Room Conversation
with Tripurari
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
March 2, 1975, Atlanta

Prabhupada: You are well now for distributing books?

Tripurari: [break] …these are prabhus from different temples. Some work under the direction of the temple presidents and some work under my direction. And all these devotees distribute at the airports. Mostly big books.

Prabhupada: And you are all feeling all right? Eh? Is there any difficulty?

Tripurari: No, Srila Prabhupada.

Devotees: Increasingly blissful.

Prabhupada: That is fine. That is wanted. You are expert mrdanga player? I have seen. He is very, very nice.

Tripurari: Sometimes when we go to the temples they ask us to give class, sankirtana class on book distribution techniques. We tell them that before you can take any techniques, first you must follow the principles and study the books.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is real technique. Our only technique is to be very devout followers of the rules and regulation.

Tripurari: Sometimes the devotees, in their preaching, they will defeat someone.

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Tripurari: Sometimes we defeat someone by our preaching, and we show them they should take the book, but still they don’t take. But if we call them a fool and point out to them how they are foolish, they become offended. So rather that we just very humbly say…

Prabhupada: Yes, yes. Our… We know that he is a fool, but we have to present in a different way. We shall say that “There is nobody as learned as you are.” In this way just make him puffed up, and then you say humbly, “My only humble request is that whatever you have learned, please forget. Now you try to understand Caitanya Mahaprabhu. That’s all.” This is the different way of calling him, that “Whatever you have learned, this is all rubbish.” We simply say, “Kindly forget them. Now you turn your attention to Caitanya Mahaprabhu.” This is the way Prabhodananda Sarasvati taught us. You flatter him, “Sir, I have got one request.” Flatter him like anything, falling down on his leg and becoming humble and… “Sir, I have got one request.” “What is that?” “You are very learned scholar. But kindly forget them, and you try to turn your attention to Caitanya Mahaprabhu.” He will not be angry. Then, if he turns his attention to Caitanya Mahaprabhu, then naturally he will forget all rubbish things.

Devotee (1): We’ve been trying more and more, Srila Prabhupada, to make our techniques of distribution more honest and straightforward, not to cheat so much as some of these methods in the past.

Prabhupada: No, the thing is that Krsna’s service is so sublime that even if we cheat, you are not culprit. But because we have to deal with the worldly man, we have to go according to their rules and regulation on cheating. Otherwise, a devotee of Krsna, he never cheats. He never cheats. Whatever he does… Just like a mother says to his child, “My dear child, if you take this medicine, I will give you this lugloo.” The child is diseased. He will not be able to digest lugloo, but the mother sometimes cheats him. And when he takes the medicine the lugloo is not delivered. Similarly, sometimes we have to say so many things very pleasing to him, but our business is that let him take this medicine. That is tactics. But that is not cheating. If the mother helps the child in drinking medicine and then afterwards she does not supply the lugloo, that is not cheating. Some way or other… That is the instruction of Rupa Gosvami, yena tena prakarena manah krsne nivesayet: “Somehow or other, let everyone be Krsna conscious.” There is no question of vidhi-nisedha. Sarve vidhi-nisedha syur etayor eva kinkarah. The other rules and regulation will act as servant, but the main business is to bring one to Krsna consciousness. That is the main business. We are not meant for cheating anyone. We have no business. But to lead one to Krsna consciousness we may say something sometimes. So that is not cheating.

Devotee (2): Srila Prabhupada, when we open up these new airports, because the authorities, they are not familiar with us, they become very demoniac towards us. And some of them actually, they’re thinking about Krsna all day…

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Devotee (2): They see us distributing, and they don’t like what we’re doing, they get very angry, but still, they’re thinking of Krsna all day. We often wondered how they are benefiting even though they maintain this very envious…

Devotee (1): Just like the Mohammedans were benefited.

Prabhupada: They say, “Here is the Krsna man.” So he utters the name of Krsna. That is good for him.

Devotee (2): And then after a while, when they become our friends, then they may stop and listen to us.

