Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, more than three thousand, three thousand initiated. And outside admirers, there are many. Many. And this means these three thousand who have accepted the principles, just like these boys. So there are fifty-five branches. In each branch we are maintaining twenty-five to hundred students. So just imagine.
Prof. Kotovsky: But does that mean the students, they abstain for normal West European universities their own . . . all their . . . How to explain it? Their . . . for instance, can a normal student from, for instance, from one of the Paris universities, who is attending lectures in normal way, etc., also be initiated and admitted to your community?
Prabhupāda: No, both ways. Both ways. If you want to be initiated, you are welcome. If not, you come, try to understand our philosophy, read our books. There are so many books, magazines. And question, answer. Try to understand the philosophy. It is not that all of a sudden a student comes and becomes our disciple. No. They first of all come, associate, try to understand. Then . . . we do not canvass. When he voluntarily says that "I want to be your . . ."
Prof. Kotovsky: No, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There is no canvassing.
Prof. Kotovsky: No, yes. That's what . . . (indistinct) . . . but what I am most interested in . . . For instance, not a student but a young worker or a young son of a farmer, he would abstain from his old life and he would be initiated and join your community into a given center. How he would entertain himself . . .
Prabhupāda: The thing is . . . I have alre . . .
Prof. Kotovsky: . . . in the sorts of day-to-day life . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Prof. Kotovsky: . . . material life?
Prabhupāda: Now, material life, it is . . .
Prof. Kotovsky: Would he be paid to stay in that center?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I am answering. As I told you that this propaganda is meant for creating some brahmins all over the world, because the brahmin element is lacking. So one who seriously comes to us, he has to become a brahmin. So he has to adopt the occupation of a brahmin, and he has to give up the occupation of a kṣatriya or a śūdra. But if one wants to keep his profession, at the same time wants to understand also, that is allowed.
Just like we have many professors. There is Howard Wheeler, professor of Ohio University. He's my disciple. So he is continuing his professorship. But whatever money he's getting, almost he's spending for our this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. For gṛhasthas, those who are householders living outside, they are expected to contribute fifty percent of the income for the Society, twenty-five percent for the family, and twenty-five percent for his personal emergency. After all, in this world, if we live . . .
So far we are concerned, we are sannyāsī, but you are a professor. If there is some emergency, you cannot go to beg. But I am a sannyāsī. I can tell you that I am in difficulty. That is the system. So we have got four orders. Just like he's brahmacārī and he's gṛhastha. He has got his wife, children. So he's a gṛhastha. He's a brahmacārī.
Similarly, there is sannyāsī. So that is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's teaching. It doesn't matter whether one is a gṛhastha, householder, or renounced order or a brahmacārī or a brahmin or śūdra. It doesn't matter. If anyone understands the science of Kṛṣṇa, he becomes the spiritual master. The exact word is, in Bengali, kiba vipra kiba śūdra nyāsi kene nāya . . . (CC Madhya 8.128). Do you understand little Bengali?
Prof. Kotovsky: No, but . . .
Prabhupāda: As a vibration . . .
Prof. Kotovsky: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yei kṛṣṇa tattva vettha sei guru hāya. Anyone who understands the science of Kṛṣṇa, he can become . . .
Prof. Kotovsky: Guru.
Prabhupāda: . . . the spiritual master.
Prof. Kotovsky: I understand. But in generally, by creating brahmins from different social classes of society, really you deny the old prescription of Hindu script . . .
Prabhupāda: No, I establish old, old scrip . . . I establish.
Prof. Kotovsky: Because according to old script, to Purāṇas, etcetera, every member of one of the four classes, these varṇas . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes.