19790913-Evening-Darshan-ISKCON-Food-Relief-&-Namahatta-Preaching-Literal-Version

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The following is a class given by His Holiness, Jayapataka Swami Maharaja, on September 13th, 1979 in Los Angeles, California.

Jayapataka Swami: Did you ever hear how ISKCON Food Relief started? Did I tell that? I never said? ISKCON Food Relief started in… the first time we were in Mayapur, Prabhupada visited at the time… opening of that four-story building, that mandira, and… our temporary mandira. We had a big feast. So many people came… a nice big feast. Not a public distribution, invited guests, and so many devotees were there.
So afterwards, Prabhupada went to uh… was taking rest in his room, and from the feast we eat on banana leaves, those who visit Mayapur know that many time… big big festival they used to eat on banana leaves. Those had been taken and thrown at the back of the building, about 100 and… yards off on one side in a big heap. So there was a lot of noise coming from that heap. So, Prabhupada became uh, disturbed and Prabhupada… Prabhupada had a habit, especially in India, that whenever he wanted, at any moment, day and night, he would suddenly call, “Bring the sannyasis, bring the GBC! immediately call them! Bring everyone now! Immediately!”

He would just im… it doesn’t matter. It would be 2:00 in the morning or 12:00 at night, any time you could be called. There was no… This was about 2:00 in the afternoon. So everyone was resting and immediately got up, come, pay their obeisance. And Prabhupada was sitting, looking over the veranda, saying, “Just see! Just see!”.

Everyone looked, and there what happened there was so many dogs were gathered around those leaves, but the dogs had been driven away by children who were taking the leaves, and on the plate, there would be a little bit of chutney, sauce you know maybe a little piece of the puri, you couldn’t finish because you’re already up to here. So that it was left on the plate. So they were going through the plates and licking the leaves, and taking whatever tidbit they could find and eating it.

So Prabhupada was saying, “They must be so hungry! They must be so hungry to do that.” And he was crying, and he said, “We are establishing mandira. If you want to make this a temple of Krishna, Krishna’s everyone’s father, then you must see that everyone within 10 kilometers distance never goes hungry. Then this is really the house of Krishna. That will be your credit.” So, then he gave orders to all the present GBC, everyone, “You arrange that here regular prasada distribution will begin. These people are so hungry. We must feed them prasada.”

So then we in our little tent, we were cooking prasada and the first day I remember about 200 people came. Next time about 500 people came. About the 3d time… first couple times we were giving kichidi, the 3d time was a little festival day, like the appearance day of Rupa Gosvami. So we thought that we ought do a special distribution. We’d already got it down, how… that the people had to be sat in a line. So, what would happen is that when you put the leaf plate down, if one line got the plate before the other line, then the people would become so nervous, they’d jump up from this line and jump to that line, because they’re thinking, “They will get first. I might not get.”, or they would say… they would do is somehow sit here and go there and get two plates and put two plates in front of them.

So with all these things, we were finding all these little idiosyncrasies, so we finally had it worked out that one devotee would go up and down each line with a small stick. And he would tell everyone “Whatever you do, don’t get up! Everyone’s going to get. We will announce. Don’t get up.” And then each line, he wouldn’t ever hit anybody, but I mean, it was just give them a little bit of gravity.

And uhm, everybody will be given a leaf plate. Until everybody got a leaf plate, we wouldn’t do it. It’s a very… it’s a science. If you don’t do it this way, you’ll have a riot. I’m just telling you. Then after everybody got their leaf plate, then, you would tell them, “Now you are going to be given prasada. Whatever you do, don’t get up. Until you finished don’t get up. If you get up, you’ll get thrown out.” So in this way, we already got this whole system down. After three, four days, we got it down. We had the help of local people, also. So in this way we were giving everyone kichadi.

This day we decided we’ll have kichidi, we will have a sabji and a puri… a puris. So when we gave out the kichidi, everything was… up to the plates… everything like that. We were up to kichadi. Everything was going smooth. When we brought out the sabji, the people started to shake. They couldn’t believe it, they started to shake. But somehow or the other we got the sabji out.