Prabhupada: Yes, because he has chanted Krsna, “Here is the Krsna man. Here is the rascal Krsna man.” (laughter)

Tripurari: We found one policeman at the Atlanta airport was always harassing the devotees, trying to stop them. And one time I came down the stairs and I saw him in the corner reading Isopanisad and trying to understand. They know that we have some knowledge; they are just envious of our success. They want to find out, “What is this Krsna consciousness about?” They don’t want to admit that they want to know. Actually everyone wants to know about Krsna.

Prabhupada: Yes, they must.

Tripurari: You said that everyone is hankering for these books.

Prabhupada: So he read that Isopanisad?

Tripurari: Yes. He tried to understand.

Prabhupada: Then?

Tripurari: Now he does not harass us so much now.

Prabhupada: (chuckles) So we have to do like that. Here everyone is demon, everyone. Demon means they are busy for sense gratification. That is demon. And devotee means he has no sense gratification. He is only busy how to satisfy Krsna. That is the devotee. Anyway, if you serve Krsna sincerely, Krsna is with you. You will never fall in danger.

Tripurari: Sometimes the devotees question, “What is the best book to distribute, Caitanya-caritamrta or Bhagavad-gita?” We’re thinking all of them are absolute. It does not matter.

Prabhupada: Yes. It is just like sugar doll. Anywhere touch—it is sweet. That’s all. When I read books, I open anywhere. Any book I take, and anywhere I open, and I read.

Devotee (3): Sometimes we feel like… I know myself personally, if I’m distributing, like, Second Volumes of Caitanya-caritamrtas I have this doubt, this feeling that it’s sometimes hard for me to understand Caitanya-caritamrta, and I feel like the karmi, he will open the book, and he will look into it, and he will become offended because he won’t be able to understand hardly a word of it.

Prabhupada: No, Caitanya-caritamrta is not meant for ordinary person. Bhagavad-gita, Isopanisad and other thing…

Tripurari: Krsna book?

Prabhupada: Krsna. They will read as story book. The Krsna trilogy is selling very nice?

Tripurari: Yes. Nectar of Devotion also.

Prabhupada: Nectar of Devotion is very nice.

Devotee (1): And Srimad-Bhagavatams. They are very attracted to the Srimad-Bhagavatam.

Tripurari: Many of the karmis appreciate the Fourth Canto, part four, the story of King Puranjana. They understand that.

Devotee (2): There’s many psychologists at the airport. I would attract them by giving them that particular volume and saying how this deals with the psychology of the conditioned self. And they were attracted in that way.

Prabhupada: Yes, it is very nice, Puranjana. His city, his gates, various manifestation.

Devotee (4): Sometimes we are very encouraged because we find people, they come back to us. They say, “I have gotten this volume, and I’d like to have the first part” or “I’d like to have the Second Canto.” I found that in the army base among the soldiers… I went to distribute at an army base with the soldiers. And one man saw me, and he came up, and he says, “Can I have the Second Canto? I liked the first one so much.” It’s enlivening for us.

Prabhupada: Sometimes they come and demand.

Tripurari: More books, yes.

Prabhupada: That is good.

Devotee (1): Sometimes they want three or four or five at a time. (Prabhupada chuckles) One boy… Carudesna Prabhu and I were distributing to him. First he distributed one to him. Then I saw he was coming and I approached him again, the same, five minutes later. I said, “Didn’t you get the story book, Krsna book? You got the philosophy book, Srimad-Bhagavatam. Now take the story book, Krsna.” And he took Krsna book, and then Carudesna came up and distributed two more books to him.

Prabhupada: So when they take Krsna trilogy they take set, three?

Tripurari: Usually one, just one.

Prabhupada: It is closed, this? Drafty.

Srutakirti: Yes, it’s closed but it’s drafty.

Tripurari: [break] So when we give them big books, we also give them one Back to Godhead magazine to help them understand. We say, “Read the magazine first. Come to one of our centers when you have questions.” So that way we are distributing many big books and many Back to Godhead magazines also at the same time.

Devotee (3): Sometimes we also, I know myself, ask them… We open the page, the front cover, and show ’em the Hare Krsna mantra and say, “If you simply chant this mantra, you will be able to understand these books in a much higher way.” Actually, it’s helped.

