Mukunda. In this way, five or six students used to come. Gradually it developed. Then we started next branch in San Francisco, next branch in Montreal, next branch in Buffalo, Boston. In this way . . . now we have got forty-five branches. So practically, we began work from 1968. Sixty-six I started, but . . . and '67 I became very much sick. So I came back to India, and again I went there and started in 1968. Practically, this propaganda work began vigorously from 1968. So from 1968, '69, '70, and this, '71.
So three, four years, all these branches have grown up, and now practically, throughout the whole continent, Europe and America, they know what is Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, really to our propaganda. Just like these boys: you have seen they are chanting and dancing. We send street saṅkīrtana even the most busiest quarter of New York, Fifth Avenue, and they go.
The American boys, they are very daring. Sometimes police arrest them. And now police is not harassing. The public and police, both, they are now sympathetic that, "Here is a movement which is actually genuine and very beneficial to our people." They are sympathetic.
And even some of the Christian priests, they are also very sympathetic. They say that, "These boys, American boys, they are our boys. They're so nice that they're mad after God, but we could not give them. Swāmījī has given them." So they appreciate. Actually, these boys, they come from Christian family, Jewish family.
There are many churches in America. I was surprised. When I first went to Butler, that's a small county, but I saw there about dozen of churches. So I thought the American people are very religiously-minded. And actually so. The history of the American people, mostly they came from England for this religious purpose. So they migrated in America for being religiously advanced.
So American people, I very much appreciate them. They are religious . . . they have got very good potency for understanding God consciousness. That is my opinion. And I do not know why I was inclined to go to America. It was also Kṛṣṇa's desire. Because I thought that, "If this movement, Caitanya Mahāprabhu's movement . . . " Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that:
- pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi-grāma
- sarvatra pracāra haibe mora nāma
- (CB Antya-khaṇḍa 4.126)
That is His prediction that, "As many towns and villages are there on the surface of the globe, everywhere, this message of Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra and Caitanya . . . Lord Caitanya's name will be there." So I thought that, "I should go to America. If the American people take it seriously, then other people will take it."