Prabhupāda: So make a magazine to expose this. Idaṁ hi puṁsas tapasaḥ śrutasya vā sviṣṭasya sūktasya ca (SB 1.5.22), you, by your knowledge, you describe the glories of the Lord, then you are my guru. This is our... If they say "Why do you bother about God?" that is the business of human being. A human being, he is given the chance to understand God, and you people are stopping, putting stumbling block in his understanding of God. You're the greatest miscreant.
Pradyumna: Yes, we can print on the magazine, "Please write articles," many big men...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, in fact he wanted to put an articles, this very man Sharma, he wanted to write an articles on consciousness.
Prabhupāda: Let them write, we shall publish. And similarly, ask the South Indian Ph.D.'s, we want so many Ph.D.'s writing. Then it will be respectable. People will understand that this is not ordinary thing. All learned scholars they are writing, that will carry some respect.
Rūpānuga: So Ravīndra-svarūpa Prabhu is going to be the editor, you approved in Māyāpura. We were thinking if you could give us some idea for a title. Because we were thinking so far is that we would have a subtitle, like we have "Back to Godhead" then we have "the Magazine of the Hare Kṛṣṇa Movement." So we would have the subtitle, "Bhaktivedanta Institute" or "Journal of the Bhaktivedanta Institute," but maybe you would like to have a title of the journal. So we wanted to know if you had some hint.
Prabhupāda: Yes, you can title, entitle, Sa-vijñāna.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: We saw the first Back to Godhead magazine yesterday, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: The first Back to Godhead copy of the magazine that you published from Calcutta in 1944. We found in the library.
Prabhupāda: Oh, '44 edition is here?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, Library of Congress.
Prabhupāda: How they collected?
Dr. Sharma: And I'll be writing...
Prabhupāda: That is dhiyā.
Dr. Sharma: And I'll be writing...
Prabhupāda: Vācaiḥ.
Dr. Sharma: I'll also be writing in scientific way, books about it.
Prabhupāda: You write in our... We are going to publish one magazine.
Dr. Sharma: 'Cause I think the movement is very scientific.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (aside) No, call Svarūpa Dāmodara.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Although, Śrīla Prabhupāda, it's somewhat easy for us to convince that Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the summary study of all the Vedic literatures, how can we take that Bhagavad-gītā is the summary study?
Prabhupāda: It is preliminary study of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Bhagavad-gītā ends, from there Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam begins. (break) Publish your book gradually in the magazine Sa-vijñānam.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa:The Trust launched a promotion of Prabhupāda's translations and original works under the logo of the Living Library of Transcendental Knowledge. Remarkably, in the face of a worldwide economic recession, the Trust's book and magazine sales reached nine million in 1975, up 34.5 percent over 1974. Some of this was due to the determined promotion of groups such as the hundred-man Rādhā-Dāmodara group which criss-crosses the country in six Greyhound-type buses and ten vans giving lectures and kīrtanas at college university campuses. Now eighty-one years old, Prabhupāda still works at his writings and the spiritual direction of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. His translation of Bhagavad-gītā, the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, the most widely used in the Western world, is in great demand by professors of Indology and Vedic literature."
Prabhupāda: He has given advertisement for our books.
Prabhupāda: It is all Kṛṣṇa's mercy. You have seen the first copy? They have brought photograph from which library?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Congress Library in Washington. They found the original...
Prabhupāda: Yes. I do not know how they got my...
Rāmeśvara: Oh, your original, from India.
Prabhupāda: Yes, 1944, the first copy. I get them from selling. Perhaps they had been, American.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Very thick, it was a thick magazine.
Prabhupāda: In those days I was spending three hundred rupees per month.
Prabhupāda: I think in the beginning... (microphone rattling) You were there.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I was there. Yeah, that was pretty big. In 1969, that was gigantic.
Prabhupāda: That was also very big. And there was also a crazy man.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, that's right. We didn't give any invitation cards to our temple here, but we were making announcements. But I think people will come, anyway. They'll find out where our Hare Kṛṣṇa center is.
Bali-mardana: They were distributing books, magazines.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Books and magazines were given, but we didn't give any free cards. Usually we give free cards, but there was so much...
Prabhupāda: What is that? They'll come and take. That's all.
Kṣīrodakaśāyī: Still he drinks. That is the fact. He doesn't eat meat, of course, but he says... He has got good business, plenty of money. I am poor materially, but my father, spiritual father, is so rich that I am getting money every day. Materially, I am poor, but I am so richer, you are giving so treasure... You see in our library there each and every of your book downstairs, and more we read, we say, well plenty money is... (break) ...from the temple. Life member comes there, sell the Gujarati magazine. I bought all magazines from Gujarati. Now second issue has not come. The same problem.
Prabhupāda: This is, have printed.
Yogeśvara: Professor's upstairs putting on a dhotī. He brought his daughter. Professor Chenique teaches a course in Bhagavad-gītā at the University, and he is also doing translations of Śaṅkarācārya and teaches for the Federation of Yoga. He considers himself a Christian Advaitist. (break) ...some questions regarding the publications in French. For example, on the front of Back to Godhead magazine, in the English edition and other language editions, they have kept the phrase "Godhead is light, darkness is nescience. Where there is Godhead there is no nescience." Now in French it is difficult to translate that. There is no word Godhead. And if you say "God is light," in French it sounds very impersonalist. In French, Dieux est lumiere, "God is light." Many groups say like that. We use the word Godhead, and that distinguishes us from the other groups. Now is the phrase very important, and do you want us to keep it on the front of the magazine? It should be there.
Prabhupāda: There is a little difference between God and Godhead.