Prabhupada: That is fact. His heart becomes cleansed to take up.

Devotee (5): Srila Prabhupada, sometimes we turn the book over, like the Krsna book, and we show them your picture, and we say, “This is our teacher.” And they say, “Oh, boy, you’ve got a very…” They like your picture.

Devotee (1): They even say, “I’ve seen him before.”

Prabhupada: Where they have seen me? Somewhere. (chuckles)

Devotee (6): All the employees in the Atlanta airport, now they all know you. They’ve all seen your books, and they’ve seen your picture. And when we go through the check points they say, “Oh, we saw him. We saw him come through. We saw your spiritual master come through the airport.”

Devotee (7): There was one lady when you were here the last time at the airport, she would ask, when we saw the woman at the airport, practically every day, “When is that nice gentleman going to come back to Atlanta?” And she’s always thinking about you. [break]

Prabhupada: …that (sic:) Kenneth Keat? Bring that letter. He wrote to Gurudasa?

Srutakirti: Yes.

Prabhupada: (sic:) Kenneth Keat was ambassador in India. So Gurudasa met him. Now he is ambassador in Israel. So he has written that “You are all doing very nice work.” People appreciate, any intelligent man.

Devotee (1): For one period of two or three days we were going to the airport and simply… This was during the whole controversy about the cheating and the honesty and…, that controversy. So we just went and we just started preaching. And we actually didn’t find that much of a diminution in the sales of the literatures. In fact one time a couple of us went out in dhotis even to the airport, without wigs or anything, for a weekend. And we still did nicely. It was a little more difficult. They weren’t so… Some of them weren’t as warm. But we find that the businessmen, they can be convinced by just preaching.

Prabhupada: Read it.

Srutakirti: “Dear Gurudasa, Thank you for your letter of January 2nd and for your continued prayers for me in my work. As you perhaps do not know, I am now ambassador to Israel. I have been in the United States for a couple of weeks but have not been able to arrange for any free time in which I could meet with you and have not been on the West Coast or at any point except Washington and New York. I hope it may be possible at some future time for us to get together, since, as you know, I have great respect for you and your associates who serve the Lord according to your faith and perform many good deeds in these hectic days. Warm personal regards. Sincerely, Kenneth Keating.”

Prabhupada: So any sane man will appreciate our activities. We are doing simply to turn people’s attention towards God, that’s all. That will make him happy.

Sudasa(?): Srila Prabhupada, there’s been several places in the First Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam you say how we have to get the class of men, how if the leaders take to this Krsna consciousness then…

Prabhupada: Others will follow.

Devotee: The mass will follow. Some other times I’ve heard you say, like the other day, that the masses of people… When Balavanta Prabhu was running for office you were saying that it’d be very difficult to get our present-day leaders to take to Krsna consciousness. I’d just like to try to understand further, whether it is the masses or the leaders?

Prabhupada: No, we are dealing generally with the masses. But if we can convert one leader, then it is equal to turning many people in the mass. That is the idea. Some way or other, we are doing Krsna’s service. Either you serve the mass or the leader, it doesn’t matter. Your service is recognized.

Tripurari: Sometimes the devotees question, if they were pure, then they could get everyone to take a big book. It’s simply our fault that we’re not pure enough that we can’t get everyone to take a big book. Or is it just that we can’t engage everyone, we can’t get everyone to surrender completely?

Prabhupada: Well, that is also a devotional attitude. Just like Caitanya Mahaprabhu said that “I do not love Krsna. So that’s… And if I would have loved, then I would have died without His presence. But I am living now. Therefore I have no love for Krsna.” This is another thing. One who is too much addicted to the service of Krsna, that is very good sign. So your headquarter is now Pittsburg?

Tripurari: No, now Philadelphia.

Prabhupada: Philadelphia, oh.

Tripurari: It’s in Rupanuga’s zone.

Prabhupada: In the Philadelphia University, I think, there was one Mr. Norman Brown.

Rupanuga: The Temple University.

Prabhupada: Not Temple, Philadelphia.

Rupanuga: Temple’s in Philadelphia.

Devotee (5): There’s one called University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, too.

