Interviewer: What impelled you personally, when you, at a fairly late stage in life, to come to the West and teach?
Prabhupāda: I must be prepared to teach. Teaching is not so easy thing. I was ordered to teach at the age of twenty-five years by my Guru Mahārāja. But I was finding out the opportunity how to take up the work. So it took me so many years, so that at seventy years I came out for teaching.
Interviewer: Why particularly in the West?
Prabhupāda: Because my Guru Mahārāja ordered that "You go and teach this gospel in the Western world."
Devotee: His teacher instructed him to do this.
Interviewer: Yes. And are you surprised at the great success you've had?
Prabhupāda: That is my Guru Mahārāja's blessings. He ordered me, I tried my best, so there is little success. When I see so many boys and hundreds of centers, they are living very peacefully in a nice house, getting good prasādam, having good knowledge in the books, and reforming their character and getting some good home, that is my success. Otherwise, they are loitering—no home, no character, no peace of mind. So at least this is my success. I have given so many boys a life. That is my success.
(Srila Prabhupada Newspaper Interview, London, July 23, 1976)
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