Prabhupāda: Our latest Vṛndāvana report is very encouraging. He has used the word "jam-packed," always people. They are selling good number of magazines, books, prasādam. Guesthouse is also filled up. Now we have festival going on nice. Hare Kṛṣṇa. What is your further inquiry?
Shahrezad(?): I'm thinking to ask a question. (long pause) (break)
Ātreya Ṛṣi: There have been very few of them.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Nirañjana is helping to translate it?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, and he's the most reliable. The others I find are not reliable. Even with Yaśomatīnandana, I give him a book, it gets stuck for three months. But now we are moving very fast. The first Hindi Back to Godhead we printed up forty-five thousand, it is sold. So I'm reprinting thirty thousand more in Delhi, and in Bombay, we are producing a new Back to Godhead with thirty thousand first print. Forty-five thousand of first printing is almost sold. People can't believe it. Even Hitsharan Sharma couldn't believe it that we distributed forty-five thousand Hindi magazines in two months.
Prabhupāda: We are distributing millions in English.
Yaśomatīnandana: We are publishing monthly magazine every month now, one is coming out in a few days for Janmāṣṭamī. We have changed new house, very good house.
Prabhupāda: What is the rent?
Yaśomatīnandana: Land also...
Prabhupāda: No, no, rent.
Yaśomatīnandana: Rent is thousand rupees. One thousand rupees, plus tax for government.
Prabhupāda: Plus twelve hundred?
Yaśomatīnandana: No, plus two hundred tax. They are life members from Ahmedabad. They came to see Your Divine Grace.
Prabhupāda: Oh, thank you. So give them place to stay.
Akṣayānanda: Here in the temple specifically. Haihaya has been concentrating very good.
Prabhupāda: Hindi?
Akṣayānanda: Yes, Hindi magazines and what we can get.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Viśāla alone does about two, three hundred every day.
Akṣayānanda: Viśāla is...
Prabhupāda: Where is our Viśvambhara? Viśvambhara is helping nicely?
Akṣayānanda: Oh yes. 100%. (break) And French.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: That's the new French Bhāgavatam on the back.
Prabhupāda: Oh. I think I have seen it.
Akśayananda: They send regularly. We are sending. But many times the mail is stolen, magazines, Back to Godhead.
Prabhupāda: That is a fact.
Akśayananda: Yes, it is very difficult.
Prabhupāda: Because there are so many nice picture. I have seen. When I was printing my books in a Delhi press, so one peon was coming there to work part time as compositor. So his mailbag he will put somewhere in the press and he will being composing. And all other compositors, they'll check the mail bag and if something is attractive, they will take. I have seen it. Our magazine is so...
Akśayananda: It's so beautiful.
Prabhupāda: ...full of pictures, so naturally, as soon as they, the picture and..., they take it.
Akśayananda: Yes, that's the trouble. So we have a system in some towns. We find one member who is very much liking us, and we send all the magazines to him, and he goes, sends his, given by hand, to all the other members in that city.
Prabhupāda: That is not possible.
Prabhupāda: You sold English book or Hindi book?
Devotee: Hindi magazine.
Prabhupāda: Magazine only.
Devotee: Yes, everyone took magazines.
Prabhupāda: Very good.
Prabhupāda: In India.
Surabhi: No, Washington, D.C. That's in America. They invited one of our devotees there to discuss this Māyāpur and all this social type of... Dharmādhyakṣa. He's writing for that Back to Godhead magazine. He worked with Gurudāsa together.
Prabhupāda: His article, one is there?
Hari-śauri: Yes, "Simple Living High Thinking." You saw that.
Prabhupāda: So he met him.
Surabhi: Not Carter. He met the government officials who were representing the United States Government at that exhibition, and they were very favorable. They were one of the most favorable, he said, the United states.
Prabhupāda: Yes, our "plain living, high thinking" is very nice idea.
Prabhupāda: That I have to say again? That means Rāvaṇa. He's asking. I am repeatedly saying that follow, and he's asking. That means he's Rāvaṇa. Why you are inquiring like that. If you know this is the solution, why don't you do it? That means Rāvaṇa. If you know this is the solution, why don't you do it? (break)
Śrutaśrava: ...one week ago and in just four days time the devotees there have distributed over one lakh of Back To Godhead magazines in just four days.
Prabhupāda: But you do not do here. Huh? That means Rāvaṇa. (laughter) (break) ...to become less intelligent, less active, and therefore I say, yāya sei laṅkā sei haya rāvaṇa,(?) "Anyone who comes to Laṅkā, he becomes Rāvaṇa."
Guest (1): Their promotion in local language would be very helpful.
Prabhupāda: No, in India will purchase English magazine, he knows English.
Prabhupāda: You may go. You have no...? You can go.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Last time they would not let us distribute our magazines when they had it in Shrimati Morarji's house. They had the same ceremony in Shrimati Morarji's house here about a year ago and they didn't like our book distribution there.
Prabhupāda: What this time where it will be held?
Girirāja: This is an organization. Last time was Shrimati Morarji's personal...
Prabhupāda: Private house. This is organized function you ask them a place to show our books. If they deny then we don't go. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Volume, no. Hardbound big books, and small books. Besides that, magazines. So in one week what we have sold, they have sent one telegram from Los Angeles.
Jagadīśa: December 17 through 24th. That's Christmas week. They sold 117,664 big books.
Prabhupāda: 117,000.
Jagadīśa: One lakh, seventeen thousand in one week. Then medium books like Īśopaniṣad, they sold 90,737. And smaller books, like this, 63,332. And Back to Godheads, like this magazine, four lakhs, 37,420.