Rupanuga: The one who took your Nectar of Devotion?

Prabhupada: No, that is Temple University. There is another university, I think Pittsburg University.

Devotee (5): The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Prabhupada: Ah, yes.

Devotee (4): They call it Penn.

Prabhupada: That university, there is one professor, Norman Brown. I met him. He was a very nice gentleman. He carried my bags to the bus station. He was very kind. His father was a clergyman in India, so he was born in India. So he has got good respect for Indian culture.

Rupanuga: Is that when you went to speak in Philadelphia?

Prabhupada: Um hm.

Rupanuga: Then that was when Nikhilananda was there. Didn’t you speak in his class?

Prabhupada: Nikhilananda was in New York.

Rupanuga: At that time.

Prabhupada: He is now dead?

Rupanuga: Yes, I think so.

Prabhupada: Nikhilananda was working with Dr. Bose, Bose’s laboratory, and before my joining, it was disclosed that I was also… Dr. Bose had one department. He was in charge.

Tripurari: Srila Prabhupada, you first began to distribute Back to Godhead magazine by yourself, right, in India? You would go to the shops?

Prabhupada: That was second stage. The first stage I used to publish and distribute as grhastha, I did not mind whether one page or not. I was distributing. So spending about four hundred, five hundred rupees, I did not care if one page or not, but I’ll distribute. Then, when I retired, left home, I was publishing and distributing myself to get subscription. The subscription was very cheap, two rupees, four annas, I think, for the year. Two copies per month. Just like you published The Harmonist? Like that. Then I published Bhagavatam. So I was going to libraries, school, colleges, and everyone was purchasing. My Bhagavata was being purchased by your Congress Library. In Delhi they have got office. So there was standing order, eighteen copies of my book as soon as they are published. The head librarian in India, New Delhi, he gave me standing order. Dallas is very cold? No. Like this.

Tripurari: Dallas is warm.

Prabhupada: Warm, oh.

Tripurari: Probably warmer than here.

Prabhupada: New York is cold.

Tripurari: Yes. Now in New York they’re distributing 100,000 Back to Godheads every month, New York temple. And you saw the lugloo from New York?

Prabhupada: (chuckles) Yes. Which lugloo?

Tripurari: They are making in New York lugloos and packaging them, distributing them on the streets with Back to Godhead magazine. Many people come back for more. They like the taste.

Prabhupada: And for each lugloo there is magazine? No.

Tripurari: Pardon?

Prabhupada: If anyone wants lugloo, then he have to take one magazine? No. (laughter) One lugloo presentation for one magazine.

Devotee (4): We were thinking about how everyone knows about Krsna now. In the United States they didn’t know before, but when they see this little picture on the book, they all know, “That is Krsna.” We hand them the book, and we say, “We’re passing these out.” They say, “Oh, that is Krsna.” So it’s so successful that everyone has learned about Krsna.

Prabhupada: Oh, as soon as they see the picture, they understand it is Krsna.

Tripurari: They see the picture of Krsna or the name and they think of the devotees chanting.

Prabhupada: Oh, by seeing you.

Tripurari: No, when they see the book they think, “Oh, the Hare Krsna devotees. I saw them on the street.” When they see the picture of Krsna on the book, they think of the devotees chanting.

Devotee (1): Sometimes, Srila Prabhupada, people travel from one airport to another, and they’ll get a book in Chicago and then they’ll come to Atlanta and we’ll approach them to give them another book, and they’ve already gotten one book in Chicago. And they ask, “How many of there are you around the world?” Because everywhere they go, in every airport they are getting books. So they think that there must be millions. They think that there must be millions of Hare Krsna devotees, because everywhere they go they’re being approached to take a book.

Rupanuga: I once asked a boy in Washington temple how many devotees he thought we had, and he said, “Oh, I cannot guess.” And I said, “Make an educated guess.” And he said, “Well, I’ve seen you here and I think maybe two million.” (laughter) And I said, “Three thousand. Now just see the potency of Hare Krsna. You’re thinking we’re two million, and we’re simply a handful.” He became a little convinced. So our books make us millions. People think we are millions because of the books.

