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Tamala Krsna: ...demon came here to try and make Ramesvara leave with him.

Devotee: Tried to take him home.

Tamala Krsna: A big demon.

Prabhupada: In order to kidnap?

Ramesvara: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, his father arranged it.

Devotee: His father sent him.

Tamala Krsna: A very big demon. And Ramesvara preached to him, and... What happened?

Ramesvara: We made him very embarrassed by preaching to him. He felt very insignificant.

Tamala Krsna: Ramesvara Maharaja called him a jackass [laughter] and many other things.

Prabhupada: So how he was trying to kidnap you?

Ramesvara: Yes, and we tried to prove to him that he was afraid of death and we are not. We are better situated.

Tamala Krsna: Prabhupada wants to know how did he actually try to kidnap you: by telling you, or by his philosophy?

Ramesvara: He was trying to convince me that the goal of life is sex life.

Prabhupada: [laughs] Yes. That is the material world.

Tamala Krsna: Here's one of our buses, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Hmm? Oh.

Tamala Krsna: That's the bus that will take you to the farm.

Prabhupada: Yan maithunadi-grhamedhi-sukham hi tuccham [SB 7.9.45]. That is already mentioned. Unless one understands that there is another life, sex life is the only pleasure. That will keep him perpetually conditioned.

Ramesvara: He also tried to say that our movement will never be accepted. It is a waste of time. Why are we trying? We'll never be accepted by the public.

Prabhupada: And why you have accepted?

Ramesvara: We said that. Why have so many Americans now given up voluntarily? From wealthy families they have given up so many material things. But then he said, "But you haven't given up material things. Just look at this building. Just see how opulent. How can you claim you have given up?"

Prabhupada: So what do you mean by...? We shall live in the sky?

Tamala Krsna: Flower in the sky.

Prabhupada: You shall live in the building and we shall live in the sky, in the air? You mean to say like that?

Ramesvara: We told him that "This building is actually for rascals like you. To try to inspire you a little bit."

Tamala Krsna: They were calling him directly rascal and fool. He was calling him a rascal directly.

Ramesvara: We also showed him that our movement is being accepted in different ways.

Tamala Krsna: Yesterday we spoke to Gurukrpa, and he's having..., some of his men were deported.

Devotee: From where?

Tamala Krsna: Japan.

Prabhupada: Again.

Tamala Krsna: Yes. So his collection is not going to be as... He wanted to do two hundred thousand dollars this month, but he says it won't be possible.

Prabhupada: Why deported?

Tamala Krsna: Well, because they are Hare Krsnas. There's one man, he says, in Osaka that's a big demon, one policeman who simply makes his business to try and find out the devotees. So that one man arrested three of them in one day. Anyway, he's just taking another thirty-five thousand out, and he's immediately transferring today ten thousand to Gargamuni, and he's arranging a bank account jointly with Ramesvara in Los Angeles for his other money. Ramesvara will put the money in fixed deposit, and monthly transfer ten thousand dollars for construction. Gurukrpa was happy to know that the money could be used for that. He says he's studying, chanting and working very hard.

Prabhupada: They are trying to drive us away. How to counteract it?

Tamala Krsna: Well, we have to do some positive..., very subtle positive preaching. I suggested that-if you recall-I suggested that a cultural center should be opened there on the basis of showing dolls, showing movies, restaurant...

Prabhupada: Books.

Tamala Krsna: ...books.

Prabhupada: Literature.

Tamala Krsna: But very vague.

Ramesvara: He's printing Japanese Gita this year, he says.

Tamala Krsna: But very vague, not dressed as devotees. Just strictly cultural.

Prabhupada: Yes. Cultural. They should... Deity worship one of the items. Otherwise it is called bhagavata and pancaratra.

Tamala Krsna: I felt that it should be done in a very modern American style, but very cultural with Vedic subject matter. Then gradually they would appreciate it. As well as the Library Party. If the Library Party-Satsvarupa is thinking to go all over the world now-if they go to Japan, they are expecting a good reception in Japan, that will be another advantage if your books are accepted by the professors there. So I thought that a cultural presentation would be appreciated.

Pusta Krsna: We have to somehow or another get the local people to join there.

Tamala Krsna: Well that's the way, see. They're not going to join as Hare Krsnas because of the bad publicity. They're not going to join like that. You have to have a different method.