Trivikrama: One week.
Indian (1): In one week. Very wonderful thing. There is no other comparison for such a sale.
Prabhupāda: We are the number one publisher of religious, philosophical.
Prabhupāda: Oh, book sale? Five to six lakhs. Now, you can just imagine from the sales.
Guest (1): And how many people it must be going. This magazine is hardly one dollar. In America one rupee. (Hindi?) ...magazine for them.
Prabhupāda: So this is documentary. And the Europeans and..., they are not fools and rascals that they are interested in purchasing other religious book, not their Bible. You see? So it has got very great potency. So under the circumstances, we should now make combined effort that it can be pushed on more organizedly. I am doing now alone with the help of these... But no Indians are coming. This is the difficulty.
Prabhupāda: So these letters are important. You can publish these letters in book. Those who are ordering our books, they...
Rāmeśvara: Also, when we tell them, "Our magazine used to sell two hundred thousand copies a month, now it is selling five hundred thousand, seven hundred fifty thousand, some months one million copies. so that means the public is..."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Becoming more interested. So let us go on fighting with Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There is no disappointment. Yudhyasva mām anusmara (BG 8.7). We shall fight and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Then everything is all right. We cannot stop fighting.
Prabhupāda: Which ones selling?
Trivikrama: Well, they want mostly in Gujarati. They didn't read Hindi. There is magazines and Īśopaniṣad.
Prabhupāda: This magazine you have got?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. We have stock of Gujarati books also.
Prabhupāda: No, this magazine.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh. Not this one. This one hasn't arrived.
Trivikrama: This is a rupee and a half.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: These covers I did in Bombay. These are books from the other covers. They came out very good. Ādi-rasa was telling me, in a week we'll also do the black and white in Bombay, because the quality is going to be better.
Prabhupāda: You make expert, on quality expert.
Prabhupāda: Big number, as big as possible. My Guru Mahārāja, he had magazines in six languages: English, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, and one Bengali daily. So if our men complained that "Such and such men are not giving their subscription, so, what we can do? Stop the supply?" Oh, he would become very angry. He asked them, "Are you commercial-hired fools? No! Supply free!" He used to say like that. He was asking, "Whether we shall stop supply? The subscription is not coming." So immediately he became angry: "Are you commercial-hired? If he's not giving price, supply him free." That was his policy. So less perfect or..., try to see how many numbers of books.
Prabhupāda: Eh? No, that is your temperament, because everything has got degree according to the man. So we should not worry. This is very nice, that we are imploring.
Rāmeśvara: So his conclusion was that all the people who we are selling books to, they do not like us. That was his conclusion. So I said that if they do not like us, then why is our book sales increasing? We started off selling two hundred thousand magazines a month. Now one million a month. So if you say that people do not like us...
Prabhupāda: Not two hundred thousand.
Prabhupāda: That will not do. This is our first business.
Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda, in the Back to Godhead magazine, one question has come up. Now that England is printing their own, India is printing their own, so this magazine that we print in America, ninety percent, ninety-five percent is sold in America.
Prabhupāda: But that is English and in India vernacular so there is no question of competition.
Rāmeśvara: Right. So the question is that the magazines in America, the readers like very much to have a feeling of who the author is, who the different writers are, the editors. So we are using our spiritual names on the list of writers and editors and so on. So they have asked me to enquire whether in parentheses they can also have their legal names.
Prabhupāda: Why not?
Rāmeśvara: That way, because they cannot pronounce these names, Gopīparanadhana.
Prabhupāda: Fine, allow this.
Prabhupāda: This is the largest sale. (chuckling)
Rāmeśvara: 487,000 Perfection of Yoga, 263,000 Kṛṣṇa Consciousness Is Authorized, 10,000 cook books, Hare Kṛṣṇa Cook books, 4,000 Gopal coloring books, and just under 7,000..., excuse me, 7,000,000 Back to Godhead magazines. Now, the total magazines, almost, about 7,000,000. Total small books like Perfection of Yoga, Easy Journey, is 740,000. Total medium books like Kṛṣṇa trilogy, Śrī Īśopaniṣad, is 319,000. Total books like cook books, Kṛṣṇa Consciousness Is Authorized, other titles: 280,000. Then total hardbound books: 1,007,000. So the total literatures sold last year is 9,076,280 literatures. Nine million.
Prabhupāda: (Bengali)
Gargamuni: It's only English.
Rāmeśvara: This is just English.
Prabhupāda: (Bengali) ...French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese. (Bengali) We want. (Bengali) Person to person... (Bengali) Huge organization. (Bengali) ...Bhaktivedanta Book Trust... (Bengali)... stock, distribution, salesmen control. (Bengali) ...Delhi paper... (Bengali) We have got substance. (Bengali) So it is very encouraging, this report. What else?
Rāmeśvara: Now the next two reports. First of all, for the month of December there's the ratings for the whole Society. So in the top ten, number one was New York, Rādhā-Dāmodara, with $170,000. (Bengali)
Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Give him some book to read.
Prabhupāda: Hm. Now you are seeing that there is possibility of preaching. And even if he cannot speak local language, still he'll be received.
Gargamuni: Yes. And all of our magazines, at least in Bengal, are being... (break)
Rāmeśvara: ...to organize the whole world to cheating, then, it seems, we can be given the intelligence to organize it for Lord Caitanya.
Prabhupāda: You can also cheat them. (chuckles) From māyā's way, bring then to Kṛṣṇa's way. That's all. That is also cheating. Tell them, "Yes, you live like this."
Prabhupāda: It is closed?
