Kern: When did you begin, Your Excellency?
Prabhupāda: I began.... What do you mean by beginning? My beginning is from my childhood.
Kern: The Kṛṣṇa movement, in the Kṛṣṇa movement.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa movement I started 1966.
Kern: '66.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Kern: In the West? In California?
Prabhupāda: Here in your America.
Scheverman: America. I would like perhaps to hear some of your thoughts on the area of religious experience, God consciousness, how do you achieve that?
Prabhupāda: I wrote one letter to your secretary.
Mādhavānanda: The President?
Prabhupāda: Yes. (to devotee) What is the purport? You just explain.
Hari-śauri: Prabhupāda wrote that on the bills, the monetary, on the coins or whatever, they put "In God We Trust," but actually no one understands. If you want to trust someone, then you have to know who that person is, you have to know that he's actually trustworthy. So he was asking that we could cooperate together, the American government and our movement, and we could train people practically how to trust God, like that. So Prabhupāda sent that letter. But that was a month ago, and there's still no reply.
Scheverman: To the Secretary of the Treasury? Is that it?
Devotees: The Secretary of the President.
Scheverman: The President, White House Secretary, his personal secretary.
Hari-śauri: So far, after one month, there's no reply.
Scheverman: Bureaucracy. We have lots of that. You may get a reply, and then again you may not. You'll get a reply, but it would be very general I presume, originally. It's a good idea.
Prabhupāda: No, I think that for the welfare of the whole human society.... America is opulent. They can start, that here is a college for training first-class men. Here is a college for training second-class men, and here is a college for third-class men, and balance fourth class. Fourth-class man doesn't require any training. They are simply to help the first class, second class, third class.