Expressions researched:
"San Francisco"
|"San Francisco"
|"San Francisco"
Interviewer: I think the first question is kind of basic, is why is everything always taped at all the...
Prabhupāda: Because we have got so many branches, they want to hear me, my singing, my speech, therefore they record it and send it to different branches. We have got thirteen, fourteen branches: one in New York, one in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Boston, Montreal, Vancouver, London, Hamburg. We have got so many branches.
Interviewer: Did you come with the purpose of spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I am an ordained minister for preaching these missionary activities. So I came here in September, 1965. Then, for one year, I was traveling in many parts of your country. In the beginning I was in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and then I went to Philadelphia. Then I came to New York. And in this way I was traveling, not very much. And in 1966, in July 1st, I started my class in New York at 26 Second Avenue. That is my first starting. Then the younger generation began to come to me, and they started the San Francisco branch, Montreal branch. In this way the institution is going. And we have sent our students to Europe also. They have already started one branch in London, one in Hamburg. And we have sent our students in Honolulu. They have started a branch there. So our program is to start several..., as many branches as possible to spread this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. And it is very easy. We simply invite persons to come and chant with us. It doesn't matter what he is, what is his language, what is his religion. We don't take into account all these things. And this Hare Kṛṣṇa is so easy to utter, that any man can utter. That we have experienced. Any part of the world, we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and they can very easily imitate and chant. Even child, they also. So by chanting, he gradually becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious. His heart becomes cleansed and he can understand what is science of Kṛṣṇa, what is science of God.
Prabhupāda: No, I started my temple in 1967, first July.
Interviewer: In New York.
Prabhupāda: New York, yes.
Interviewer: How many temples are there now?
Prabhupāda: Now we have got six temples. One in New York, one in San Francisco, one in Los Angeles, one in Boston, one in Montreal, and one in Santa Fe. And another one of our students has gone to Buffalo, he's on the professional, for starting another temple.
Interviewer: How many people belong to these six temples?
Prabhupāda: In each temple there are average about fifty people.
Prabhupāda: Karma means fruitive work. Just like you are laboring for some wages. You get your wages. Similarly, this material world our work is rewarded. Good work is rewarded with good benefit and bad work is punished. This is the law of karma.
Interviewer: And the other question is "Do you feel God is good?"
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Interviewer: We are out of time, we want to thank you very much for...
Prabhupāda: God is good, yes, certainly. (devotees laugh)
Interviewer: ...for all of you here. And your local temple is at 518 Frederick here in San Francisco. Should I give the phone number in case people want information?
Guru dāsa: All right.
Interviewer: Phone number is 564-6670. Oh, you changed it? What is it now?
Guru dāsa: 731-9671.
Interviewer: Could you describe your temple to me?
Prabhupāda: At the present moment, we have got fourteen temples: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Buffalo, Boston, and Montreal, and Seattle, and one in New Vrindaban. We have purchased about 130 acres of land and developing there, New Vrindaban. And we have got now a temple in London, in Germany, Berlin. And we are in negotiation with Florida friends and we have sent one of our representative in Hawaii. So we have got so many temples. Gradually it is increasing. And boys and girls, especially younger generation... My, amongst my disciples, the oldest disciple is thirty-five years old. Otherwise they are between twenty to twenty-five.
Prabhupāda: Yes. They were following. Still, saṅkīrtana, they follow. But they have got their husband. Saṅkīrtana, everyone can...
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Children too.
Prabhupāda: Oh yes. Everyone. Saṅkīrtana means assembly. Bahubhir militva kirtayatiti saṅkīrtanaḥ. That is the derivation. When many people assemble together and chant, that is called saṅkīrtana. If you alone chant, that is called kīrtana. And when you chant in assembly that is called saṅkīrtana.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think that what we'll do is take her along, and if it does not work out properly, then she can go to San Francisco. There are a lot of brahmacārīṇis there.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. And what about this girl?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Dīna-tāritā.
Prabhupāda: Dīna-tāritā has gone. She is coming back?