Hari-śauri: Yes. The year before they got kicked out, I was distributing magazines at one political rally. The Prime Minister came to Perth. And when he came there all the farmers came, and they were so angry, they were throwing rotten eggs at him and tin cans and all kinds of things.
Prabhupāda: The farmers.
Hari-śauri: Yeah.
Rāmeśvara: They devalued the Australian dollar very much. The Australian dollar used to be worth maybe...
Prabhupāda: More than American dollar.
Rāmeśvara: One dollar, forty cents.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Just see how foolish leaders. In the field there is food. They will not work for the food. (break)
Jayapatākā: ...get a big staff after publishing our monthly magazine for some time. And I'm thinking we can... If there's... Like that editor of the Basumati, if they join us and help, we can bring a daily paper, and then these can be some of our...
Prabhupāda: If somebody came to see me, some editor...?
Jayapatākā: Yes. He wanted to... (break) ...the train station to catch the trains.
Prabhupāda: Hm. He has got good engagement. (break) ...his magazine.
Hari-śauri: Everybody that comes buys a magazine and a Bhagavānera Kathā.
Prabhupāda: Bhagavānera Kathā.
Hari-śauri: I was watching from the roof on Sunday. There were hundreds of visitors coming all through the day. And practically every group that went out, they were all... They had a magazine and a Bhagavānera Kathā and Gītārgāna.
Prabhupāda: Gītārgāna. Good field. And similarly, our Hindi. You have seen our Hindi?
Brahmānanda: Yes. What is that, Bhagavāne...?
Bhavānanda: Bhagavānera Kathā.
Prabhupāda: These are my old articles.
Hari-śauri: What Prabhupāda used to write in that magazine.
Prabhupāda: Bhagavānera Kathā, Bhakti Kathā.
Bhavānanda: The next one is Bhakti Kathā.
Prabhupāda: I was reading. It is done nice.
Prabhupāda: No, we are not to satisfy the authorities. We have to satisfy Kṛṣṇa. Just like Arjuna. He wanted to satisfy his family members, but Kṛṣṇa did not like that. Then He preached him Bhagavad-gītā, and then Arjuna agreed, "Yes." Kariṣye vacanaṁ tava (BG 18.73). So it is the duty of the devotee to satisfy Kṛṣṇa, not the public.
Brahmānanda: In our Back to Godhead magazine now the tendency is that they're not mentioning Kṛṣṇa's name so much. They're not putting the picture of Kṛṣṇa. They're not putting the pictures of the devotees. They're stressing on like simple, natural life in order to please the public.
Prabhupāda: No. Why this is going on?
Satsvarūpa: Probably because of this reasoning, that... They use this phrase, that "We have to make Kṛṣṇa consciousness more conventional, and with the shaved heads and pictures of Kṛṣṇa, people won't like it." So they've taken to this description of simple life, vague talk of spiritual life, reincarnation, meditation.
Prabhupāda: So, immediately stop it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We were looking through a recent issue of the magazine, the most recent issue, and we were...
Prabhupāda: Bhāgavata is coming out.
Brahmānanda: That is there. (laughter)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That is there. It is fortunate you are... We were all noting that point. They cannot touch that.
Prabhupāda: Bhāgavata is in the middle.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. That's why it is that the Back to Godhead magazine is being compromised a little. They are fearful. But actually that magazine is our platform for speaking strongly. In your Back to Godhead that you were publishing, you were very, very strong. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...Mr. McPherson. He became my friend in Allahabad. He was coming and talking with me. He spoke of one restaurant in London that "It was so nice, and full of chili. I was crying; still, I could not leave it."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: There was an underlying question of whether the magazine... Brahmānanda Mahārāja had mentioned that your original idea was that this magazine was meant for the devotees to write into the magazine and the spiritual master would read the articles and thus see how the devotees were making advancement, and the magazine was for the devotees to read each other's articles. Generally how the one..., the kind of the present-day idea behind the magazine is that it is for the common man outside. It is not so much for the devotee as much as for the karmīs. And therefore...
Prabhupāda: No, what is the purpose? To distribute to the karmīs?
Prabhupāda: So who has done this? You are asking me?
Brahmānanda: Rāmeśvara Swami's in charge.
Hari-śauri: Another example's like that they put a recipe for halavā in the magazine, two-page spread in color.
Prabhupāda: So the Rāmeśvara should not be in charge. The Satsvarūpa should be in charge.
Hari-śauri: Another example's like that they put a recipe for halavā in the magazine, two-page spread in color.
Prabhupāda: So the Rāmeśvara should not be in charge. The Satsvarūpa should be in charge.
Satsvarūpa: I'm very eager to take it over again.
Prabhupāda: Immediately do.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That was going to be our proposal. We went through the magazine, Satsvarūpa Mahārāja, Brahmānanda Mahārāja and myself, on the underlying points, and as Hari-śauri was pointing out, just like in the old days sometimes they would give a recipe and it would end with the showing of how to offer obeisances for offering the prasāda. But here that is completely neglected, that part. It simply says, "At the end of cooking, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and it will make the food taste better." There's no understanding that the food is then supposed to be offered to Kṛṣṇa for Kṛṣṇa's pleasure. That whole idea is deleted. Everything is very much simplified with the idea of making it sell more.
Prabhupāda: No, this should be properly done immediately.
Prabhupāda: No. This is the nucleus of United Nations, real. Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam (ISO 1), to understand everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa. That is the basic principle of United Nation. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā (BG 18.54), samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu. In that stage there can be equality. Otherwise not.
Pañcadraviḍa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, the text on the back of this magazine here, the back advertisement for the Gītā...