I remember there was this one devotee, his name is Padmalocana, some of you may know him. Anyway he’s a small, short… He’s like from Britain. One devotee he came out with a big basket of puris on his head and when he came out and walked up to the middle, of the end of the line, in the middle, and just the people looked at him and they saw those puris, and there was about like a five second, where you just saw everyone was looking and it was just like… something just snapped, and everybody jumped him, and you just see him go under like… the piranha fish devouring him, (devotees laugh) and the puris just disappeared. And he was screaming and just crawling out. Then they… So, then we realized that uh, the puris were just too much. And it was always…

I was always amazed that how much prasada they could consume. Everyone, it didn’t matter! I even asked some people, “You are Muslim, why you are taking prasada?” and they would say, “Well? Food is food! Doesn’t matter. When it becomes time for prasada, I forget that I am Muslim.” (devotees laugh)

But I used to see the little kids would come in flat, and when they come out their bellies would be just puffed out (devotees laugh). They would eat at least half their body weight. And I would always look and I would be afraid that if they fell down or something, it just would bust. (devotees laughing) So what happened is that one day, I, I… at that time, we didn’t have a vehicle, we used to ride by bicycle to Krishnanagar to get the steel and stone chips from the railway head. As I was coming back from Krishnanagar by bicycle, and as I was coming, the prasada distribution had broken, you know, had been over, and people were coming on the road. And as I was coming, few of them, my known friends they yelled out in Bengali, “Baccha mare geche, baccha mare geche!” That means “The baby has died, the baby has died!” I said, “Oh no! It happened!” “One of the kids just ate and ate and busted his stomach!” (devotees laugh) It is going to be a legal suit and I don’t have Narayana dasa to help me.

I said oh no, I always knew it would happen, just as I pulled into the temple, into the ashram and I said, “Wha… Whose kid died? Whose baby died?” And they said, “No the cow’s calf died. It had a miscarriage.” I said, “Ah, * phew *” Then I went and saw the cow, and anyway. But uh, I was certain that it was actually one of the boys… the kids, the children had met his end. (devotees laugh)

So in this way our prasada distribution began. Finally when the rainy season would stop, so then Prabhupada, he told us to construct a prasadam pavilion so it would go on all year around. Now we have a very nice prasadam pavilion. That is why in the prasadam pavilion, you notice there’s steps that go in a long straight line, rows, this is scientific, for getting the people to sit down in a row.

After a few times, they… they’re trained now, they just come right in, and sit down. And it has big steel gates with…; all these things are after many years of experience. Now the people they don’t… you know, those who are taking there, they are already trained up. They know that they will get, so there is not this problem. But the people are so hungry and they have complete faith in prasada. That is also there. They won’t take… they won’t take other food. But, other people if they have a wedding or something, they won’t take, but they will take prasada. And they will take so much of it. Prabhupada said they can’t take any home with them though, they have to eat then they can go, so… This was the system. So, in this way Prabhupada started our prasada distribution. That is being supported by all the temples around ISKCON. Now a few other temples in uh, India, they’re starting this program.

Uh, we have been doing it now for about 8 years, and uh, now on top of that, Saturday and Sunday feeding, we have a capacity of 1,500 on each day. Although some days we used to feed two shifts. Right now in the rainy season it is a little less, maybe 1,200 or 1,000 only come on Saturday or Sunday, each day. So in that way each month, 9 days, it’s about… if you get 1,500, it comes to about 13,000 people per month, and then we feed everyday 1,800 people in the village, little kids from grains that are given to us by the government, we cook up, and make a halva, without ghee like a cereal, with milk and uh, vegetables and salt and we give to the village boys and girl under six years of age and pregnant mothers. So 1,854 get a… They get… they have uh, attendance cards. They sit down and its attendance is taken at regular. It is sponsored by CARE, and the West Bengal government, combined. So that is five days a week. So that’s 9,000 a week. That’s 30… 9 times 4, 36,000 and 13, 14…, just 50,000. So 50000 people per month, 50,000 servings are given. That means in a year that is 600,000 people, plus the Mayapur festival, during some days we give out 25,000. In this way we can figure that in one year, 7,000, and if you want to just add… 700,000, you would add what the devotees, how many plates they take, then we could say that at least a million plates of prasadam are served every year. That means up to date we have done at least 8 million plates. So we are going to put a sign out ‘8 Million Servings!’

