760717 - Morning Walk - New York

Morning Walks by Date, 1976

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

760717MW-NEW YORK - July 17, 1976 - 18:37 Minutes

(in car)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Let's go. Just go.

Prabhupāda: (break) . . . in this bus.

Kīrtanānanda: Oh, you traveled in the bus. Yes, it was comfortable. (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda, there's about two hundred and fifty devotees here now.

Prabhupāda: That's nice. Make the whole city your . . . (indistinct)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It's very nice. We can handle all of these devotees, I think, very comfortably.

Prabhupāda: All facilities are there.

Kīrtanānanda: Kṛṣṇa is giving all facility. (break)

Prabhupāda: . . . distributing free, thirteen hundred or thirteen thousand?

Kīrtanānanda: Thirteen thousand.

Prabhupāda: Daily.

Rāmeśvara: Inconceivable.

Kīrtanānanda: That is inconceivable wealth.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Kīrtanānanda: That is inconceivable wealth. And they were fully decorated.

Rāmeśvara: We can never imagine where all those cows were able to be situated.

Prabhupāda: No, something like it. The whole world.

Rāmeśvara: Full of cows.

Kīrtanānanda: Yes, a few years ago we couldn't conceive of distributing twenty thousand Back to Godheads a month. (laughs)

Prabhupāda: We started with five hundred.

Kīrtanānanda: Yes.

Prabhupāda: What was that machine?

Kīrtanānanda: Mimeograph. Then I think it went to two thousand then to two thousand, then to five thousand.

Rāmeśvara: Now for December we are printing two million copies. Last year we printed one million copies, so this year we must double. Two million copies in one month.

Kīrtanānanda: Wonderful.

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 . . . (indistinct) . . . 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.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That was a lot.

Prabhupāda: Yes, three hundred rupees, nowadays at least ten times. Three hundred, ten times?

Kīrtanānanda: Three thousand.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: At least three thousand. I think even perhaps more, Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes, not less than.

Kīrtanānanda: Say five hundred dollars a month?

Prabhupāda: And I was not getting any return.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How were you getting so much money?

Prabhupāda: My income, poor income, from my business.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Oh. (aside:) Prabhupāda took us past Seventy-second Street the other day, also showed us this place.

Rāmeśvara: He showed us the fruit store where he would buy fruit.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: (indistinct) . . . shop.

Prabhupāda: Harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21).

Kīrtanānanda: Those early days. My best memories are those early days. Especially the morning classes, when you'd be sitting behind the desk . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: . . . and the sun would just be coming in. Prabhupāda would talk for an hour.

Prabhupāda: Only Hayagrīva, you and . . .

Kīrtanānanda: Umāpati.

Rāmeśvara: Mukunda.

Prabhupāda: Not Mukunda. One, that . . .

Kīrtanānanda: Sometimes Carl would come, sometimes Jim Green. Not very often, they wouldn't come.

Prabhupāda: Brahmānanda later on.

Kīrtanānanda: Rāyarāma would come.

Prabhupāda: Rāyarāma.

Kīrtanānanda: Satsvarūpa came, started coming, and he would go to work after class.

Prabhupāda: Ah.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Always very responsible.

Prabhupāda: At that time Kīrtanānanda Mahārāja was taking one cāpāṭi.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Whew! Only?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Nothing else?

Prabhupāda: I would offer. He would take one or two, that's all. Later on, one dozen. (laughter) And that boy? (laughing)

Kīrtanānanda: Stryadīśa.

Prabhupāda: He would take at least twenty cāpāṭis.

Devotees: Wow!

Prabhupāda: "Stryadīśa, can I offer you?" "Yes." I gave four. Again finished, again four.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: You must have been surprised to see how much they could eat.

Prabhupāda: Well, I was not surprised. He was young man, very stout and strong.

Kīrtanānanda: Originally, we all ate from Prabhupāda's plate, though. There was one plate of prasādam, and Prabhupāda would just give little, little to everybody. And everybody would be satisfied.

Rāmeśvara: It is the great weapon, prasādam.

Prabhupāda: I used to keep some prasādam. Anyone would come, I would give.

Kīrtanānanda: After class also you always distributed some prasādam. After kīrtana and class.

Prabhupāda: Yes. I was clapping my hands. In meeting, I used to collect not less than six dollars, not more than twenty dollars. And that was . . .

Rāmeśvara: Daily.

Prabhupāda: Not daily.

Kīrtanānanda: Three times a week.

Prabhupāda: Three times. (break) . . . used to come sometimes.

Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda said he sold his books then; they ordered his books.

Prabhupāda: Yes, they purchased my books. In Butler also, many churches would purchase.

Rāmeśvara: This month the first volume of Eighth Canto is going to the printers.

Prabhupāda: Seventh Canto, last volume, you saw?

Kīrtanānanda: Jaya.

Rāmeśvara: That reporter yesterday, he was surprised you had written so many books.

Kīrtanānanda: Any intelligent man would be surprised. It is unbelievable, so many books.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Where is there an author who has written so many books?