Prabhupāda: Here?
Pañcadraviḍa: ...is very nice wording. It's referring to India.
Prabhupāda: This. Oh, yes. This is the fact.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. Left eye. (about massage?) (some quiet laughter)
Rāmeśvara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, for this GBC meeting, I understand one of topics will be to discuss some things about Back to Godhead. So I wasn't here when you gave your instructions. So I was wondering if you could give me some idea what you want done, so I can also think about how to improve the magazine. Something is wrong in the magazine?
Prabhupāda: That...
Rāmeśvara: A few things in this last issue.
Prabhupāda: The thing is that you should not change abruptly without any sanction.(?)
Rāmeśvara: In the past I have sometimes asked you that we wanted to try to follow your example when you were first writing Back to Godhead, offering solutions to problems that people are currently bothered by, making the magazine contemporary and so on, rather than just giving them philosophy, but making it so that it can relate to their...
Prabhupāda: But we... Based on philosophy. You cannot go beyond the philosophy. Philosophy must be there. It cannot be changed. But we have to... You cannot change the wine. That should be the... So therefore, while changing, you can consult.
Rāmeśvara: Now, sometimes in our mantra page in the beginning of the magazine we have photographs of people who are not living in our temples but who have been induced to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa—sometimes parents of devotees...
Prabhupāda: So these things can be discussed. Of course, I could not read. Those who have pointed out the defects, so let them come and then discuss.
Prabhupāda: He's also. He has also pointed out... So altogether. Pros and cons.
Rāmeśvara: One point that was felt, not the specific defect, but a very general point, is that this magazine is being distributed by the hundreds of thousands to very ordinary people who go shopping in stores, housewives and so on.
Prabhupāda: No, still, we cannot make it a shopkeeper's magazine.
Rāmeśvara: No, of course, but the tone of the magazine, we felt, should be such that they can also feel that it is...
Prabhupāda: They may not feel. That cannot be.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: We were thinking that somehow this magazine...
Prabhupāda: No, another thing, it is aparādha... Nāmno balād yasya hi pāpa-buddhiḥ. Unless he is in the process he'll think, "I am chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, so whatever sinful activities I am..., it will be controlled."
Brahmānanda: That's the worst offense.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is very bad offense.
Hari-śauri: So we're actually advertising the process of devotional service, not just simply haphazard chanting.
Prabhupāda: First of all we are chanting just to make him little attracted. Ādau śraddhā.
Rāmeśvara: Just to popularize it.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's it. Then, if the heart is little cleansed, then they will understand. It will be effective, but when it is done properly it will give real effect. Outsider, those who are chanting, we don't discourage him.
Prabhupāda: That is... That will be a good thing. But when he (she) does it properly it will be more effective, because there is... If one does not chant in the process, then gradually it degrades. The offense will increase. There is chance.
Rāmeśvara: So in the past, in the magazine, we have only shown people chanting if they were initiated devotees, shaven-headed, living in temple. And recently they have adopted to show people who have jobs outside the movement, and they are not brahmacārī or sannyāsī. They're also chanting, to give the public the idea that...
Prabhupāda: So that we are giving, the facility to chant and take prasādam, but at the same time, gradually, if chanting is effective, then next we have to make it in the process.
Rāmeśvara: There's another trend that I have noticed recently, that they have... In the past, formerly, many articles were full of quotes in Sanskrit, and recently they have not been using so much Sanskrit, but just the English. The magazine is, they say, is mostly sold...
Prabhupāda: That is not bad. Sanskrit, not necessarily it has to be quoted, but the English is there. It is sufficient. The purport is there.
Rāmeśvara: It's now... Now this magazine that we're printing in Los Angeles, ninety-five percent is sold in Canada and America. We used to ship some of it to England, but now they want to print their own in England. We find that all over the world they don't want to import from America, but they want their own. The public feels, "Why should this be an American import? Why not print it..."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: So therefore it seems like, more and more, this magazine is just for America. It's becoming like that.
Prabhupāda: So that's all right. They're printing in England. That's all right. So why not the same magazine, but different article?
Rāmeśvara: I once asked Hṛdayānanda, "Why not have your men just translate the articles into Spanish from English and print the same magazine, since we have already done the layout?" And he said, "Because the photographs are just Americans. Now, to use this in South America, we want to have photographs of Latin Americans, and we want the preaching to be more specific, more current events and relevant..."
Prabhupāda: This is not very good argument.
Prabhupāda: That you discuss. What I can say?
Brahmānanda: Should we have karmī photographs in our magazines?
Rāmeśvara: What do you mean?
Brahmānanda: Like in the English issue they have three photographs of torture.
Prabhupāda: That is not good.
Brahmānanda: And now our magazine has no pictures of Kṛṣṇa. The last English edition had not one picture of Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: That's not good.
Rāmeśvara: In the past we were using either a photograph of devotees on the cover doing something or a painting. And in the middle of the magazine we used to have stories either from Kṛṣṇa book or Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: Hm.
Rāmeśvara: Then there was the use for some pictures.
Prabhupāda: So, do this.
Rāmeśvara: Sometimes they don't... They print different contents.
Prabhupāda: No, we are preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa must be there.
Hari-śauri: We can't produce a magazine without Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Without Kṛṣṇa. That is not good. We cannot allow.
Prabhupāda: No. We print... We must, therefore, publish Bhāgavatam, Kṛṣṇa philosophy.
Rāmeśvara: We're publishing Bhāgavatam as an insert in each magazine.
Prabhupāda: Yes, so that must be there.
Rāmeśvara: So then there could be a picture to relate to that.