Devotee: Jaya! (devotees laughing)

Jayapataka Swami: We are competing with McDonalds, but we are giving out pure foodstuff, not garbage tama-foodstuffs. So, Prabhupada wanted. He said that actually this prasada distribution is so important that if every 10 kilometers square, if there would be prasada distribution centers, the whole India would become so grateful, they would all become Krsna conscious. Although they are Krsna conscious to some extent they become fully surrendered to this Krsna conscious movement. No one is making that arrangement. So of course we don’t have the capacity now but gradually we hope that Krsna will arrange someday. If… if any government would ever donate food grains it would be very easy to achieve this. These are some of the things which are happening.

So maybe there’s some questions that I can answer, now. Yes.

Devotee: Can you explain… can you explain the uh, the concept of the marketplace of the holy name in India?

Jayapataka Swami: The what?

Devotee: This village preaching program. How did this proposal of village preaching marketplace get established?

Jayapataka Swami:That is a big topic. Could you ask something specific on that you’d like to…?

Devotee: Just give some examples of the big successes in this (inaudible)

Jayapataka Swami:Well, the original marketplace was started by Nityananda. Lord Nityananda on the order of Lord Caitanya, He started the original marketplace of the holy name at a place called Surabhi Kunja in Nabadwip. And from there all the different devotees would go out to different places and they would set up transcendental storehouses and transcendental traveling salesmen, they would go and preach the Krsna consciousness.

So I have been discussing for long time that there are 18,954 villages in West Bengal out of which, 15,500 are… uh, 15… about… about 16,500 are Hindu. And each of those has at least one Hare Krsna group… amateur group that gets together occasionally and chants Hare Krsna. So if they could be all united under the ISKCON banner, that we’d have a… quite a nice Sankirtan party because each party would have 20 people in it. Even if 10 people came that would be about 200,000 people chanting Kirtan.

I got this inspiration when we had… after we had the big trouble about two years ago, then we created a… we started a big march and 25,000 people came. 250 sankirtan groups came with khol-kartal and uh, it was so nice. I remember we were chanting… each group would chant simultaneously. I tried this in many ISKCON parades. They have more than one group, but they always end up merging for some reason. But uh, because these people were completely used to chanting just with themselves, each group would stay together and just listen to the leader.

I remember that one devotee, he came up to me, he had been running from one group to another. He just said that, “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! Every group, a different mood, a different… a different tune, a different kirtan, it’s just unbelievable, it’s ecstatic, it is bliss.” And he would… it’s a fact. Everyone would just… be different because one would go be going Hare Krishna (in one tune) and the next would be Hare Krsna Hare Krsna (in another tune), and just every… just so many varieties and everyone was so intently into chanting and playing on the mrdangas and dancing. And it just… so many Sankirtan groups! It’s just tremendous uh… I mean, 250, 2500 mrdangas and kartals, you never get that many! Just tumultuous sound! Plus all the other people that were there, they were also chanting. But, uh, It was just… So I became so inspired I thought “If every village we could simply get to… to uh, chant regularly…” they are already chanting a little bit, if we could… if we could get it organized through ISKCON, so in this way I have been starting various programs in Orissa, Bihar, Bengal.