Devotee (1): We don't know yet. We don't know where she went. She didn't call us or leave any word.
Devotee (2): Very, very unexpected.
Prabhupāda: She should not have gone like that. If she did not like, she should have frankly told me. This is not good.
Madhudviṣa: She was in correspondence with her brother, and her brother was had some problems with drugs, taking intoxicants, drugs, and she wanted him to come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and she was talking about sending him money to have him come to Seattle. So that made us think that she might have gone to San Francisco to try to bring her brother to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But she...
Prabhupāda: If that is her idea, that's good, but why did not tell us? That "I am going to my brother's." Nobody would have forbidden her. She has taken some money?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Two hundred... How much was it?
Nara-Nārāyaṇa: There was 200 dollars that... She was going to take 25 and send to her brother. The 200 dollars is not... No one knows where it is now. It has not appeared. And she had 30 dollars about of her own money. And this 200 dollars belonged to another girl that was going to give it to Upendra dāsa for the temple.
Yamunā: (break) ...Swamiji.
Prabhupāda: Just see. Thank you. (break) ...see?
Girl Devotee: (inaudible)
Prabhupāda: Oh. Just see. All very healthy, I see, because very energetic.
Śāradīyā: (break) Simply by Your Divine Grace, on Kṛṣṇa's appearance day in San Francisco my mother came to the temple and she wore a sari and a tilaka.
Prabhupāda: Oh. (chuckles) You are converting your mother to this cult.
Yamunā: A very nice mother she has.
Prabhupāda: Unless mother is good, how the children are good?
Yamunā: Tora(?). Tora is one of the biggest, and he helped more than anybody. He would come home, and she would read to them from the Bhāgavatam. But he would tell her, "Oh, if you don't serve Kṛṣṇa, you must serve māyā." And he would say, "That's māyā." He would tell mother that at seven years old, and he would explain to her. Swamiji, by the end of our classes, he was actually understanding the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, being able to listen to it and ask questions about it.
Prabhupāda: He gave you questions?
Prabhupāda: That's all right. It is Kṛṣṇa's grace. I was telling the same thing to Dayānanda, that he should present this case to the higher officer. That's all. We are preaching God consciousness. We should be given... That was the Vedic law. Saintly persons, they should be given all protection. If somebody insulted a saintly person, there was a special punishment for that. That's all right. So you take that house, that is Hollywood quarter? Hm. Give him more. No. I have got. You take. Oh, Nandarāṇī is outside? Why she is outside?
Woman: It's the baby.
Prabhupāda: Baby was not disturbing. I have received one letter from San Francisco. They are shortage of men. So Dinadayal is going back?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh no. We need more men here. (Prabhupāda laughs) We are so short. That is the problem. We have too few people here. Dīnadayālu is so essential. I was just going to ask you if we could have some more men. Jayarāma...
Prabhupāda: Create men. Bring some men.
Prabhupāda: I think in our apartment also somebody must remain. Here this is... In New York also I lost my typewriter, tape recorder. In 72nd St. at daytime, at nine o'clock. I went to take my meals in Dr. Miṣra's place at about nine, and when I came back I saw the door is broken. That superintendent, he was a Negro. He has done, I know that. This is very common case here. You purchased new machine and new...?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The tape recorder... I mean the sewing machine was Śīlavatī's. She has sent it down here with Dinesh. Two or three hours before I had just gotten it.
Prabhupāda: Your tape recorder also?
Dineśa: No. I had brought the sewing machine from Śīlavatī in San Francisco. Yes. This sewing machine.
Prabhupāda: And typewriter, whose?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The typewriter was mine. I'd just... Puruṣottama had just brought it from New York from my parents to me. So less than a week and they both are gone.
Prabhupāda: New typewriter?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Well, it was practically new. It was a very good typewriter.
Prabhupāda: What is the maker?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Olivetti. It's the portable.
Prabhupāda: Olivetti portable.
Journalist: How many temples are there?
