Blog

After breakfast, reporters from The New Zealand Herald, The Auckland Star and the local TV station came for an interview with Srila Prabhupada. While they were setting up their lights, cameras and microphones, Prabhupada read through the mail.

A Herald reporter started the proceedings by asking some standard questions: Had Srila Prabhupada been to New Zealand before? How many disciples did he have? How many centres were there? Prabhupada obligingly replied to them all.

"Are you concerned with the increasing number of gurus and svamis throughout the world?"

Prabhupada wasn't. "We are concerned that in spite of so-called education and advancement of civilisation, people have been kept in darkness about real knowledge. So it is our little attempt to awaken them to the real platform of knowledge."

"Well, what do you hope to achieve by your short visit here to New Zealand, where you don't have a very big following at all?"

"Just to encourage my disciples. They're also trying their best to spread this Krsna consciousness movement. So if I occasionally visit, they become encouraged."

The reporter wanted to know what Prabhupada thought about the New Zealand cities that were passing by-laws that sought to ban street chanting. "Do you get much opposition like this?" he asked.

"Yes. But we don't depend on the city authorities; we depend on Krsna."

"But doesn't it worry you that your disciples perhaps annoy city officials by their chanting and their activities in the streets?"

Prabhupada answered the man's question with another. "The city authorities, they like our chanting?"

The reporter shook his head.

Pusta Krsna spoke up, clarifying the issue. "No, but they don't really understand what we're trying to do. They see it as something new, and they may feel a little threatened. We've found all over the world, though, that people are beginning to understand the character of people that we're developing."

"How long do you intend to keep travelling?" asked the reporter, changing the subject.

"If I stayed four days in each centre, it takes one year to travel to all the centres."

"Do you have a home?"

Prabhupada smiled: "I have 102 houses, but nowhere am I allowed to live. That is the difficulty." This endearing comment made both the devotees and press men laugh.

Another reporter asked, "How old are you, Swami?"

Prabhupada grinned. "What do you think? When one becomes old? Do you know?"

The reporter didn't catch Prabhupada's philosophical point. "Well, how many years do you have?"

"I am eighty years."

"And how long have you been a Hare Krsna man?"

"Ten years. I began this movement when I was seventy years old."

"What were you before that?"

"I was a householder. And I retired and was living in Vrndavana, a holy place in India. My guru maharaja asked me to do this. So I could not begin earlier. So I thought it wise to begin at seventy years. So somehow or other, Krsna has given us some opportunity to get co-operation of these young boys and they're helping me."


- From "The Great Transcendental Adventure" by HG Kurma Prabhu