Kīrtanānanda: In so short time.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They don't know how to control their senses. This is inspirational . . . (indistinct)

Rāmeśvara: Prabhupāda told us yesterday that one Sanskritist was appreciating the Harvard classics very much as being very important in educating people about Indian culture, but Prabhupāda's books are even better.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He said "Insurpassable." "Prabhupāda's books are insurpassable."

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That man was the chief of the Benares school?

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Sanskrit department.

Prabhupāda: Very learned scholar in Sanskrit. Titles in Sanskrit. (break)

(out of car)

Hṛdayānanda: . . . Ratha-yātrā, "No Parking. Sunday Parade."

Prabhupāda: You convince the authorities of America that my logic, andha-paṅgor nyāya.

Kīrtanānanda: What is that?

Prabhupāda: Andha-paṅgor nyāya. Who will explain this? Andha-paṅgor nyāya, lame and blind logic.

Hṛdayānanda: Ah, lame and blind.

Bali-mardana: Oh, yes. I told a reporter that just a few days ago.

Prabhupāda: America is blind by money. Dhana-madāndha: when one gets too much money he becomes blind. Dhana-durmadāndha. Tasmād bhajanti kavayo dhana-durmadāndha. To get too much riches means he becomes fool . . . er, blind. He doesn't care. So this blindness of America. And we Indians, we have no money, but we have got culture. Combine together, then things will be very nicely done for the good of the whole world. Simply money is not the end, there must be culture. Take that culture, Vedic culture, and use it by American money, then the whole world will be paradise, Vaikuṇṭha. In India one paper, Sunday, they have published a nice article about us, "Kṛṣṇa Consciousness Catches On."

Kīrtanānanda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness what?

Prabhupāda: Catches on.

Hari-śauri: It begins by saying that the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement has had an amazing cultural impact on India in the last two years.

(pause)

Prabhupāda: Stone houses, or brick?

Bali-mardana: Stone.

Prabhupāda: Stone?

Bali-mardana: Yes. Now they cannot afford to make it like that.

Prabhupāda: In Jaipur still there are so many nice craftsmen, and they charge very little.

Bali-mardana: Jaipur.

Prabhupāda: Jaipur, yes.

Bali-mardana: We should bring some to Māyāpur and live there . . .

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Bali-mardana: . . . and train others. (break)

Prabhupāda: Just like New Vrindavan, they have a dozen brahmacārīs.

Kīrtanānanda: They have an expert teacher, Gopīnātha.

Prabhupāda: Also Los Angeles. (break) . . . and big, big city like Calcutta, Bombay, there are many, many more pigeons. Why they are so small?

Kīrtanānanda: They kill them.

Prabhupāda: Kill.

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: They kill them?

Devotee: They poison them.

Kīrtanānanda: They put poison feed out.

Prabhupāda: Ah, killing experts.

Kīrtanānanda: This civilization is that, "If you cause a little disturbance to my sense gratification, I will kill you."

Prabhupāda: But there is a civilization, I saw it practically, that there is no disturbance in our Pennsylvania farm. The cats, the dogs, the cows, the boys, children, they are living like family. In your farm also. Wonderful. The cats are not afraid of the dogs. Living very peacefully. (break)

Hṛdayānanda: They are showing paintings from a museum in Spain. (break)

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: . . . posters advertising Ratha-yātrā.

Prabhupāda: Hmm? Yes. (break)

(in car)

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa has come here in a previous . . . (indistinct)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: His pure devotee will also come here, and therefore He's bringing . . . (indistinct) . . . for you.

Prabhupāda: Yes, Caitanya Mahāprabhu goes with His associates; He does not go alone. Sa-pārṣadam. Sāṅgopāṅgāstra-pārṣadam.

kṛṣṇa-varṇaṁ tviṣākṛṣṇaṁ

sāṅgopāṅgāstra-pārṣadam

yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair

yajanti hi su-medhasaḥ

(SB 11.5.32)

There is saṅkīrtana-yajña, everything will improve very gradually. (break) Now the government has not given any opposition. That is very good. In India, our own government is giving little opposition.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The Constitution of the United States gives great deal of protection for civil rights, religious freedom.

Prabhupāda: Therefore they are so advanced.

Kīrtanānanda: But there's a lot of talk now that they aren't, so far as income tax is concerned.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Kīrtanānanda: So far as our collecting money, they are going to maybe change some laws.

Prabhupāda: Religious also?

Kīrtanānanda: There's a lot of talk about that now.

Hṛdayānanda: They've done that in India. The religious leaders have become such cheaters that the governments are thinking, "Why shouldn't they pay taxes? They're just ordinary people."

Prabhupāda: Best thing is collect and spend, that's all.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Don't bank a lot of money.

Prabhupāda: No. Best buildings are on this Fifth Avenue, huh?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes, Prabhupāda. Stone buildings. They'll last for many hundreds of years.

Kīrtanānanda: No, they will tear them down.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Beautiful buildings. Look at them . . . (indistinct) . . . On the lamp post here. Green? Right here, on the street side, both sides. Our men went wild last night. We sent out a big party putting up these posters. (whispers) The thing is, nobody will see them today. They're in the temple. (end)