Prabhupāda: We have got thirteen temples. Thirteen. One in this Los Angeles, one San Francisco, one in New York, one Santa Fe, one Buffalo, one Boston, one Montreal, one Vancouver, and Seattle, Columbus, and then London, Hamburg, in this way... Hawaii.
Journalist: Well, there's got to be more than a hundred people in thirteen temples.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes, more than a hundred, yes. About a...
Hayagrīva: I don't know.
Prabhupāda: Yes, I have got list. There are more than hundred.
Interviewer: This was in New York?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I first came in New York. Then I went to Pittsburgh, and for one year I was traveling, and I established this society in July 1, 1966.
Interviewer: How many centers are there now?
Prabhupāda: There are six centers. Why six? Seven. Seven centers. One in New York, one in San Francisco, one in Los Angeles, and one, Santa Fe, one, Montreal, one, Boston, one, Buffalo.
Interviewer: And do you spend a certain amount of time in each center? Do you yourself travel from one center to another?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I travel... Just like now I am this side, and from here I'll go to New York. Then I shall go to Boston. Then I shall go to Buffalo. Then I shall go to Montreal. In this way I travel.
Prabhupāda: And he was discussing philosophical talks with them.
Allen Ginsberg: According to the Aquarian Gospel, Christ was in Jagannātha Purī?
Prabhupāda: Yes. And he saw Ratha-yātrā, and there is, name of Kṛṣṇa is there.
Allen Ginsberg: Ratha-yātrā.
Prabhupāda: Ratha-yātrā, as we are performing, San Francisco. So Lord Jesus Christ saw.
Allen Ginsberg: We went to Mathurā also.
Prabhupāda: Ah, Mathurā. Yes.
Allen Ginsberg: For several days. And Vṛndāvana for about a week.
Prabhupāda: You stayed there, Vṛndāvana?
Allen Ginsberg: Yeah, about a week.
Prabhupāda: Oh. You have seen Vṛndāvana nicely.
Allen Ginsberg: Commencement. The graduation.
Prabhupāda: In some lecture he said that "I want to meet some religious heads." And so one of my girl students in San Francisco, she is very educated. She wrote one letter to Nixon. And I have got the copy, that "Swamiji is spreading this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. It is being appreciated by the younger section. So Swamiji will be glad to see you if you make some appointment." But he never replied.
Allen Ginsberg: Well, this university he chose because it's supposed to be typical of America. So if in this typical university the young people greet him by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, then he may well invite you.
Prabhupāda: (laughs) No. I came here with this idea, that in America they are in need of these things, and they are wanting something substantial. So if some is given... Of course, I am doing my bit as far as possible. But if some organized things are done like government help or people help, then this movement can be pushed further nicely. Otherwise slowly it will go on, as Kṛṣṇa desires.
Allen Ginsberg: I think I told you about that, didn't I?
Prabhupāda: Yes. You told me in San Francisco. Yes.
Allen Ginsberg: So he heard two rounds of it. Okay. I have to take a plane today to a Catholic college in New York State. I'll be going back to New York at one o'clock, so I have to go back and pack and say good-bye to the students. It was a pleasure to see you here, lovely. So maybe we'll do it again in New York.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Allen Ginsberg: I'll call. Thank you for your words and thank you for letting me join you.
Prabhupāda: My... You are already chanting. But if we do together, it will be very nice.
Prabhupāda: That is... No. So far, if you ask my advice, he should do that work, outside propaganda, preaching. But as you say that his presence is required, therefore I say he may remain here. Otherwise, to remain here is not his duty as a sannyāsī. That is actually your duty, to organize the local management and everything. And his duty is outside work, preaching. He may have one assistant, and he can travel. He can educate your countrymen that "Here is a nice thing we are developing. Please come and cooperate." Invite him, and when he comes you receive him and give him good reception. In this way you have to make propaganda, outside and inside. Just like Kṛṣṇa is making outside and inside propaganda. Inside He is Supersoul; outside He is spiritual master to reclaim these fallen souls. Similarly, we should also work outside-inside. And for making outside propaganda, I think he will be the best man. Suppose if he goes to New York, stays for some time, sees respectable foundation and presidents and just to attract their attention this side... Similarly, if he goes Los Angeles, San Francisco, all other cities, Boston, and sees important men, makes propaganda that "We are doing this. Please come and help," that will be very nice. Arrange lectures from... Our local temples may arrange lectures, and he can impress people about the importance of this movement. Not only one, I require several such preachers now. Now we are improving. We are increasing our propaganda. We require several such assistants. So those who have decided to remain brahmacārī, some of them, those who are experienced, they can accept this sannyāsa order and preach. Outside propaganda is also required.
