Excerpt from a room conversation with His Divine Grace in Vrndavana on September 4, 1976.
Prabhupada: So we shall follow strictly. Here is God. Take. Because if you are serious after God, here is God, take Krsna. This is our philosophy. Hm? What is the answer? If he's serious about God. I think this paper wrote that, that Village? "We thought God is dead."
Hari-sauri: Greenwich Village.
Prabhupada: East Village? That paper? Long ago.
Harikesa: Village Voice. The Village Voice.
Prabhupada: Aha, yes. They told first, that "We thought God is dead." And actually they were dancing in the name of God. Acyutananda and Brahmananda. You have seen the picture showing?
Hari-sauri: In this French Back To Godhead.
Harikesa: Oh, that's Acyutananda too! Oh!
Prabhupada: They were the first candidates to dance with my kirtana.
Harikesa: I didn't know that was Acyutananda. I recognize Hayagriva but...
Hari-sauri: That's not Hayagriva, it's Brahmananda.
Harikesa: That's not Hayagriva?
Prabhupada: No. Hayagriva...
Hari-sauri: It's a picture of Brahmananda and Acyutananda dancing, and Prabhupada's playing on tabla, and Kirtanananda sat down on the corner.
Harikesa: Boy, was he skinny in those days! This is Brahmananda? And this is Kirtanananda Swami sitting down?
Prabhupada: Just Brahmananda, Kirtanananda standing together.
Prabhupada: Oh, Acyutananda.
Harikesa: Acyutananda. And Kirtanananda's sitting down.
Prabhupada: Kirtanananda's sitting there?
Hari-sauri: Yes. He sat next to you. He's shaved up.
Harikesa: They're so skinny.
Prabhupada: This was published in New York Times.
Harikesa: New York Times?
Prabhupada: With picture. The other picture was published in Voice, Village Voice, yes. Yes. Big picture. One page. They felt something; otherwise, why they should publish? Appealed to them, that here is God.
Harikesa: This is really a historic picture.
Prabhupada: Underneath a tree I was sitting and speaking. That's all. And when I would come back from the park to my apartment, at least two dozen people will come with me.
Hari-sauri: Like a Pied Piper.
Prabhupada: Huh?
Hari-sauri: There's a story in the West about a man called the Pied Piper. He went to one place and played the flute and all the children followed him away from the village. You're like the Pied Piper who went to the West, took all the children.
Prabhupada: If you know French language you can read it.
Harikesa: He knows French.
Prabhupada: Ah, you know. What is written there?
Hari-sauri: The article is by Hayagriva, and the heading, it says, "Are you from India?" That was when he met you on the street.
Prabhupada: Yes, he first of all met me on the street and asked me this question. And I brought him, "Yes, I have taken one apartment here. You come here with me." Then I came back to show him the apartment. And from the next day they began to come, Kirtanananda and Hayagriva.
Hari-sauri: Second Avenue apartment?
Prabhupada: Yes. And this Umapati. Then Satsvarupa. They began to come regularly.
Harikesa: Mukunda, you were already...
Prabhupada: Yes, Mukunda was before that.
Hari-sauri: When was this, then, when Acyutananda and Brahmananda came. That was after...
Prabhupada: This was in the park, Tompkins Square.
Hari-sauri: That was after Hayagriva and...
Prabhupada: No, simultaneous.
Harikesa: This was the fall of 1966. October maybe.
Prabhupada: Yes. I was going in the park on Sunday and began from three. Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, that dundubhi. What is that, in the hand?
Harikesa: A tom-tom.
Prabhupada: Tom-tom. Yes.
Saurabha: He's explaining why you came to America and that in three years you spread the mantra all over the Western world.
Harikesa: Yogesvara has many pictures of this. I saw all of them once.
Prabhupada: He is good collector.

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