But I was always wondering that Prabhupada told me that I should expand the propaganda unlimitedly. He never put any limit on it. He said unlimitedly. And he told me that he thought that village preaching was very important. But I was always feeling that, “What form it should take? Whether…” So I made out a basic format that I wanted to have in each villages type of centers and grhastha… they would live there and practice and we would go there and visit them. And then just at that time, someone revealed to me that Bhaktivinoda Thakura had done this type of thing, and gave me a book that he had written which was what I was translating, and two more issues are supposed to come either tonight or tomorrow morning which are going to be published, if Ramesvara Maharaja wants to. And uh, when I read that I saw that exactly what Bhaktivinoda Thakur had started, that exactly, that was the same thing uh, which… basically which I wanted to do, and which I’d… had already started. So I felt a tremendous enthusiasm that uh… that this was a sign from Krsna, that this was fully authorized, what I was undertaking.

Because sometime you know there is a mood that unless it is just cent percent pure, come and live in the temple and shave up. But I like to work with the householders and to get them to worship in their house and to practice uh, in their own environment and then gradually of course a few may come and live in the temple. But uh, I wanted to create so many… eventually so many temples in every town managed by the local people. So this is basically what Bhaktivinoda Thakur did. At that time there was no ISKCON that people could take shelter of.

That now we have ISKCON, so it’s much better to naturally come. So what we do is we bring the people into our temple for a month or two, get them trained up and then send them back to the village and have them develop the local center there. So they form a committee and everyone comes every morning and every evening and chants, one’ll read from Prabhupada’s books and give lecture. And different brahmacaris or sannyasis will go out and they’ll have so many of these centers to service or to visit.

So Bhaktivinoda Thakura, as he was starting… you see first of all, he invited everyone to become salesmen and shopkeepers. So his shopkeeper idea was just about the same idea. And then he went along. What happened was after he was preaching for some time, then he thought some subtle mayas were getting into the… into his whole thing. That people would be preaching other than pure devotional service. So then he created senapatis, generals.

He had a state-wide general, then he had a district-wide general, circle general and a locality uh, patrolman, a commander. So then he would have the patrolman go up and down and then see that everybody was chanting their rounds and doing their proper thing in the village. And he would go and request each grhastha to go and request five people daily, very humbly to please take up the message of Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

He would just preach to them and leave and go to another house. He wouldn’t wait for any more social conventions. This was the responsibility of each of the members of the namahatta, to go and preach to five people per day, apart from their nama-sankirtan in the street. So of course at that time they didn’t have very much book distribution, which is of course brhad-mrdanga, it is a much bigger way of preaching. But uh, that time was a different time and place. Till today only %20… in many places only 20% of the people are literate in India, and most of them are under 15. So uh, in the villages a combined program of not only books but you have to also have this kind of program, otherwise the people don’t get en… very much engaged.

So then uh, we started this program and I mentioned that we are doing this program in Orissa and there were some conversions being done by the Christians. That was… We were doing this type of program. What happened, we went to one town and we preached there for four days. The people were so enthusiastic they collected 1000 rupees and built their own kirtan hall. They were a little bit… a richer village. So they built their own kirtan hall and started this regular kirtan. And uh, they all chant japa, they follow all the principles.

In Bihar we have 21 villages who are chanting. In Bengal they uh, just signed up about 30. But I told them before you sign up any more you service these, go out there and make sure that… they get that… We can get so many but I want it to be done, I am actually putting a stomper on it because I want it to be done very properly, that each center is being visited and preached to by ISKCON devotees at least once every three weeks uh, if not more.

So our bullock party, we have bullocks which uh, have a Jagannatha Mandira on the back of the bullock cart, which goes from village to village. As well as we have a Nitai-pada-kamala boat which has Nitai-Gaura deities. And these go from village to village and wherever they go they do a program. They collect grains a distribute prasadam. Then, they request the local people, you take up this Krsna conscious preaching and you form a Hare Krsna center in your village. You form a namahatta center in your village and you… and you start this preaching. In some places the whole village gets into it, in some places there will be just one person. And when we get to someone that is ready, we take him and make him a devotee. That is our first priority. But in case people are so entangled, then we get them to form a local committee right there on the spot.

