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Śrīla Prabhupāda Līlambṛta
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Volume 5 — Let There Be a Temple
<< 38 No One Listens to a Poor Man >>
 | FROM 1965 UNTIL 1970 Śrīla Prabhupāda had concentrated mainly on reestablishing Kṛṣṇa consciousness in America. His plan had been that if the Americans turned to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the rest of the world would follow. Although his preaching to the English-speaking people had begun in India, some sixty years of singlehanded endeavor there had convinced him that Indians were either too absorbed in politics, too ignorant of their spiritual heritage, or too crippled by poverty to seriously accept Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore he had not been successful.
| | | But in the United States success had come. Clearly, America was the prime field for implanting Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Yet Prabhupāda found the West uncultured and uncivilized. If a trace of civilization remained anywhere, he would often say, it was in India, the heart of the original Vedic culture.
| | | By 1970 he had demonstrated through his extensive traveling and preaching that he intended to establish the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement not only in the U.S. but all over the world – especially in India. Even accepting that preaching in the United States and preaching in India were equally important, still the preaching in the United States was going well without Prabhupāda’s constant, direct management; what he had begun, his American disciples could continue.
| | | But in India Prabhupāda could not allow his disciples to manage ISKCON. He saw how often and how easily the Indians were able to cheat his disciples. Half of ISKCON’s work in India was being spoiled, he said, due to his disciples’ being cheated. If they put on a paṇḍāl program, they might end up paying several times the standard cost. The only way for ISKCON to develop in India would be under Prabhupāda’s direct management.
| | | Beginning in 1970 with a small band of American disciples, Prabhupāda had traveled from place to place in India as a model sannyāsī, opening a great new field for ISKCON. Now he wanted to construct big temples in India – three in particular: one in Vṛndāvana, one in Māyāpur, and one in Bombay. As early as 1967 he had attempted to make an “American House” for his disciples in Vṛndāvana. Māyāpur, being the birthplace of Lord Caitanya, was especially important. And Bombay was India’s major city, “the gateway to India.” As with most of Prabhupāda’s big plans, even his closest disciples couldn’t fully comprehend the scope of his vision. But Prabhupāda knew what he wanted, and he knew it all depended on Kṛṣṇa. Gradually he began to unfold his plans.
| | | Temple construction, he said, was secondary to book publication and distribution. But Kṛṣṇa consciousness must run on two parallel lines, just as a train runs on two rails. One rail was bhāgavata-mārga; the other, pañcarātrikī viddhi. Bhāgavata-mārga referred to the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, hearing and chanting about Kṛṣṇa and disseminating the message of Kṛṣṇa. The second rail, pañcarātrikī viddhi, referred to the rules and regulations for worshiping the Deity in the temple. Of the two, bhāgavata-mārga was the more important.
| | | Although great liberated souls like Haridāsa Ṭhākura could remain in perfect Kṛṣṇa consciousness simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa constantly, Prabhupāda knew that his disciples, with their restless natures and past sinful habits, needed the special purification of worshiping the Lord in the temple. Therefore, one of his reasons for wanting to establish temples in India was to purify his disciples by giving them elaborate Deity worship.
| | | Temples, however, were also for preaching. “No one listens to a poor man,” Prabhupāda would say. And he therefore wanted to construct palatial buildings, to attract the masses to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Especially he wanted this in India, where the tradition of temple worship still existed. Building temples and worshiping the Deity was secondary to publishing and distributing books, but it was not to be neglected. Prabhupāda prepared to give temple construction in Māyāpur, Vṛndāvana, and Bombay as much of his attention as necessary.
| | | Bombay, November 1971
| | | For a year the devotees had been living at the Akash Ganga address, two apartments on the seventh floor of a building in the heart of Bombay. But Prabhupāda was not satisfied with this. He wanted land in Bombay, to build on and to expand. He was determined. Instead of his usual morning walks, he would take long rides in his car to observe various parts of the city.
