Devotees success in book distribution after wearing dhoti and kurta

Mahatma: In 1972 the devotees on book distribution started wearing karmi clothes, mainly because they were getting kicked out of malls. They thought that if they wore Western dress they won't be noticed, and then they found that they did better wearing Western dress. A controversy arose about whether or not we should do this. A lot of devotees, like me, who had been doing straight preaching, resented wearing karmi clothes, although we did it.

During the 1973 marathon, a group of us in San Diego decided we would go out in dhotis and kurtas, and the women would go in saris. We felt that if we had faith and purity, we would be successful, and we started getting very good results. We were ecstatic, and we thought, "Just see, you don't need to wear Western dress. That's a compromise. It's watered down preaching for weaker devotees who don't have faith." We felt proud and self-righteous to be the pure ones, and we were very excited to write a letter to Prabhupada telling him of our success. We thought Prabhupada would appreciate it and tell all the other devotees not to wear Western dress.

But Prabhupada, knowing everything, being expert, replied, "Yes, if you do not feel comfortable in Western dress, then you can wear a dhoti." He shattered our false pride. You would think it would be the other way, that "If you don't feel comfortable in a dhoti, you can wear Western dress," but Prabhupada said, "If you don't feel comfortable in Western dress, I've no objection; you can wear a dhoti." We were flattened. Our egos were popped. Prabhupada knew the mentality of the devotees. He was so expert that he would say just the right thing to the right person.