Prabhupada: Push on this. Then our movement is successful. All Americans should have at least one set of book. That is not very difficult for them, to purchase one set book. But it will be a good asset for them if they keep and see sometimes. Any line he reads, he will get transcendental knowledge.

Devotee (1): There is one very wealthy man in Atlanta who… We went and did a nice presentation at his home. And then afterwards we distributed prasadam and had a nice bhajana, kirtanas. Then afterwards he bought the whole set of literatures and gave a hundred dollar donation for all of the literatures, and he has them now.

Prabhupada: Yes. For an American gentleman one hundred dollars is nothing.

Devotee (3): One nice boy in the airport, he was a soldier boy. He had, like read a Krsna trilogy, and he was coming through the airport, and I approached him. And he immediately saw the books, and he immediately wanted one. And I didn’t even have to ask him for the donation. Automatically he gave $20. And then I was walking down the hall, and I saw him again, and he came running up to me again, and he said, “Here, you’re doing such a wonderful thing. Let me give you another $20.” And somebody walked by as I was giving him another book, and they said, “Don’t take that book. It’s a rip-off. These people are trying to rip you off.” And he said, “They don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t understand.” And then, after that, he walked up to Carudesna Prabhu and gave him another $40. So actually he gave something like $65 or $70 in the airport just because he had read one trilogy.

Devotee (5): Just like in the Krsna book it says anyone who reads this, he will become a devotee.

Prabhupada: Yes, that’s a fact. Anyone who reads that book, he will become Vaisnava.

Devotee (5): And a year ago in a mall in Pittsburg, because I stay at the Pittsburg temple, I gave a big Krsna book to a…

Prabhupada: George has become?

Tripurari: Pardon?

Prabhupada: George, George Harrison.

Tripurari: George Harrison?

Prabhupada: He has become a devotee of Krsna.

Tripurari: He has?

Devotee (1): He’s living in the temple?

Prabhupada: No. He, not temple, but he chants always. He is keeping one Jagannatha within the bead. He showed me: that “I have put…” He saw me in Vrndavana.

Devotee (8): We use his name quite a bit to distribute books. A lot of people take books because of his name. We often wonder what he was actually doing as far as the movement was concerned.

Prabhupada: He has got his foreword in the Krsna book.

Devotee (1): Now each one, the foreword is there, in every volume. So we always show them that and they’re very impressed, especially hippies and students, college students.

Devotee (5): Just like Krsna says. What the big men do, the common men follow.

Prabhupada: He gave me first money for publishing Krsna book, $19,000. He is a good boy. He is a good boy, and he has got good regard for me.

Devotee (3): He just recently went on a concert tour around the country, and he was having the young people chant Krsna’s names in the concert. And because of the concert tour, many, many, many books were distributed, unlimited.

Prabhupada: Oh, his song, “Krsna…” I have forgotten that. That record?

Tripurari: Yes. And he went on a tour of the United States, playing at different cities, concerts, and he would ask people in the audience to chant, “Krsna, Krsna.”

Prabhupada: He was asking?

Tripurari: Yes.

Devotee (1): And wherever he would go the devotees would be there with prasada and literatures, distributing profusely. Very successful. Sometimes it seems that Krsna is arranging these concerts simply so young people can come together so we can be there to reach many, many thousands at one time.

Prabhupada: Krsna is all-attractive.

Tripurari: But we have no attraction for Krsna. You are attracting us to Krsna.

Prabhupada: (laughing) Actually Krsna is attracting. One, what is called, touchstone, no? Magnetic stone?

Tripurari: Yes, magnet.

Prabhupada: So background, magnetic stone, one iron, and then another iron, another iron. It is all attracted.

Devotee (5): We are becoming happy by distributing your books.

Prabhupada: Thank you. It is Krsna’s book. You have got that cake? Give them.

Devotee (5): I was going to say, Srila Prabhupada, I was talking, and I gave a family a big…, a husband and a wife, a big Krsna book. The husband took the Krsna book. The wife was indifferent. A year later the wife read the Krsna book and left her husband and joined the temple, just from reading the one book. And I was very enlivened by this. When you can see the results like that, you become enlivened.

