Excerpt from a morning walk conversation with His Divine Grace in New York on July 12, 1976.
Tamala Krsna: This is Seventy-second Street, Prabhupada.
Prabhupada: Yes, I know.
Tamala Krsna: You were going to show us that building.
Prabhupada: Yes. Just on the corner of Amsterdam and Seventy-second.
Tamala Krsna: That means next street.
Ramesvara: They say when you go to the spiritual kingdom, you keep your same wife and your same children. That is their idea of marriage.
Prabhupada: This is Amsterdam?
Tamala Krsna: No, Columbus Avenue. Next is Amsterdam.
Devotee (1): You walked here, srila Prabhupada?
Ramesvara: Right here is number one hundred.
Prabhupada: Here is.
Devotee (1): There is one hundred.
Tamala Krsna: That's the building, Prabhupada?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Devotee (1): It says "Watergate." Watergate Hotel.
Tamala Krsna: Which floor did you live on?
Prabhupada: And I was trying to purchase one house here.
Tamala Krsna: Which floor did you live on, Prabhupada?
Prabhupada: I think third floor. And there was an electrician, he was my friend, one Jewish gentleman.
Devotee (1): You would walk on this street?
Prabhupada: Yes. There is one building with temperature, a gauge? Here it is. This is Broadway. I was taking bath here in a station. Sometimes I was taking the station(?)... I think this building is new. I was going to Dr. Mishra's apartment for cooking.
Tamala Krsna: What street did he live on?
Prabhupada: He... Seventy-eighth. The Riverside corner. Yes, I was purchasing my goods from this store.
Devotee (1): Westend Superette.
Prabhupada: They were charging, a little chili powder, twenty-five cents. In India it may be one anna.
Tamala Krsna: You were purchasing here.
Prabhupada: Yes, because I was going to cook my food there, so whatever I needed, I used to...
Tamala Krsna: How come you didn't cook your food where you were living?
Prabhupada: Huh? There was no place.
Tamala Krsna: What was it like there?
Prabhupada: It was an office room. That building is meant for office, not for residences.
Tamala Krsna: You rented a room there?
Prabhupada: Yes, I was paying seventy-two dollars a month.
Tamala Krsna: And where did you sleep? Was there a bed?
Prabhupada: No, there was bed. There is toilet and water, but no bath and no cooking.
Devotee (1): Did you have to go there to bathe also?
Prabhupada: Yes, I was taking bathing there.
Tamala Krsna: Where did you... Did you sleep on the floor?
Prabhupada: Yes, I had little platform. So on that platform...
Tamala Krsna: You are the most bold person in the whole world, Prabhupada.
Devotee (1): We will never be able to do what you have done.
Prabhupada: Alone I was doing that. And then gradually one or two boys began to come.
Tamala Krsna: Did any of them come up here who are still with you now?
Prabhupada: No.
Tamala Krsna: Only when you went downtown did the permanent men come. No one was visiting you up here? Hayagriva?
Prabhupada: No, they came there, Second Avenue.
Prabhupada: All of them.
Rupanuga: That's amazing. How long were you there, Srila Prabhupada?
Prabhupada: Here? About six months. Then when my things were stolen, then one boy was coming, his name was Paul Murray, he invited me that "You come to my loft." He took me to Bowery Street.
Devotee (1): I met that boy in Amherst. He has a boutique; he sells clothing.
Tamala Krsna: You must have felt very bad when your things were stolen.
Prabhupada: Yes, I felt little disappointed. But some friends, they offered me, "Never mind, you take my typewriter," somebody, "You take my tape recorder."
Tamala Krsna: Oh. Things were very easy here.
Hari-sauri: Not easy.
Radhavallabha: Krsna always provides facilities.
Prabhupada: So there was no difficulty. I got from other friends.
Tamala Krsna: So when you moved down to the loft...
Prabhupada: That boy, I gave him, Haridasa, who was in San Francisco?
Prabhupada: So this Paul Murray... Haridasa left New York, he went to San Francisco. His name was something else. What is this?
Tamala Krsna: It's a steel factory. This is near the Ratha-yatra carts.
Prabhupada: Oh. Steel factory, but very good house?
Hari-sauri: Paul Murray, he was the boy that went crazy?
Prabhupada: Yes, he was LSD man.
Tamala Krsna: LSD man. He tried to attack you.
Prabhupada: Not attack, but he showed some ferocious mood. I thought...
Devotee (1): Very dangerous.
Tamala Krsna: So you thought to leave right away.
Prabhupada: Yes, immediately.
Tamala Krsna: You took all your things and went away.
Prabhupada: Yes, I kept with Mukunda.
Tamala Krsna: And that boy was keeping meat in his refrigerator?
Prabhupada: No, that is another boy, Yeargen.
Tamala Krsna: John Yeargens?
Prabhupada: He's black.
Tamala Krsna: You were staying with him?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Tamala Krsna: Wow. Your Godbrothers could never believe this. (laughter)
Devotee (1): So at that time you did not think that anyone would accept your philosophy.
Prabhupada: That I was certain. At the beginning I was...
Ramesvara: Prabhupada was certain that they would accept.

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