Prabhupāda had the devotees that were in early ISKCON in the '70s come to Māyāpur, and Vṛndāvana and sometimes, Jagannātha Purī on the way between the two. And he invited the devotees from all over the world. He said all of you should come here and meet with me here in Māyāpur. And he said we should discuss unity in diversity. We'd have kīrtanas. And Prabhupāda said that should be the time of discussion here in Māyāpur. It was a time when, in a fledgling movement, devotees from all over the world who were preaching in various countries would come together and meet one another and discuss how it was going in various places.

In the afternoon, we go from the temple such that it was the living facilities here were very rough. If you think that your room is a little simple. I hate to tell these back-when-I-was-a-boy stories, but the room I stayed in as a brahmacārī was on the wall that was the simplest of dwellings because there weren't enough rooms. The wall was there, and they just weaned some plywood off of the wall and then cut a little hole so we could get in there. The floor was dirt. There was no latrine at all, just a big pit in the middle of the field with a kind of a fence around it. And water, there was no although were the pumps. There was no drinking water, there was no shower, there was no hot water, there was no bottled water. That didn't come until much later in the '80s here in India. And nonetheless, Prabhupāda pushed on.

He invited everyone to come here because he saw that the essence was to come together, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and discuss how we can cooperate. One of his main points was to spread the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, and devotees would come here and discuss and hear how one another were doing in the daytime. Everyone would go to the Ganges, and it wasn't as far away as it is now, but there you could walk up and down the Ganges, and every one of the leaders from different parts of the world would be sitting, and then there would be a circle of devotees around that leader all the way up the Ganges. And there'd be classes going on, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or Bhagavad Gītā discussion.

And then in the morning, Prabhupāda would give class in the temple that's there now. And in the evening, he would give darśana in these rooms. And many devotees would come and crowd in the rooms. And one evening, while we were in there and the darśana was over, one of my godbrothers, who I partnered with on book distribution, kept inviting everybody else to go out first because he had a plan that he was going to meet Prabhupāda. And when everyone was gone, he turned around and went back to Prabhupāda and asked him a question that a lot of devotees had, which is, should I live in the West, or should I move here to the dhāma? And Prabhupāda said that the West is for preaching or for sense gratification. And his indication was, if you're going to the West, then you should go there to preach. Otherwise, you will just be engulfed by sense gratification.

You notice that in Prabhupāda's bedroom, he has a picture of Śrī Śrī Rādhā Govinda. Those are the deities in Brooklyn. Prabhupāda, although he was in Māyāpur, he was thinking about Rādhā Govinda every night before he took rest. But there's a section that one of my godbrothers pointed out with how he had mentioned how he was thinking about the project in New York, that he had Rādhā Govinda on the wall, but it's not retrofit. This is not a new thing that somebody put Rādhā Govinda on the wall. Those deities were on his wall when he was here.

So although Prabhupāda was in the dhāma, he was thinking about the West, and he was thinking about how to expand the project.

(excerpt from the talk)

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Add to your wisdom literature collection:

https://www.bbtacademic.com/books/ (USA only)

https://thefourquestionsbook.com/