Prabhupāda: A picture of Kṛṣṇa philosophy in the... Yes.
Bali-mardana: And they make big literatures, magazines, everywhere, all over the streets. They put them in the street...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The big thing now in America, the most popular shop, is called "Adult Books." "Adult Bookshop."
Hari-śauri: "Adult cinema," "adult this," "adult that."
Prabhupāda: Topless, bottomless. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tucchaṁ kaṇḍūyanena karayor iva duḥkha-duḥkham, tṛpyanti neha kṛpaṇā bahu-duḥkha-bhājaḥ (SB 7.9.45). Bahu-duḥkha-bhājaḥ. Kṛpaṇa. The rascals. Kṛpaṇa means non-brāhmaṇa, without any spiritual knowledge. They are never satisfied, the vagina business. Tṛpyanti neha kṛp—although it is followed by so much miserable condition—bahu-duḥkha-bhājaḥ kaṇḍūtivan manasijaṁ viṣaheta dhīraḥ. One who is dhīra, sober, he tolerates little itching sensation: "What this nonsense?" And if you practice toleration, there will be no more. Finished. You become liberated. Therefore, from the very beginning of life, childhood, this teach him, that "Don't be a vagina-smelling animal." Brahmacārī. Brahmacārī guru-gṛhe vasan dāntaḥ. To learn how to control the senses, that is brahmacārī. Where is that civilization? So establish. Give them food. Give them shelter. Give them knowledge. That is para-upakāra, doing welfare to others. But don't be entangled in vagina civilization. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukham (SB 7.9.45). It is most abominable civilization, tuccham, condemned civilization.
Satsvarūpa: And we discussed the sannyāsa recommendations. No one who was recommended last year for sannyāsa was approved this year. During the year they did not prove well. No one is here for initiation. And for next year no recommendations were made. Then... One man... And I was accepted as editor in chief of Back to Godhead. The details of the editorial policies that I should follow, I can take in consultation from my other GBC Godbrothers. And further, in an attempt to set a uniform standard so that Back to Godhead is like scripture, I should function as editor for all Back to Godheads published in the various languages. In this I should work in cooperation with the co-editors and BBT trustees of the various foreign language BTGs. There may be various co-editors of those magazines, but I will be responsible to keep a uniform standard.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Prabhupāda: What they have got?
Devotee: We went to this Gītā-bhakti's mini-Kumbhamelā in Ahmedabad, and they were distributing her life, book about her life. And we were distributing Back to Godhead. So we distributed three thousand magazines in three, four days, and all of her men were all upset that they weren't taking their books and they were buying all our books. So they said, "You stay there. You do not come here. This is Mataji's quarter."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Not Kṛṣṇa's.
Lokanātha: There only Mataji should be... Mataji's books should be sold.
Karttikeya Mahadevia: In one week sixty-four lakhs of people came all over Gujarat to Ahmedabad.
Prabhupāda: Kumbha...
Guest (1): People are so much religious.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Guru dāsa: Yes. Also we have been distributing books at Rādhā-Dāmodara.
Prabhupāda: That is main business.
Guru dāsa: We have been distributing a few Gītār Gāns a day, a few magazines. To the pilgrims.
Prabhupāda: Anyway, something is there. And Hindi books?
Guru dāsa: Yes, Hindi magazine.
Prabhupāda: You have got small Hindi books?
Guru dāsa: Yes, yes. Some of those also are being distributed. Now also while I was in Delhi, on the way here, one ex-king approached a devotee about wanting to sell a place to us. He wanted to sell a house to our institution.
Prabhupāda: Where is it?
Guru dāsa: It is in Mount Abu.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, those were the American. But now we are doing the Indian version, which is costing us 30 paisa each. So that we can give away to anyone who writes in. So I am going to send them. But he says many inquiries are pouring in. And when I was in Calcutta three weeks ago I saw him in his office. He showed me letters. They are coming from all over east India, from Orissa, from Cuttack, about our books. During the month of March, BBT India distributed over about fifty thousand pieces of books and magazines, to the temples, libraries, everything included. Fifty thousand pieces of books.
Prabhupāda: I have asked already Tamāla Kṛṣṇa. Can you give me a statement of the account?
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. It's ready.
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) Prasāda? (pause) What is the circulation of our this paper?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Of our magazine?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: For us, we can live underneath a tree. But if I would have lived underneath a tree, you would not have come. (laughter) Therefore this building is required. So give them, one each, this magazine, latest edition. Here is. Mr. Rajda, Mr. Parik. Rajda's copy is in the red binding? That's it. No. Give him. Give him.
Prabhupāda: What is this? Not from our letter given?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It says, "The birthplace of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in the district Nadia, prepared under the direction of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda and by his disciples, His Holiness Surabhīr Abhipālayantam Swami, ISKCON Māyāpur Project architect and director of construction; His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami, ISKCON Māyāpur project president and Governing Body Commissioner; Śrī Patita Pāvana dāsa Brahmacārī, Bhakti Śāstrī, ISKCON Māyāpur; and the editors of Back to Godhead magazine, ISKCON Press, Los Angeles, California."
Prabhupāda: Perfect article.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Patita Pāvana..." And it says also, "...the editors of Back to Godhead magazine, ISKCON Press, Los Angeles, California."
Indian Astronomer: Till now I saw only in the papers, newspapers and magazines and pamphlets and books. I am so fortunate to gain darśana directly at your...
Prabhupāda: It is very kind of you. So...
