We just would like to see that the leaders of human society are enlightened personalities

Balavanta das: I was in Atlanta. It was summertime, I remember that, and I was walking up the street and a devotee opened the window and stuck his head out and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Balavanta, Prabhupada's on the phone!" which was just the shock of my life. So I ran with wings on my feet up and got the phone. It wasn't actually Prabhupada on the phone, it was his secretary on the phone at his request, Prabhupada was in the room, and the secretary said, "Prabhupada wants to know if you can come to New York right away." I said, "Of course." So I dropped everything and went and got on the plane and flew to New York, and Prabhupada wanted to discuss politics.

Actually what happened is I wrote to him and suggested that I could run for mayor of Atlanta, it would be a good preaching platform, and he wrote back with the most overwhelming enthusiasm I'd ever experienced. I took one step to him, he took a hundred steps to me. But the broad discussion, all I remember is basically he said, "So what do they say about our program?" I said, "Prabhupada, they say it is not practical." He says, "Yes, it is not practical because they will not accept it. If they would accept it, it would be very practical."

We were discussing the In God We Trust Party and a devotee said, "Prabhupada, when we take over the government, we'll outlaw all these religions." Prabhupada, "No, why? We only want to see that they are following their religion." Srila Prabhupada was not for one religion taking over the government. He fully supported freedom of religion. In fact, he made it clear many times and told us that "This is not a religion. This is a process of spiritual realization which is applicable to any religion." So he made it very clear that in terms of politics we're not interested in changing people's religion or taking over the government for one religion as opposed to another religion. We just would like to see that the leaders of human society are enlightened personalities, whatever religion they come from, and the Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam and the chanting of Hare Krishna facilitates that process.