October 31. ISKCON 50 – S.Prabhupada Daily Meditations.
Prabhupada’s mission was really not yet underway. He was confined to a windowless chamber in a hatha yoga studio and was not allowed to preach to Dr. Mishra’s students. He knew he needed a place of his own, but he had no money. So far his only plan was to write to wealthy patrons in India. He had located a building on 72nd Street which he thought was suitable and was relatively inexpensive considering Manhattan real estate – even in 1965 the price was one hundred thousand dollars with a twenty thousand dollar cash down payment. Prabhupada thought that if he could get the twenty thousand dollars from India, he could move in, open the doors, start regular programs of kirtan, lecturing and prasadam distribution and the Americans would come forward and donate enough to pay the monthly mortgage payments. It was a little far-fetched to think he would immediately have enough funds to provide immediate ample prasadam distribution and quickly develop a supporting congregation to pay the mortgage. So far he had not found any supporters in America, but then he had not yet been able to preach to them and show the worth of his mission. The proceeds from the sales of the Srimad-Bhagavatam in the bookstores he had placed them in were negligible. Although he had not yet received any favorable responses from the correspondence he had sent to patrons in India – it was hard enough to get any response from them – he cancelled his plan to return immediately to India and went ahead and extended his visa to stay in America.
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