Indian Astronomer: As Patita-pāvana dāsa told me... I informed him, I am a student of religion and also working for religion. Single-hand, I made attempt to propagate Vedic concept and Vedic religion for the past forty years. I am not able to find out any help. But fortunately, when I informed about Your Holiness and saw in newspapers also, I have found you are the incarnation of Indian gods, (Prabhupāda chuckles) from my point of view, because the mission which is not fulfilled by other ācāryas, even Swami Vivekananda, so many. I know... I studied all variety of prophets. But it is only fulfilled by Your Holiness.
Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They say, "Why you are stressing so much on Kṛṣṇa?" And that is the only business.
Rāmeśvara: At the end of this year we will have sold at least sixty-five million books on Kṛṣṇa, magazines and books. By end of December, sixty-five million throughout the world, mostly in the last five years.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is already known, "Hare Kṛṣṇa movement."
Rāmeśvara: Every year we are selling at least fifteen to twenty million books now, books and magazines.
Prabhupāda: It will increase more. People will be inquisitive. Yes, everything there is. What is the wrong? We are talking of Kṛṣṇa, and all of a sudden I collapse. Oh, that is the greatest profit. Greatest profit.
Prabhupāda: But whatever they're doing, simply by training, that there may be some...
Mr. Myer: Yes. We can develop some sort of training program. The gurukula facilities are there. So if some young men are taken who are trained in that fashion, they could do quite a lot. And then we are having major problem in the distribution of some of the literature. You see, Back to Godhead seems to be a very powerful magazine. It has always been very dear to you. You started this even in India. Unfortunately it comes one year late, and we have about several thousand members in India. So I was wondering whether we should try to publish it in India now, because the quantity is not enough. And then have some members who are subscribing for the Back to Godhead... Because some people are unable to afford the very large membership. Otherwise we will remain very exclusive. We won't be able to reach the common man. So one of the things is that each man who comes into the temple, if he can buy a copy of Back to Godhead magazine, he takes away something with him which he can remember. Otherwise people come to Mathurā, they visit so many temples, and they don't carry any souvenir.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But we're selling our literature here.
Mr. Myer: Yeah, but that's very old. Some of the copies are very old.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But they don't know that when they buy it.
Mr. Myer: And secondly, that doesn't cover much of the activity in India.
Prabhupāda: There is no "old." By date it does not become old.
Mr. Myer: You see, what happens, sometimes if you read the magazine, it says the Janmāṣṭamī on the 18th of August, but this year it is possibly on some other date. So, you know, like that, if a person reads, then he feels that...
Prabhupāda: For him it is new, but because he did not see...
Mr. Myer: That's true. But we are not covering very many activities of India in that, what is happening here.
Prabhupāda: Just like pañjikā... What is called, that?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Almanac.
Prabhupāda: Almanac. It is always written there, Nūtana Pañjikā, "New Pañjikā," although it may be fifty years old.
Prabhupāda: And he was putting the magazines on the hand cart, selling near cinema and other crowded places. That is very good... So it was a hard struggle in the beginning.
Prabhupāda: Then?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: A very nice magazine.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I can just show you some pictures. (break)
Prabhupāda: There is no danger at Vṛndāvana-candra's... Kaunteya pratijānīhi na me bhaktaḥ pra... (BG 9.31). So now they are printing, huh?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah, this is on their own press, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Oh!
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Look how nicely they've done. It says, "Serving Kṛṣṇa in the Land of Transcendental Bliss." Ox cart, cooking, Kulādri cooking in a big pot, cows, milking. Here they have all the people working on it.
Prabhupāda: Very nice.
Prabhupāda: So beyond imagination. (laughter) We printed Caitanya-caritāmṛta, twenty thousand copies. Out of that, five thousand copies are already sold, and we have collected at least forty lakhs of rupees. And India also we are getting orders even from Bangladesh, Dacca, Dacca University. So by Prabhupāda's āśīrvāda things are going very encouraging. What we have sold in the last one week? The last report?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The last report... This is simply from the American and Western European countries, it was reported in one week, June 27th to July 3rd, they sold 51,000 hardcover books, then 30,000 medium size books, 20,000 small books, and 140,000 magazines in one week.
Dr. Kapoor: Staggering figures.
Prabhupāda: Fifty-one thousand, five dollars each. What is the?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's about a quarter of a million dollars. Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Prabhupāda: Two hundred fifty thousand dollars, and if you exchange in rupees?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: In rupees? About twenty lakhs, more than twenty lakhs.
Prabhupāda: In one week. So unimaginable.
Devotee (1): Śrīla Prabhupāda, you always called Back to Godhead magazine the backbone of Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. You have many times said that the Back to Godhead magazine is the backbone of Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. So it is my ardent desire that the Hindi Back to Godhead should be made a regular monthly.
Prabhupāda: Why don't you make?
Devotee (1): There are printing and distribution problems.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: We had a big stock of our old issue. We had printed seventy thousand of that. There's only few thousand left, and we have a lot of...
Prabhupāda: If you have got distribution problem, then you...
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: And we have a lot of small books which we have just printed. So I wanted the small books to be cleared out. Like in Germany and France also they don't do Back to Godhead every month. They do it every few months so that they can get the books out.