Prabhupada: What is this church, big church?

Tamala Krsna: Gurudasa also called.

Ramesvara: Lutheran Church.

Prabhupada: Where he is now?

Tamala Krsna: He's in Detroit. He told me to book his ticket to London on the same flight that you were going on.

Prabhupada: I came here in the evening, with umbrella, and in the morning I saw the whole street is white.

Tamala Krsna: Whitewashed. You thought it was whitewashed?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Pusta Krsna: From the snow.

Tamala Krsna: He thought that someone had poured whitewash.

Prabhupada: When I first saw from the window that the street was all white, "How is that? One whitewashed?" [laughter] Then when I saw in the street, "Oh!"

Tamala Krsna: You never saw snow.

Prabhupada: No.

Tamala Krsna: Even in the Himalayas?

Prabhupada: I saw in Kashmir, but that was not so white.

Pusta Krsna: From a distance?

Prabhupada: No, on the street also, but not so white. That is ice, not snow.

Tamala Krsna: Oh, yes. Here it's snow.

Prabhupada: This is Eighth Avenue?

Tamala Krsna: No, this is Central Park West. I used to live on this street. I was living here, Eighty-first Street and Columbus.

Prabhupada: These are apartment buildings?

Tamala Krsna: Oh, yes, all residential. Very big. Actually they are very first-class residential apartments. The ceilings are very high in every one of them, fifteen, twenty-foot ceilings. Nowadays the ceilings are usually only...

Prabhupada: Ten feet.

Tamala Krsna: At most.

Prabhupada: Otherwise nine feet.

Tamala Krsna: Yes, Prabhupada. The best ceilings I've seen is in Calcutta, in our place in Calcutta. Very high.

Prabhupada: Calcutta, all aristocratic buildings, they are made according to English pattern, London pattern. Just like our temple, it is made London pattern. It was designed by one high-court judge.

[pause]

Prabhupada: The land acquisition at Mayapur, no news?

Tamala Krsna: No news. [break] ...who are building the Ratha-yatra carts and who help in the temple construction, they have to walk [indistinct].

Prabhupada: Ah. [break]

[walking]

Prabhupada: "Ah, this is so cold." [laughter]

Tamala Krsna: Unbearable. [break] ...too cold, then we can go in our bus to Florida for preaching. In the winter you go to Florida, eighty-five, ninety degrees.

Prabhupada: Florida. And in summer?

Tamala Krsna: Summer it's not very pleasant.

Pusta Krsna: It's about the same.

Tamala Krsna: Really? Most people, though, most tourists don't go to Florida in the summertime.

Prabhupada: Very hot?

Tamala Krsna: It is a little hot.

Prabhupada: Some rain?

Pusta Krsna: There's moisture in the air and rain, like that.

Hari-sauri: They have a lot of hurricanes there, don't they?

Pusta Krsna: A few. But no place is perfect within the material world. [break]

Tamala Krsna: On the fourth floor we're going to have doll projects, doll exhibits. So there's an open balcony up there, and I want to do something like that, see up there with the glass, the balcony?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: I want to do that. Because there's an open balcony right on the street side. Enclose it with glass, it would be very popular. After going to see the doll exhibits people can sit there comfortably, take, you know, rest on the bench. And it can be seen from outside, so it will be indirectly an advertisement. You'll see that there are people sitting there. [break]

Ramesvara: ...artists that work on your books, they have to train many devotees to paint, because one day in all the government buildings there will be paintings of Krsna. Just like now they have all these paintings of so-called...

Prabhupada: If they are selling, you can sell these pictures.

Ramesvara: I think they will sell. [break] ...popular is that at colleges they like to have art shows come, where they display the paintings and then they move on to another college. So we can do that with some of our art paintings also. They will give us one hall just to hang the paintings for some time.

Prabhupada: So many trees have come. [break] ...from stone there is grass.

Ramesvara: They have no explanation for this. No one ever asks these questions, Srila Prabhupada, why the grass is coming out of stone.

Prabhupada: No. Our point is why even in moon planet there is stone only, and...

Tamala Krsna: No living entities.

Prabhupada: ...no living entities?

Tamala Krsna: No life.

Pusta Krsna: They say there is no air.

Hari-sauri: It's due to atmosphere, that's their reasoning.

Tamala Krsna: They say stone can be in both places, but life, living entities, cannot.