Tripurari: Just by distributing your books we can become self- realized.

Prabhupada: You are already self-realized. Otherwise how you can push on the books? You love Krsna. Therefore you are taking so much labor for pushing on. And that is self-realization. If anyone tries to establish that Krsna is the Supreme Lord, that is self- realization.

Tripurari: Sometimes the devotees ask if they can take birth again distributing books for you.

Prabhupada: Very good. That is real devotion. A devotee does not want to go to Vaikuntha or any liberation. They are satisfied with the service. That is pure devotion. And distributing books for the benefit of going to Krsna, that is selfishness. But “I want to simply distribute the books without any remuneration, without any my personal…” that is pure devotee. Just like Prahlada Maharaja says that “I do not wish to go to Vaikuntha unless I take all of these rascals with me.” That is pure devotee. Pure devotion does not mean to… He is always under the protection of Krsna. What is the use of going Vaikuntha or…? Wherever he stays, that is Vaikuntha. That is pure devotional service. Mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki: “Life after life I may go on with this business. I don’t want anything.” That is pure devotion. (About cake:) So distribute.

Devotee (5): When a new book comes we’re very happy. We read it, and then, when we read it, we become enlivened to distribute it. And sometimes we read one like the Bhagavad-gita or one new Srimad-Bhagavatam, and then we’ll concentrate on that book because it has made us so happy.

Prabhupada: You have read Caitanya-caritamrta?

Tripurari: Yes. We study Srimad-Bhagavatam in the morning and Bhagavad-gita in the evening. Then in the day we read Nectar of Devotion, Caitanya-caritamrta, and Krsna book at night. All the devotees are reading…

Prabhupada: It never becomes old.

Tripurari: No.

Prabhupada: (chuckles) Yes.

Devotee (9): Sometimes, Srila Prabhupada, when we give someone a book we tell them that there’s eighty volumes, and they… They just… They’re amazed that there’s so many books.

Devotee (5): Sometimes they’ll say, “I already have a book.” Then you show them another book. “I’ve got that one.” Then you show them another book. “Well, I’ve got that one too.” Then you say, “Oh, come over here. Let me show you the new one. This just came out.” (laughter)

Srutakirti: This is this boy’s son.

Prabhupada: Oh, your son?

Devotee (10): Yes, Prabhupada. He’s going to go to Gurukula this summer.

Prabhupada: Very good. How old he is?

Boy: Ten.

Prabhupada: Hm? How many?

Devotee (10): Ten years old.

Prabhupada: Ten years. And how old you are?

Devotee (10): Twenty-seven.

Prabhupada: (chuckles) Sometimes young father and children, we say jokingly, bap beta dui bhai: “Father and son, two brothers.” Bap beta dui bhai. In India there are many fathers—the father and son age difference, sixteen years, seventeen years. And mother and son, twelve years, thirteen years. There are many mothers. You have got one son?

Devotee (10): I have a daughter also.

Prabhupada: Oh. Younger than him?

Devotee (10): Yes.

Prabhupada: What is that?

Balavanta: These are some things that some guests wanted me to give to you. One made a hat for you.

Prabhupada: What is this? Cap?

Balavanta: This is a hat that one of the guests made for you. A temple guest. And they painted this picture.

Prabhupada: Pencil? This is pencil?

Balavanta: Pencil or watercolor. I think it’s watercolors. (pause)

Prabhupada: So you want to take again election? (chuckles) No.

Balavanta: Not if you don’t want to, Prabhupada. I was just thinking it was an opportunity to preach if you want it. But if you’re not very enthusiastic about it, I don’t want to do it.

Prabhupada: No, I am enthusiastic provided you don’t want money.

Balavanta: I think we can get our own… I can get the money. It doesn’t have to cost very much. The only thing we would need is maybe two men to help. And we can… It won’t cost… Only for two or three months out of the year.

Prabhupada: Then you can do it. It makes you well known in the city. And you get the opportunity of criticizing the demons. (laughter) That is…

Satsvarupa: This boy is Bhakta Doug, and he was a personal secretary of Maharishi for two years.

Prabhupada: Oh.