Prabhupāda: It doesn't matter. Every month, if we regularly publish, we get some postal (indistinct). That's... If you every month publish some in certain date, you get very cheap rate for posting. That... All right. So a good thing... (break) Very good boy. So Gaurasundara, if he joins there, it will be still more brilliant for both of them. Because you have got the talent. You are not to be taught. You can teach others how to make dolls. And profusely make this doll exhibition from Bhāgavata. Yes. There's no need of reading book. They will see and understand Bhāgavata. Everywhere, in every branch, you see how many tourists you attract. Do all these things. Kṛṣṇa has given all assistance: money, men, endeavor. Now utilize it properly. Just see how nicely they have made. Nobody will understand this is doll. As if actual photograph.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He says, "We are always praying to Kṛṣṇa that He will give us the spiritual strength to help you in your mission of spreading Lord Caitanya's mercy. Now we are also constantly praying, 'Dear Lord Kṛṣṇa, if You desire, please cure Śrīla Prabhupāda.' Śrīla Prabhupāda, we are most grateful for Tamāla Kṛṣṇa's recent letter, in which he reports how much you enjoyed Back To Godhead issue number 7." This is number 8. "This is our only purpose in life, to give you some little amount of pleasure by our service. The devotees are also enjoying the magazine very much, especially your talks with Hayagrīva Prabhu on the bogus philosophers, and the 'Śrīla Prabhupāda Speaks Out' feature." The devotees like that too much, "Prabhupāda Speaks Out." "Please accept this Vyāsa-pūjā issue, Back to Godhead 12.8. We are offering to you this drop of gratitude for the ocean of love you are giving us. Please help us continue to work together in pushing on your great movement to benedict the world with Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Your insignificant servants..."
Prabhupāda: How many copies they have published?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think... I got a letter from Satsvarūpa yesterday. I think this issue was 400,000. It varies between 400-and 500,000 copies. Generally about a half a million every month. Pretty good standard.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (break) ...bad education. They have learned to... No education. (aside:) Get this down here. I am seriously thinking how to do. Organized, a society for sinful activities, Western. Now you are advanced, sincerely carry on. At least in America.
Prabhupāda: You can itch back side.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Scratch. Śrīla Prabhupāda? I think that on behalf of Lord Kṛṣṇa you can take service from the whole world. At least, we all want to serve you so much. Next is a letter, telegram, rather, from... This one is from Berkeley temple, New Jagannātha Purī. It says, "Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda, please accept our fallen obeisances. Please excuse our offenses. By your potency, every single magazine is distributed this weekend. This weekend we distributed 4,888 big books and 15,063 magazines. We are praying for your health to improve. Your worthless servants at New Jagannātha Purī." It seems, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that even in your illness you're increasing the preaching.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Strong?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. And this says, "His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Author of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Śrī Īśopaniṣad, Nectar of Devotion, Nectar of Instruction, Back to Godhead Magazine, Founder-Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness." This is placed in prominent museums and libraries. There's four different models. This is solid wood, and this will be a bronze plaque, and this is made of bronze, metal. You can feel it. Nice?
Prabhupāda: Very nice.
Parivrājakācārya: Śrīla Prabhupāda? This is a pre-publication copy of our first magazine in Persian language.
Prabhupāda: This is Persian language?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Parsi, Parsi.
Brahmānanda: This is the name of it here?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Yes. The name is "Bhakti."
Prabhupāda: I understand that you go to the royal family and talk with them for hours. So it is very good sign.
Prabhupāda: Bengal book.
Jayapatākā: In Bihar—they were doing the border of Bengal in Bihar—so they did both Hindi and Bengali. And in Darjeeling they did Bengali. Every day we're getting about twenty letters in the mail from people who want to be devotees or want to subscribe to the magazine. We get a big stack of mail. So there's a lot of interest from the books.
Prabhupāda: So utilize them properly.
Prabhupāda: It will be good for propaganda.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Kṛṣṇa-aṣṭamī. Lord Kṛṣṇa's celebration." Full center page. "A voyage of discovery." "A Christian tribute to Kṛṣṇa consciousness." There's a picture of Your Divine Grace here. It's an article reprinted from Back to Godhead. It says, "All material in this special feature taken from Back to Godhead, the official magazine of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness." This is all... It seems like what they have done... The same thing they did in Fiji, they have done there in South Africa. Because many of the articles... This is a whole..., also all about our society. All of these pages. "Hare Kṛṣṇa puzzle is unraveled." "Jagannātha car festival is one of the oldest in history." Then it tells about the program, how to get to the farm. Then he sent photographs. It's a very beautiful temple, Śrīla Prabhupāda. I don't know if you can see it. This is the temple. You see the white structure here? You can see it has arched domes? Not domes but arches.
Prabhupāda: Very good.
Bhavānanda: Or if someone's going on traveling saṅkīrtana in that area, 'cause we always know where they're going, they can take and deliver if they're going near. No problem. But the magazine is so attractive that the postal clerks, they cannot resist taking it home to their family. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: You can get advertisement. But we don't want it.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I don't think.... It diminishes the prestige of the publication. By Kṛṣṇa's grace we have no shortage of money.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) Have it. So we shall construct a Yoga-pīṭha Bhaktivedanta Hall.
Prabhupāda: Just like to take advertisement in the magazine. Eh?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. It's the same thing. We're trying to make something ideal. We don't care if anybody does join or doesn't join, but our business is to show the perfect ideal.
Prabhupāda: Jayādvaita?
Jayādvaita: I agree. This...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just like our Back to Godhead magazine. For a while it was becoming very compromised. Actually it was becoming a little compromised. And just because we wanted... The editors were thinking that they should make it more popular, more acceptable. But our conclusion of all the GBC men was: "Popular or not, we are trying to present the ideal for the topmost men. There must be some ideal institution in the world." So we should keep it pure. And those who want the pure product, they will come and take. And others, at least they will know this is pure.
| Page Title: | Magazines (Conversations, 1976 - 1977) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Gopinath, Archana, Mayapur |
| Created: | 25 of May, 2010 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=86, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 86 |