Bali-mardana: They classify organic and inorganic.

Prabhupada: They may talk all rubbish, foolish things. We don't believe it.

Ramesvara: They say that on a planet like Jupiter the atmosphere is full of methane, which is poisonous, so no life can live there.

Prabhupada: Only here.

Ramesvara: Only here. [laughter]

Devotee: ...Pacific Ocean one volcano came up and it formed an island, and within five years there was grass growing on it. So they tried to say that the seeds of the grass floated in the ocean and reached the island and began to grow. They couldn't explain how it became vegetated so quickly.

Prabhupada: So why the seeds does not go by air to the other planets?

Ramesvara: When they first developed the radio, they set up a system to send out radio messages into outer space. And their idea was that if there was any intelligence on other planets they would answer by sending...

Prabhupada: So whether your radio message reached there?

Hari-sauri: We should wait, Srila Prabhupada, a minute, because police over there, they may object if we walk. [break]

Prabhupada: ...only in America. [laughter] All intelligence monopolized by America.

Tamala Krsna: Sounds like the old British policy.

Prabhupada: Foolish policy. Just like the deaf man, he thinks everyone is deaf. You know that? This is psychology. Deaf man will think that everyone is deaf. Broadcast radio message in the Pacific Ocean, the aquatics they do not reply, that means there is no life? Rascal theory.

Tamala Krsna: Anyway, maybe they speak a different language.

Devotee: They don't understand that there may be different mediums of communication.

Ramesvara: The government announces to the public that so much money from the taxes has to be spent on this space exploration. But according to the information that you're giving us, it is not possible for them to be spending so much money to photograph Phoenix, so they must be stealing the money.

Pusta Krsna: You mentioned that in previous ages when there was yajna taking place on this planet, sometimes the demigods would come down. So that means that is it possible that they would be communicating with the people of this planet?

Prabhupada: Hmm. They're speaking Sanskrit language. In all other planets they are speaking Sanskrit.

Hari-sauri: You also said they had the ability to make themselves visible or invisible to the population. Actually, they have many sightings of what they call UFOs, so-called spaceships and things like this, or things that they cannot explain, but the government doesn't release the information because they think that people will panic. Sometimes aircraft pilots, they've reported that their aircrafts are being inspected whilst they're up in the air.

Prabhupada: Inspection?

Hari-sauri: Yes.

Prabhupada: Who inspects?

Hari-sauri: Well, they don't know who. But there's all kinds of things that they can't explain, but they don't release the information. What the scientists can't explain, they won't tell anyone.

Ramesvara: After they claimed they have landed on the moon, they announced that they wanted to build a gigantic dome on the moon's surface, and within the dome they would have these pumps pumping air, and in that way earth people could go to the moon and live there.

Prabhupada: So what happened to their project? Stopped now?

Pusta Krsna: They're going to do it on Mars instead.

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Pusta Krsna: They're going to do it on Mars instead. [break]

Ramesvara: ...do it on the moon because they want to have people go there to drill into the surface of the moon to see if there are any valuable minerals or jewels underneath the surface.

[pause] [break]

Tamala Krsna: That is a modern sculpture.

Passerby: Hare Krsna!

Devotees: Hare Krsna!

Passerby: Jaya! [laughter]

Prabhupada: He says jaya also.

Devotees: Yes.

Hari-sauri: This is the kind of artwork that they're putting up everywhere now. [bangs on the sculpture]

Pusta Krsna: Hollow. Called the formless form.

Prabhupada: Hmm? Yes.

Devotee: That's supposed to be pleasing to the eye. It's supposed to bring pleasant thoughts into the mind. [laughter] It simply makes them crazy.

Ramesvara: It's like the "emperor's new clothes." Everyone thinks it is pleasing because the leaders or the artists say it is pleasing. Everyone is being fooled. And if they say it is meaningless then they are called a fool.

Prabhupada: In Bengali it is called parera mukhe jhala khaoya. Somebody says, "Oh, it is very hot!" "Oh, it is very hot!" [laughter] He did not taste, but the other man says, "Oh, it is very hot!" So he says,"Oh, it is very hot!" Parera mukhe jhala.

Ramesvara: The city pays these artists hundreds of thousands of dollars to make these forms. [break]

Prabhupada: ...it is constructed?

Tamala Krsna: Metropolitan Museum of Art extension.

Prabhupada: Oh.