Prabhupāda: Brahmācari and sannyāsī is meant for moving. Yes. Gṛhastha cannot move because they have to earn. They have to maintain. But the brahmacārīs, they will go and beg contribution. A sannyāsī will make the situation favorable. Just like if now a little more, Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is known, if some brahmacārī goes, that "We come from the..." Just like in San Francisco it happened. One of our brahmacārīs was arrested. So when he was taken into police custody, the officer said, "Oh, he is Swami's man. Let him go. Let him go out." Yes. Actually happened so. Similarly, in New York also happened. They were arrested in the subways, and when they were taken in the police custody, he also, "Oh, they are doing nice work. Let them go." (chuckling) So we must make the situation—people will know that they are doing some good work. And when the brahmacārīs go there to beg some contribution, they will be glad: "Oh, yes, they are doing nice work." So we have to do outside propaganda. First of all you make this literature, as I suggested. That you have got. You consult, both together. You do it, and I shall get it printed, at least a few thousand, five thousand or ten thousand. And then Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja will go to stay in every center for some days and make, see the important men and convince. That is necessary.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What did the people say when they saw that?
Prabhupāda: Then... That was... Caitanya Mahāprabhu already adored, He was. So, there is... Rathayātrā car festival, and Guṇḍicā-mārjana. Guṇḍicā-mārjana. Before the Rathayātrā festival, the system is Jagannātha goes from the temple to another place about two miles away. There is a big temple there also which is called Jagannātha Aunt's(?) house, Mahiṣī badi. So He stays there for eight days. Just like we make program in San Francisco to reside on seaside. So that temple was to be washed. Caitanya Mahāprabhu used to do it by His personal supervision. So all the devotees... And He will check how much dust you have recovered, and then you shall be rewarded. Otherwise, it should be understood that you have not labored nicely. (chuckles) So He'll sweep over the whole temple nicely and wash the ceilings and walls and everything so clearly. And He'll see in this way if there is any sand. If there is, "Oh, it is not washed." That means He would engage everyone. Then after washing, then call for prasādam and distribute Himself. This is called Guṇḍicā-mārjana. Actually, whatever He was doing, they were washing, "Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa," chanting. That's all.
Prof. Kotovsky: And you are leaving for United States or for Europe?
Prabhupāda: Yes, for Europe.
Prof. Kotovsky: For Europe. Ah, for Paris.
Prabhupāda: Paris. And we have got two ceremonies, very big ceremonies, in London and San Francisco, Ratha-yatra, car festival. And, it is estimated, fifty thousand people are going to participate in the ceremony both in London and San Francisco. We are making arrangement, car festival. This car festival is observed in Jagannātha Purī. You have been in Jagannātha Purī?
Prof. Kotovsky: Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prof. Kotovsky: From immemorial time, this festival...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.
Prof. Kotovsky: ...Hindu tradition of this car festival.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prof. Kotovsky: Huge car.
Prabhupāda: Huge car.
Prof. Kotovsky: Very well parked(?)...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prof. Kotovsky: ...that car, very interesting piece of car.
Prabhupāda: That has been introduced in the Western countries, in London and San Francisco. And gradually, maybe, we will introduce in other countries also.
Prof. Kotovsky: ...among the different(?) peoples of Indian community.
Prabhupāda: This is organized by the Englishmen and the Americans. Indian communities in London and San Francisco, they are trying to become sahib. You know the word sahib?
Prof. Kotovsky: (laughs) Westernized.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Westernized.