So that is the basic program. We have about 10 villages in Orissa, 20 in Bihar… 21 in Bihar, and when I left had 30 or 40 in Bengal but those were just starting. So basic… namahatta program is that every town and village all over, the people should be chanting Hare Krsna everywhere. So what we are trying to do is to get the people to chant in their… their individually japa in their own house. In Calcutta, we have about 50 life patron members who have taken Radha-Krsna and Caitanya deities and are… have mandirs in their house. They worship in their home, chant japa.

Because previously we just tried to get the money from the Indian community on many occasions but now our intention is to more get them to be more, we don’t expect them to leave their business but we expect them to take up more and more devotional activities. And they become so dedicated to ISKCON when you give them the spiritual instruction. They become so indebted. So, most of the Ratha yatra was actually managed by… many of the areas by these dedicated life members who are actually devotees.

Last Mayapur festival three devotees took initiation who were big businessmen in Calcutta. They do a lot of service. So all this is how to combine… what it means that going out door to door, village to village and right there to get the people to start in their own home and together in a group, in a… in a local way. Similar program is being done in Eastern Europe, you know… very you know cautious way where you can’t go out and do a big thing in the street because of legal problems or, otherwise. That they have to do this and where the people are very receptive. Now Tamal Krsna’s starting, Goswami is also starting something like this called the Seven Cities Program, something similar to that, this program in America.

So after a year, so I think we can, I mean, I think we can easily build up the membership. This is three statuses we can give. Those who chant Hare Krsna once a week, they’re a group or sanga and everyone who joins has to chant two rounds a day, minimum. This is just like introductory. When they get up to daily morning and night sixteen rounds then it becomes a Hare Krsna center, it’s like a preaching center. And when it gets up to actually they are initiated and there’s brahmanas there, then we give them a Deities and it becomes a mandira. So that make take many years. So there are three levels. So they know they can work their way up in the sense of becoming more and more…

Yes?

Devotee: Is there a problem of people starving? Are there people starving to death?

Jayapataka Swami:There was recently some kind of a survey and they… thing is that people don’t generally starve to death except in natural calamities. But 90% or some tremendous figure of some statistics they took, I don’t know the statistics, but some tremendous almost 75, or 80 or 90% of the people are suffering from malnutrition. They eat something but they don’t eat as much as they should or they would if they had it. They are somehow or other keeping the body and soul together. Just like it’s not that unusual to have kids when they are 10 years old and they’re just this big, because they never get any milk, never any milk their whole life. We went to a school and we just served sweet rice, was a… was a… was uh, in the whole Mayapur area all the primary students had come for an annual some kind of a thing, so we did a Hare Krsna program there and we distributed sweet rice. And when we gave out sweet rice there was only about 6 six kids out of 300 that ever saw sweet rice before in their lives.

Rice with milk, we used powdered milk and regular milk, and made a full regular sweet rice. They didn’t even know what it was. We had to explain to them what it was you know. They thought we were something really great that we were giving the kids sweet rice. But we were so moved that they never even had, rarely do they ever get milk. Because milk, the price of milk here in dollars and the price of milk there in dollars is the same. But the people there are getting paid in rupees and the people here are getting paid in dollars, so hardly any person except for a wealthy person can afford any milk.

So like that somehow or other they get a little rice, and uh… some people starve to death, when you start to starve you get pretty anxious, you start to do something to get something to eat. So somehow they get something a lot of times, but it is never adequate. I mean, a man works all day and gets something 50 cents to feed four kids, his wife and his grandmother. You know, maybe one of the kids will make another 25 cents and the wife will make 60… 36 cents, so together they got nearly a dollar or 8 rupees. If everybody in the whole family, practically old enough works, they’ll get a dollar to feed 8… 6 to 7 members. Even in India you cannot live on less than 3 or 4 rupees a day. To, actually for each of our devotees, at least 6 to 8 rupees a day we spend on their prasadama, milk and fruit and everything, at least, minimum. And when the festival devotees come, then we spend 14-16 rupees per head for the prasada that you get. Of course the Mayapur devotees get mahaprasad and things too. But for the gurukula kids we spend 6 rupees a day…

[break]

…each pound of milk.