[pause] [break]

Tamala Krsna: We can return back now. [break] This one is older, this is new. There are twice as many floors in the same amount of space. It's actually double. [break] ...think there's an advancement in living conditions. Seems to be worsening, but they're taking it as advancement.

[break] [in car]

Tamala Krsna: Ten to eleven.

Pusta Krsna: About the same as Mercedes. Ten thousand.

Tamala Krsna: Nandaki, is it as good mechanically as a Mercedes?

Nandaki: No, I don't think so.

Pusta Krsna: Mercedes is very sturdy.

Tamala Krsna: The comfort's better.

Nandaki: But after two years this all becomes finished, all this. Starts falling apart.

Prabhupada: But Mercedes is strong.

Nandaki: No, Mercedes is strong.

Pusta Krsna: Very long lasting.

[pause]

Pusta Krsna: But Mercedes, they say it's supposed to last about two hundred thousand kilometers.

Tamala Krsna: The engine.

Pusta Krsna: In Europe most of the taxi drivers use Mercedes because they are so long-lasting.

Tamala Krsna: That means the engine.

Pusta Krsna: And the body also lasts. Good quality.

Nandaki: You see them ten years old, still running. [break]

Tamala Krsna: ...telling you that the Mayapur time, the Rama-navami comes in April, Gaura-purnima is in March, it will take a total of six weeks. This year our saṅkirtana book distribution was set back severely on account of the over-long duration of the festival, and all of the devotees and GBC men wanted that it should be about three weeks.

Prabhupada: That's all right.

Tamala Krsna: So the problem is that Gopala Krsna is saying that he wants all of the devotees to stay there for the opening of the Bombay temple.

Prabhupada: Not necessary.

Tamala Krsna: It's not necessary. Because there is at least..., there would be still about a hundred, hundred and fifty devotees there anyway.

Prabhupada: Some of them. They can go sometime later.

Ramesvara: Or the next year.

Prabhupada: Oh, yes. Some batches may go this year, some batches may go...

Ramesvara: The following year, Gaura-purnima festival there can be a pandal program in Bombay. Then they can visit it the next year. The main point is we don't have to be there for the opening.

Tamala Krsna: That's true. As you recall, perhaps, in Mayapur we discussed that we would like to go in Vrndavana first and end the festival in Mayapur on Gaura-purnima.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: That way we'll get the cooler weather and we'll get the best preaching in America.

Prabhupada: Yes. [break] ...so dismantled and constructed this building. When I was ten years before, they were dismantled. Very nice building.

Tamala Krsna: Dismantled.

Prabhupada: Just to change the fashion, they spend so much. [break] ...walking generally this. [break] ...producing company?

Devotee: Yes, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM.

Prabhupada: And this is Rockefeller Center?

Tamala Krsna: No, Prabhupada.

Ramesvara: Now they have designed these buildings so that many of them have fountains and big courtyards, and you can walk from one street to the other by going through the center of the building.

Prabhupada: Accha.

Ramesvara: And in the middle of the courtyard they have this crazy sculpture. All over the city. [break]

Tamala Krsna: ...some of our artists make big sculpture out of metal?

Prabhupada: Hmm? No. That's not possible.

Tamala Krsna: Philosophically not possible?

Prabhupada: No, practically.

Tamala Krsna: Because some of our men here who have helped to make this wall, the front wall of the temple that we're making in front of the Deities, they are artists, and they have the ability to cast large... They've done this previously,

Prabhupada: Let them do some small first of all.

Tamala Krsna: And show you.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamala Krsna: All right. They say that they can do it very easily.

Ramesvara: What will it look like?

Tamala Krsna: Well, we can do anything.

Prabhupada: Three, three foot, four foot [indistinct].

Tamala Krsna: Yeah, that's the first thing. First thing we're going to cast is Panca-tattva for installation.

Prabhupada: Yes. But it must be very nice, just like in Jaipur they have made those.

Ramesvara: You have to find a material which is strong and light so you can ship it easily to the temples.

Tamala Krsna: Brass.

Ramesvara: Or plexiglass even. Or fiberglass I mean, fiberglass.

Tamala Krsna: Asta-dhatu.

Pusta Krsna: Eight metals.

Tamala Krsna: Just like they are in India.

Ramesvara: Oh, you mean for Deities. Deities are different. I thought you meant art for the temple rooms. [end]