Prof. Kotovsky: Modern process of Westernization is going on in the world. But Prof. Srinivas...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prof. Kotovsky: ...with the very grace (indistinct) of some anthropologists at Delhi University...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śivānanda: Nice place in Heidelburg. Kṛṣṇa gave us a very nice temple there.
Prabhupāda: Your health is all right?
Śivānanda: My health is fine.
Prabhupāda: Thank you. You are the pioneer of European activities.
Śivānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: From Montreal, you were pushed. Yes. And from San Francisco, Gaurasundara was pushed to Hawaii. (chuckles) So Śivānanda Prabhu was also pushed from Montreal. So Kṛṣṇa is very much pleased. And Sudama was pushed to Japan. Now, anyway, that pushing has not become unsuccessful.
Sumati Morarjee: Here I have seen Ratha-yātrā, the first time in (indistinct). I had no idea. That day I arrived (laughter) . So I said, "What is all this?". There were so many people and all animal and all that, what is coming? So then I saw Ratha, I said, "This is Ratha-yātrā", near this place.
Devotee: Marble Arch?
Sumati Morarjee: No, no, no. I was passing Marble Arch, I (indistinct). I saw all the people. I said what, then I found out, I thought...
Prabhupāda: In San Francisco, we hold, very gorgeous.
Sumati Morarjee: Ah.
Prabhupāda: Three rathas.
Sumati Morarjee: I have seen those pictures.
Prabhupāda: Three rathas, and thousands of.... oh, they're very much, I mean, enthused to take prasādam and dance. So this year they asked me to come here. Therefore I have come to see the Ratha-yātrā, how they...
Sumati Morarjee: But, ah, you will be here in October?
Prabhupāda: Ah, maybe.
Śyāmasundara: This... Words and films.
Indian man: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) New York, San Francisco, Los Angles, Chicago, Boston, Buffalo, Montreal. Sixty-six all over the world.
Indian man: (Hindi with Prabhupāda)
Prabhupāda: Oh. Give immediately, on the (indistinct).
Devotee: (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Give immediately. And you come to the Imlitala.
Prabhupāda: But I was always thinking that "Guru Mahārāja asked me, and he asked also some of my other God-brothers, but up till now, nothing has been done. So let me try, at least, at the fag end of my life." So I left Vṛndāvana in 1970 and went to New York. Uh, not. 1965. At the age of 70 years. But for one year I had no place to live. I took some of my books, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, printed here, up to three parts, First Canto. And I was personally selling these books to the book sellers and to the persons any way. With great difficulty I was pulling on. And New York is a very expensive city, a great city, a great forest. (laughs) And I am poor man. So then it is a long history. Then I began chanting in the Tompkinson Square, and I think, in the first day this boy, Acyutānanda Mahārāja now, he and another boy, Brahmānanda Mahārāja, he is also preaching in Africa, these two boys danced, and this photograph was published in the New York Times with great details. That was the first encouragement. And after chanting in the park, many young men and girls used to come to my apartment and my meeting place. In this way I started, first in New York, then in San Francisco, then Montreal, then Boston. In this way, now we have got about one hundred branches all over the world, forty branches in America. Big, big cities, Australia, I mean to say, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Boston. What is that? Other cities? San Francisco.
Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. Therefore we kick on your face. (laughter) Therefore we have got the right to kick on your face. (laughter) Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They have now some theories how to prolong life, how to live longer.
Prabhupāda: What is that? Even if you live longer, does it mean that eternal life? That is already there. I'll live for eighty years. Another lives, for, say, sixty years. Another lives for hundred years. That is already there. The trees live for thousands of years. Does it mean it is life? A tree lives for... In your San Francisco there is a tree which is said seven thousand years. Does it mean it is life? To live for so long duration of life? Then the tree is better than you. It is also living. Śaṅkarācārya lived for thirty-two years. Lord Caitanya lived for forty-eight years. So what is the use of living for hundred years? Who is more famous than Śaṅkarācārya and Caitanya Mahāprabhu? So you live for a moment. But live worth. Then it is life. And living for seven thousand years, standing like the tree, is that life?