Satsvarupa: He traveled all over with him. And one day… He was a very good student, and one day Maharishi said, “If you really want to know the highest truth, it’s Krsna consciousness.” And then he left and he came and joined our tem… (laughter)

Prabhupada: Maharishi said like that?

Doug: Yes, he did say that. It took me awhile to make the transition, but with Krsna’s mercy, I saw the way through to become Krsna…

Devotee (5): Maharishi must have read one of your books, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: He has read my books?

Devotee (5): He must have, if he said that Krsna consciousness is the highest truth. How else could he know but reading your books?

Devotee (3): One time we were in Orlando, Florida, at the Kundalini Yoga festival. And they had Yogi Bhajan there. And he came out and we had a chant, and we had prasadam, and we had BTG’s, and we distributed some BTG’s. And he took a BTG and gave a dollar donation, and he patted us on the head and said, “You boys keep chanting the holy names of God.”

Balavanta: That Guru Maharaj-ji, that little fat boy? So he told his disciples that if you want to learn, you should go to the Hare Krsna temple and learn puja. He said, “They know how to worship.” But then they go and worship him. But he told them that only your disciples know how to puja.

Tripurari: They are just imitating the Krsna consciousness movement.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tripurari: No other group distributes literatures, though.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Tripurari: No other group, no other societies of philosophy distributes literatures. Guru Maharaj-ji, they published one magazine for some time, and his devotees, they went out and distributed short time. But they had no taste for continuing the distribution. So they have stopped now.

Prabhupada: Artificial.

Tripurari: Yes.

Prabhupada: So he is still making propaganda? No.

Balavanta: Who, Guru Maharaj-ji? Not so much. You don’t hear about them. There’s not much activity.

Devotee (5): Decreasing. We are increasing, and they are decreasing.

Tripurari: Sometimes the Christians are distributing papers still at the airports. We invite them to come and take prasada with us every day.

Prabhupada: They come?

Tripurari: They are reluctant. Some, one or two, come.

Devotee (2): Every once in awhile someone we meet when we’re distributing books comes and joins us for prasadam, one time a businessman and one time a soldier. Various people sometimes join us. We take a 12 o’clock, 12:30 lunch break. Sometimes we’ll be joined by one of these people we distribute books to.

Prabhupada: When you were with Maharishi? Come here.

Doug: I joined the Maharishi in 1969, and at that time I was living in Washington, D.C. And his national director came, gave a lecture, and they said that they needed some help because they didn’t have a center there. So I organized the movement out of my parents’ house. I had the center, and I established lectures at all the colleges and started the movement there. And later on, they finally sent some full-time teachers, and they established a center there. And then I started to be with Maharishi and his different courses and doing extensive meditations for long periods of time. And then eventually he formed a committee. This was in 1971-72. He started to form a college called M.I.U., Maharishi International University. And he started to invite educators, and he wanted to… And he also had this…

Prabhupada: “M.I.U.” means Maharishi…?

Doug: Maharishi International University. And so he started to formulate a curriculum. He was trying to present Vedic studies in Western terms. And so he formed this council of the executive called his executive council. It was called The 108. It didn’t have 108 people, but this was what he called us.

Prabhupada: One hundred…?

Doug: The 108. He called it The 108, but the official term was the executive council. And that’s what I was with…

Prabhupada: How many students are there?

Doug: How many students do his meditation?

Prabhupada: No, the university?

Doug: In the university? I haven’t been with them in a year and a half, but they recently bought a college, and they have part of a college in Santa Barbara, the University of California there. So they’re pretty well established educationally. But it’s losing its potency actually. I think it’s actually reached its peak and left, because when I was with Maharishi also I noticed that it seemed that a lot of his potency seemed to diminish, his charisma, over the years. Seemed to me he’d get more and more depressed if people weren’t actually reaching the states that he was talking of. It didn’t seem like he was satisfied with the advancement people were making. And certainly he wasn’t answering the questions, because all that time I was asking him “What is the highest truth.” And when he talked to God I would say, “Who is God?” And we’d ask him, “Who is Krsna?” and “What about this Krsna conscious movement?” And it was word jugglery. He’d kind of evade our questions and satisfy our elan, but… those questions kept coming up. Somehow he kept us from going into too much detail about it. But eventually… I didn’t see him for a few days. This was when I was in the mountains with him, some other people. And we were making up these curriculums for this college program. And he was doing some transcriptions on the Brahma-sutras, and he came out, and he was in a very solemn mood, and he said… We asked him what he had realized, what truths he had realized from the Brahma-sutras. And he said, “Krsna consciousness is the highest state of consciousness.” So I left shortly after that. I feel that I could have been chanting all those years, making some progress.

