Indian man: When I was a young boy, eight years old, I went to Śrīnāthajī with my father, mother, and there I had to take the brahma-samāna,(?) which is the oath, taking of the oath in front of the Mahārāja and the priest of the Śrīnāthajī temple. And is that equal to initiation, or is that just a ceremony by itself?
Prabhupāda: No, initiation is another ceremony.
Indian man: What are the qualifications required for a person in working life like me, household like me, like myself, to get initiated?
Prabhupāda: No, you can be initiated. There is no... Because you are following the rules and regulations. That's it. We initiate a person who follows the rules and regulations.
Indian man: I am following all your rules and regulations.
Prabhupāda: Then you can be initiated.
Indian man: Yes. I think we have taken enough of your time, Prabhupāda. I would love to stay with you, and I would like to invite you to...
Prabhupāda: Why don't you stay here in our temple?
Indian man: Probably I might. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Yes. We have got ladies' department and gentleman's department. You can stay.
Indian man: I would like to invite you to Poughkeepsie and stay with us if it is possible.
Prabhupāda: Yes. How long it is?
Indian man: Hundred miles north from here.
Prabhupāda: So by car?
Indian man: Yes, by car.
Prabhupāda: It will take about four, five hours.
Indian man: No, two and a half hours. Two and a half hours.
Prabhupāda: Traveling is little difficult for me. So there are many Indians?
Indian man: There are about hundred and fifty Indian people. Thirty percent of them are Ārya-samājīs. They don't believe in anyone except doing (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: Second edition of Muhammadans.
Indian man: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Ārya-samājī means another edition of the Muhammadans.
Indian man: Some are Śiva followers, Śaivaites.
Prabhupāda: The Ārya-samājīs, they do not believe in God, so how they are Śiva followers? Hodgepodge. No sāmajīs but hodgepodge.
Indian man: Yes, it is. They don't know what is Personality of Godhead.
Prabhupāda: Opportunity followers.
Indian man: Hodgepodge, that's right.
Prabhupāda: Opportunists. Useless. They have no value.
Indian man: Thirty percent of the Indian families, they are Ārya-samājīs, and twenty percent are South Indian Śaivaites. I get a lot of argument that "Rāmacandrajī did the pūjā of Śivajī at Rāmeśvaram, so Śiva is greater than Rāma." I said, "Consider this, that Rāma was so humble to do the pūjā of Śivajī, but in Rāmastotrāṇi it says rāma rāmeti rāmeti ramerama manorane, shastranama tat tulyam sri-rama-nama ramarame.(?) That is what Śivajī is telling Pārvatī. Śivajī is telling Pārvatī in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti (BG 7.19)." I say, "Why does Śivajī say that? Why is Śivajī sitting in samādhi? Why not Kṛṣṇa sitting in samādhi? Why not Rāma sitting in samādhi? Why not Mahā-Viṣṇu sitting in samādhi? Because Śivajī's position is to serve Kṛṣṇa. But Kṛṣṇa as Rāma is so humble that He came and even did His devotee's pūjā."
Prabhupāda: Just like Kṛṣṇa is afraid of Mother Yaśodā's rope. But that does not mean He is no longer the Supreme Lord.
Indian man: Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Prabhupāda: He's afraid of "Mother, don't bind Me." So everyone is afraid of Kṛṣṇa, and He is afraid of His mother's rope. So does it mean Kṛṣṇa has become no more the Supreme?
Indian man: In fact, you might have heard of Satya Sai Baba in India.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Indian man: Now there are some people in our community there at Poughkeepsie, they are all followers of Satya Sai Baba, and they were telling me that "Anyone you pray, Kṛṣṇa, Rāma, Viṣṇu, it comes to Satya Sai Baba." I said, "Don't tell me that nonsense," I said. (laughter) "Satya Sai Baba is not Kṛṣṇa, and don't tell me that." In fact for Guru Pūrṇimā they invited me to Satya Sai Baba's bhajana. I said, "No, I have my guru. I'm very happy. Don't disturb me. I have Kṛṣṇa, I have my guru, and I have my path. I don't have to go to anybody's gurus, and I don't have to take anyone's teachings." I say, "My Gītā is here, written by Prabhupāda. I follow it, and that's it. I don't have to have extraordinary brains to follow everyone's Gītā or everything else. Here is my path."
Prabhupāda: In South America there was a great criticism?
Hari-śauri: South Africa.
Prabhupāda: South Africa.
Indian man: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Of Satya Sai.
Hari-śauri: One man, he challenged that he could prove that Sai Baba is a fake. So he's written so many letters to Sai Baba to challenge him, but he's never received a reply. So that paper gave this article criticizing Sai Baba like that and other gurus, and then in the same paper there was a very nice article concerning our Jagannātha Cart Festival. So practically they were appreciating that Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is bona fide and these other people are nonsense.
Indian man: Right. In fact, several people, even in our community in Poughkeepsie, received letters from Satya Sai Baba's followers that "Here is a letter. Make ten copies and send the ten copies to ten different people. If you don't, Satya Sai Baba's thunderbolt will come and strike your family, and they'll be destroyed." Now no guru ever puts a thunderbolt on his devotee, and I said, "If that is a guru, I'll stay ten thousand miles away from him, because my guru is very kind and he'll bless me." I said, "No guru should ever put a thunderbolt on his devotee."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. You can turn towards this.
Indian man: At Monticello in Catskill... I don't know if you know it. Monticello in Catskill Mountains here? Just about fifty-sixty miles north, there is Muktananda.
Hari-śauri: Muktananda.
Indian man: Muktananda. And he has got his retreat, and some of our people go there, and I heard from them that he is teaching... He is quoting Gītā, but if you go to his room, oṁ namaḥ śivāya. I said, "This is contradiction." I said, "If he is a Śiva follower, he should teach Śiva Purāṇa and not Gītā." I said...
Prabhupāda: But they are actually impersonalists. They neither follow Śiva nor Kṛṣṇa. They are impersonalists. Their idea is the Absolute Truth is imperson. You can worship Him either as Śiva or as Kṛṣṇa, as you like. That is their philosophy. Yes.
Indian man: Yes. But this is the height of hypocrisy, to teach Gītā and to chant oṁ namaḥ śivāya.
Prabhupāda: No, because they say, "Either way, you become impersonal at the end. You Brahma-liṅga;(?) you become one with Brahma. But before you become Brahma-liṅga, you can imagine some form, either Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu or Śiva or Durgā, the same thing." That is their...
Indian man: In fact some of the arguments that I received were... "If you go to heaven, let's say, Vaikuṇṭha, then you become... You join the impersonal Brahman. Then you have nothing else to do." He says, "In material world we have family. We have something to do." I said, "If you believe in impersonalism, you have nothing to do. If you believe in personalism, you will serve the Lord there."
Prabhupāda: Impersonal means if you have nothing to do, then you'll become mad.
Indian man: Exactly.
Prabhupāda: And again you come back to this material world.