Prabhupāda: Twenty-five years. So they could not get anything, not a single farthing even. Still, they are doing. Just see, obstinacy. Punaḥ punaś carvita. This is called chewing the chewed. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). They will never be successful. So I am a layman. When I wrote that Easy Journey? In 1950, 67. How many years?
Karandhara: Six years.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Not 67, 57. Sixteen years before. They are all childish. I am a layman. It will never be successful. It is already written there in my Easy Journey to Other Planets. Here also, that, some press reporter asked me in San Francisco, when I landed, "What is your position about this moon planet?" "It is simply a waste of time and energy. That's all. You cannot go there."
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They have very big plan in the future, going to the surface of the Mars planet.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is future. That is all your statement, future. With future hope you become a big man. That is their foolishness.
Prabhupāda: Because in the sewer, I could not see such nice things.
Professor: Here, it's a wonderful location.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Here it is wonderful. Now I can make an idea, what is Paris. Yes.
Professor: Surely.
Prabhupāda: I was under impression in Paris there is no nice park. Now this time I see, yes, Paris excels the whole world, having such a nice park. Yes. I saw Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. That is also very nice. But this park is nicer than Golden Gate Park.
Professor: You think so. The Bois de Bologne? is much better than the Golden Gate?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Professor: Well it depends. I like the Golden Gate too because there is the sea not far. Here, in Paris, you have no ocean, nothing.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Professor: You had a yātrā, I guess, in San Francisco, didn't you?
Prabhupāda: Yes, Ratha-yātrā, yes.
Professor: That was for the first time in '68, I guess.
Prabhupāda: This time I was present in the Ratha-yātrā. Yesterday, they were showing me the film. It was very successful. Ten thousand people participated.
Professor: In San Francisco, eh?
Prabhupāda: No, in London.
Professor: In London? When?
Prabhupāda: This July 8th.
David Lawrence: And yet the incredible thing is the obsession with making life longer. I mean, what is the point of making a life longer that is a worthless life anyway? Because they're so materialistic.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
David Lawrence: Take a man, somebody could say he's given a great deal of enjoyment, a man like Walt Disney, you know. He's had his body put into...
Prabhupāda: Well, longer life, you can see this tree, you'll find at least five hundred years old. So this kind of longer life, what is the value? What is the value? There are many trees... I have seen one tree in San Francisco, seven thousand years old.
David Lawrence: Oh, the redwood...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
David Lawrence: ...the redwoods, yes. Makes Walt Disney look a bit...
Prabhupāda: So this kind of longer life, what is the value?
Prabhupāda: And Sindhis. Gujaratis are more.
Dr. Kapoor: Huh!
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. In San Francisco there are many Gujaratis, Patels.
Dr. Kapoor: Patels. Hare Kṛṣṇa. So how did you manage immediately after landing in USA?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Manage, when I got only two-hundred dollars in hand, at that time immediately I rented a storefront.
Dr. Kapoor: Eh?
Prabhupāda: Storefront.
Dr. Kapoor: Huh.
Prabhupāda: A shop.
Prabhupāda: We are concerned what you are doing now. That's all. We are not for expectation, future hope. We do not believe in that. Trust no future, however pleasant. It may be pleasant to you, but we don't believe it. You rascals, you can feel, but history shows that after death, no brain works. So we take this simple conclusion, that this brain is useless. So am I right or wrong?
Siddha-svarūpānanda: You are right.
Prabhupāda: Sudāmā Vipra, you are very critical. You can say. Am I right or wrong?
Sudāmā Vipra: You're right. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Thank you. That's... Svarūpa Dāmodara asked the scientist that, "You are beginning life from chemicals. Suppose I give you chemicals, can you make life?" "That I cannot say." This is their proposal. This is their... All rascals. And they're wasting public money and making other fools. They're going to the Candraloka and this loka, Venus. Simply wasting time. This remark I gave in the newspaper sometimes in San Francisco...
Siddha-svarūpānanda: When they asked about the moon.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. It is simply waste of time and energy. That's all. And in 1968 I wrote that Easy Journey: "And this is all childish."
Dr. Patel: In America also, like here?
Prabhupāda: That's all. My things were stolen from my apartment in the beginning, so I went to the police. They simply noted down. That's all. (break) ...you can narrate the incidents when the negro at San Francisco...
Lilavati: Yes, we were...
Prabhupāda: Yes. (break) Kṣatriya, this is all finished. Now only śūdras and, little vaiśyas there are.
Dr. Patel: No, here, here you have got also brāhmaṇas.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Dr. Patel: But they don't follow them. Nobody follows them.
Prabhupāda: No...
Bhagavān: We have a Ratha-yātrā Festival. You have heard of this festival, from Jagannātha Purī.
Professor La Combe: Yes, of course. I have been there.
Bhagavān: We have this festival in very big, in the same scale, in Australia, London, San Francisco, Chicago.
Prabhupāda: Where is that poster? Australia? Yes.
Bhagavān: And in all these cities we are joined... In San Francisco there are ten thousand people who come at least every year to help pull the carts and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: In Chicago also. Philadelphia. There will be Ratha-yātrā. this is the...
Satsvarūpa: This is for Melbourne, Australia, Ratha-yātrā parade, (shows a poster), picture of the parade last year.
Professor La Combe: Last year.
Prabhupāda: No, this year they are advertising.
Professor La Combe: Which is to come.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Some of our men, at least one, left our association. He thought that "This is denying the primary necessities of life." Rāyarāma, Rāyarāma. He left for this reason, that we do not allow the bare necessities of life. Illicit sex, intoxication... He was first-class criminal on this account, but he could not give it up. Therefore he left.
Devotee: Yes, I spoke with him in San Francisco, and he said, "Swamiji will not be successful because he does not allow free love in his movement." He says, "That is why I had to leave because there was no place for me and my boyfriend." Even he was not attracted to having a girl, but he had a boy. That boy used to be also your typist. He was from Harvard University.
Prabhupāda: That Neil.
Devotee: Yeah, Neil.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Devotee: And he told me that "Swamiji will not be successful in his movement because he will not allow free love." I just saw him in San Francisco before I went to India two and a half years ago. We were trying to get him to come back to the temple.
Prabhupāda: No, he cannot give up these bad habits.
Jayatīrtha: In Los Angeles you were reading in the Third Volume of the First Canto. I believe it was about...
Hṛdayānanda: About Arjuna, how Arjuna left the earth, how the Pāṇḍavas retired.
Jayatīrtha: Ah, Pāṇḍavas Retire, yes.
Prabhupāda: So from there we shall begin again. (japa) (long pause) If the people refuse to take Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they'll never be happy. This is a fact. (pause) But if you present properly, they will take. That is a fact. The other day in San Francisco, there were about twelve to fifteen thousand men. They were hearing so patiently. They also applauded. And many came to my car, "Thank you, Prabhupāda. Thank you, Prabhupāda. Thank you, Prabhupāda." Said like that.
Bali Mardana: I've never seen so many young Americans sit for, listen to the lecture so attentively.
Prabhupāda: And religious, most dry subject. Not cinema.
Bali Mardana: The newspaper said that it was the most favorite festival of all San Francisco, of all the festivals.
Prabhupāda: So they have mentioned, "American Hindus." (chuckles) (pause) It is a dead blow to the material civilization: "No drinking and no intoxication, no meat-eating, no gambling, no illicit sex." Their whole civilization is finished. Because they stand on these things, four pillars.
Bali Mardana: Yes. Just like in the San Francisco paper they admitted, "This is the most popular festival."
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. San Francisco also. Fifteen thousand people attended my lecture silently. So they are seeing now there is something in this movement, and if this movement, it is allowed to go on without any objection, then Christianity will be finished. That is the conspiracy behind it. That lecture is recorded? The, which I gave in the, that society of the priests and...
Satsvarūpa: The fathers?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
| Page Title: | San Francisco (Conversations 1967 - 1974) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Serene |
| Created: | 19 of Dec, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=37, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 37 |