Prabhupada: What is his age?

Doug: What is my age?

Prabhupada: No, his age.

Doug: His age? He’s sixty-eight.

Prabhupada: Old man.

Tripurari: He translated Bhagavad-gita, but only six chapters.

Doug: Actually, it’s interesting about that, because he finished the whole Bhagavad-gita, and he put out these first six chapters in a really a boggling word, way, the first six chapters. He was writing in a way that people could still enjoy material sense enjoyment and still do his technique of meditation. But I had a chance to hear the rest of the Bhagavad-gita that he had translated. And we asked him… We heard that he had it. We asked him why he didn’t put it out, and he said that the people of the Western world weren’t ready to hear what he had to present. But actually what he had to say was… It’s very authentic. What I read was very close with what you have to say, Srila Prabhupada, that Krsna says surrender all your senses unto Him. And I have hopes that maybe someday… Balavanta suggested the idea that I should write him a letter and ask him to have a meeting with you. And maybe some conciliation could be made, and maybe he could come to his senses or something that he could propagate this Krsna consciousness also, because he has so many followers. And I think that there must be some sincerity in him, else I wouldn’t have spent so long with him. He must have some sincerity. And I think that he obviously feels that Krsna is the Supreme Lord, and I noticed that on his puja table he always had a picture of Krsna protecting the cows.

Prabhupada: Instead of asking him to preach, you preach. He has already enunciated a type of formula, and it is very difficult for him to change it. He does not say that he is Bhagavan?

Doug: No, he does not say he is God.

Prabhupada: That is good.

Doug: He always talked in terms of higher states of consciousness, in terms of cosmic consciousness, which I understand to be Brahman realization. Then he talked in terms of, after about the sixth state of consciousness was then God consciousness. And then Paramatma. Then he talked of the highest state of consciousness, and he said it’s Bhagavan realization. But he completely steers away from putting any type of limitation on people’s sense control at all, and this is what I have a hard time understanding. Even though the more I was with him he suggested to his close associates to follow the principles of brahmacari, and he made me one of his brahmacaris, and he told us to read the scriptures every day, and we had a lot of association…

Prabhupada: What is his personal character?

Doug: Pardon me?

Prabhupada: He is observing celibacy or…

Doug: As far as I’m concerned he’s been celibate for an awful long time. And he had, his master… He comes from the Sankaracarya tradition. His master was the last Sankaracarya. And supposedly his master is a life-long celibate. So as far as I know, he always practiced that. Some other rumors have come up somewhere. I heard that the rumors originally originated with the Beatles when they were in India, that there was something going on like that. But as far as I know and anybody else who had been involved with him knew that he was very strict about that. And he encouraged the, me to meet…

Prabhupada: Brahmacari.

Doug: What was that?

Balavanta: Brahmacari.

Doug: Brahmacari.

Prabhupada: Celibacy. Does he observe?

Doug: Yes, as far as I know.

Rupanuga: Svarupa Damodara Prabhu told me that he has a doctorate degree in some science.

Doug: Physics.

Rupanuga: Physics, a doctorate in physics.

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Balavanta: He has a degree, a Ph.D. in physics.

Doug: I don’t think it’s a Ph.D. I think it’s just a masters degree.

Prabhupada: In physics.

Doug: His master told him to finish school before he could join up with him.

Prabhupada: He talks science about? No.

Doug: He does talk science, yeah. He tries to present Vedic ideas in scientific terms, so that the people of the West will understand. So originally he came out talking about God consciousness and so forth, but eventually he got more and more into this course he calls the science of creative intelligence, SCI, which is what he… (end)