So we got people who are very very hungry. It is not that you see people that just fall over. Everybody is so thin and the kids they are poor. Lot of times they are like stunted in their growth. That is why we have a feeding program for kids up to 6 years of age.

Any other questions?

Yes?

Devotee: Can you tell something about Radha-Madhava… our Radha-Madhava?

Jayapataka Swami: Bhavananda Maharaja just saw Them. He is going to come here tomorrow so he would be better. I just heard about Them. But Krsna is 5ft 10in and Radharani is 5ft 7in. Radharani is dancing and Krsna is standing in His beautiful three-folded… bended form… bending form. They are supposed to be ready now. This is, I have heard from devotees. But Bhavananda Maharaja has seen, so you can get more details from him tomorrow when he will be coming here. They are huge. Are there deities 5ft 10, in the movement? That is the size life-size Prabhupada said, 5ft 10 Krsna and 5ft 7 Radharani. Radharani looks like a little girl, very sweet and gentle.

[Break]

Bhaktivinoda Thakur said that… in 1890, he said that according to time , place and circumstances… he said where women should distribute to young… to other women they should preach. But according to time, place and circumstances mature women, they can preach also to men. So in 1890, 1900, you can imagine how strict the Vedic society was. But he could already foresee that time would… certain time, place and circum… would require that women would have to distribute to men also.

Actually, it is inspiration was… he had a great vision. So Prabhupada had brought all of those visions to life. Actually, simply by carrying out Srila Prabhupada’s orders, all the previous acarya’s orders will automatically be taken care of. That is the perfection. By simply following one’s spiritual master, then all of the previous acarya’s desires are achieved. We can see that everything Prabhupada is doing is simply to satisfy his previous acarya and Caitanya Mahaprabhu. It’s so wonderful.

Actually, Bhaktivinoda Thakur when he took out one of the Sankirtan parties, he described how at one place they came into a school… this means so much because, when we go into a village, like say a boat party goes into a village, like Bhaktivinoda Thakur is explaining, same thing is happening today. We go into a village, every village householder will put in front of his house, he will take some cow dung and clean a little area. And there he’ll put a big tray. And on this tray there will be a deep, a ghee wick, some sugar, some incense and then when the devotees come, they take scented water and throw on their feet. Or bathe their feet and then they’ll offer arati to the Deities and to the devotees and pay their obeisance.

Sometimes after they offer the water on their feet then they go and they roll in the water. Or at least they put on their heads. And uh, so Bhaktivinoda Thakura that… I have seen personally, so he describes, in this village, every village householder put in front of their house water pot with coconut and decorated with banana leaves over the doors and put these offerings and lights. And as they were going, doing kirtan it was such a wonderful feeling, everyone was chanting and coming out. Bhaktivinoda Thakura was feeling immense joy. And then when Bhaktivinoda Thakura was taking his kirtan, it was going by a school and when the kids saw this whole Sankirtan party coming by, they simply deserted the teacher and ran out of the school house and all were chanting ‘Hari bol! Hari bol!’ And Bhaktivinoda Thakura commented that seeing that my heart filled with transcendental joy to see them leave there, spontaneously chanting Hare Krsna and joining the Sankirtan party.

And then Bhaktivinoda Thakura, they had such a kirtana that people would start rolling even on the ground and would start crying and everyone was uh, deeply moved. So, like this he was going all around. Although he was a grihasta he would take time off and go all the way around different places in India and give lectures, sing songs, have other people sing songs, compose and do this kirtan and preaching. He was a very active preacher.

We… we know him as a magistrate and as a writer and as the discoverer of Mayapur. But he is also… he was so active in preaching. In the weeks to come I am going to give some of the detailed accounts what… he would give like an autobiography of his preaching. He would say who gave the lecture, what happened, exactly how the things developed. He also stated that any… that sometimes they go in a particular area, where they like the particular style of music, which was not the traditional Bengali Vaishnava kirtana style, so then he would compose pure Vaishnava lyrics to fit that type of melody and then they would sing in other melodies, these pure Vaishnava lyrics, so that the hearers would be eager to hear.

So in this way one can use his intelligence, how to preach Krsna consciousness according to different time and place and circumstance.

Devotee: The Mayapur building project, where are they getting the funds for these projects?

Jayapataka Swami: The BBT, the international BBT was supposed to provide funds for constructing the building of the Mayapur project, but the… and ISKCON Food Relief provides some money for distributing prasadam. Apart from that, Prabhupada wanted eventually that there would be businesses run by different grhasthas and different cottage industries which would make the whole city self-sufficient. But right now the BBT doesn’t have a budget for those particular works because they are doing so many other things. So right now we are depending on donations from Calcutta which are not adequate to really run the temple. So it sometime gets very tight.

Just last, about two months ago, twenty boys were turned away from joining our gurukula asrama because the headmaster thought there wasn’t enough finance to cover the overhead of feeding and clothing them, although they were very nice boy.... I was out of station, so he turned them away, due to the shortage of funds.

Actually the… there’s… Prabhupada said that eventually… he said that Bombay should supply funds eventually, but they don’t… they admit that he said that, but that’s as far as it goes. Prabhupada said that eventually Calcutta should be able to supply funds, but they don’t have a temple yet, so they want to build temple. Once they have big temple like in Bombay, I think that Calcutta will be able to supply some funds. And of course, the development has to be… we need a very first class businessman, and there’s so many businesses could be developed out of Mayapur to make it self-reliant. So at the present time things are going out in a very difficult situation.

The Sankirtana is lucky if it can make enough money to just run itself. So we completely separate the Sankirtanaa as independent of the temple, it doesn’t have to give anything to the temple but it has to pay for its books. And it has a hard time doing that. And we have to send people overseas just to collect the money to purchase the vans for Sankirtana. Up to now Mayapur temple doesn’t have its own, apart from Sankirtana vehicles which are under a separate category, the temple itself doesn’t have any vehicle or anything like that. So that way Mayapur is out in the country, it’s a uh, very difficult situation. But somehow or other things are going on. Right now we are maintaining, but we can’t… we are maintaining alright, and we are increasing the guest house, people are coming, everything is going on. But naturally no one likes to maintain, they want to expand. So now when we want to expand, we find that we’ve expanded up to a limit that we can up to this point, without some additional income, and we haven’t really found any solution to that additional income up to date.

$1,000 we calculated that can provide for 50 to 75 gurukula students to be admitted. That of course is… I calculated, that Guru Padma Dasi of London, her two weeks, her month collection was enough to pay for 1,000 gurukula children completely. Because they were begging to me, when they were meeting up for Sankirtans, where she was collecting about 1,600 pounds in one week. So they were calculating in rupees how much that was and it was so much and I was calculating how many gurukula… it was 1,000 gurukul children could be maintained by her collection.

Jayatirtha didn’t… Maharaja didn’t like to hear that, on the spot. I mean, he liked it but he said we have to talk about it later. So there are a lot of programs that could be developed. Actually the people are begging for Krsna consciousness. But Prabhupada said he wanted everything done in the American way. So we are doing as much as we can in the Indian pocket book, and I think Krsna will somehow or other, He will provide, we have to see what comes. There is a very great need, but Krsna is kind and gradually many intelligent people are coming and helping different projects there. And there are so many facilities to be developed, so many wonderful programs to be developed.

There everything is separate. Each department is separately run. We have 33 departments in Mayapur and each department is separately run. They work on their own profit and loss. Those who are income producing like the agriculture, the dairy, the looms, the sweet shops, the guest house - Guest House No.1 , Guest House No. 2, the economy guest house and the high-class guest house, like that everything is done in a separate, businesslike way. So gradually things are improving day by day. But right now, if you are interested you can always give suggestions, we can always give some more assistance.

[End of Recording]

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Transcribed by Adithya