| | | Because many of the ISKCON life members lived in aristocratic Malabar Hill, Prabhupāda’s disciples thought it a good place for a temple. On several occasions Prabhupāda rode to the top of Malabar Hill and walked around various properties, considering certain large buildings as possible temples. But for one reason or another he judged them all unacceptable.
| | | Then in November, a Mr. N. offered to sell ISKCON five acres in Juhu, practically on the shore of the Arabian Sea. As soon as Śrīla Prabhupāda approached the land, he remembered having seen and considered it years before. In August of 1965, during the weeks just before he had left for America, he had been staying at Scindia Colony. In the evenings he had gone to the home of Scindia Steamship Company owner Mrs. Sumati Morarji in Juhu, where he had read and explained Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam for her and her guests. Several times he had passed this very property and had thought what a good location it would be for an āśrama and a Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temple. Although his attention had been absorbed in the task of leaving India, he had still considered the Juhu land. Now he was again in Juhu, reconsidering the same land he had noticed years before. He took it as a reminder from Kṛṣṇa.
| | | The land was overgrown with tall grasses and bushes, and many coconut palms stood throughout. In the back of the property were several tenement buildings. The land bordered on Juhu Road, the main traffic artery back to Bombay, eighteen miles to the south. A broad expanse of beach on the Arabian Sea was a brief walk away.
| | | The location was good – peaceful, yet not remote. Several five-star hotels bordered the nearby beach, and developers were beginning work on other hotels and apartment buildings. When Prabhupāda walked along the beach, he liked even more the idea of buying the land. Rich men had weekend homes on the beach, and thousands of Bombayites would be out enjoying the beach on Sundays. Daily, hundreds of Juhu residents used the long, broad seashore for morning walks before going to work. Almost always people were strolling or gathering there, and yet the beach was clean. The mild waves and open skies were inviting. The locale was ideal not only for hotels, but for a Kṛṣṇa conscious center.
| | | Prabhupāda wanted the Juhu land, and although his disciples continued to show him houses in Malabar Hill, he didn’t change his mind. His disciples wanted whatever he wanted, yet they had trouble developing enthusiasm for a property so far from the city and with no available housing or temple facility.
| | | Mr. N., the owner of the five-acre plot, had set a reasonable price and seemed friendly and sincere. Yet risks were involved in such transactions, and in this case, Prabhupāda even found reasons for suspicion. Through his lawyer, he learned that Mr. N. had previously entered into an agreement to sell this same land to the C. Company but had later cancelled the agreement. The C. Company had then filed a suit against Mr. N. for breach of contract. If the Bombay High Court decided in the C. Company’s favor, the land would be awarded to them. When Prabhupāda’s secretary questioned Mr. N. about this entanglement, Mr. N. assured him the C. Company could not win the suit, but that in any case, ISKCON could withhold a certain portion of their payment until the litigation with C. was settled.
| | | Mr. N. was a well-known figure in Bombay. Formerly the sheriff of Bombay (an honorary judicial police position), he was now publisher-editor of one of the largest daily English newspapers in Bombay. He was wealthy, owning several properties in Juhu and Bombay, and influential – not a man one would want to oppose. To purchase the Juhu land under the present circumstances required boldness.
| | | In late December Prabhupāda met with Mr. and Mrs. N. at their home in the Theosophical Colony in Juhu. Mr. N.’s home was on the beach, and thus the visit afforded Prabhupāda another opportunity to appreciate the value and beauty of Juhu Beach, with its border of palms leaning toward the sea. The Theosophical Colony was a private neighborhood of attractive homes with luxuriant lawns and flower gardens and many exotic birds. Ashoka trees grew on either side of Mr. N.’s driveway, and a line of palm trees, standing just inside the massive stone wall, encircled the property. A gardener opened the gate for Prabhupāda and the few disciples with him.
| | | Mr. N. was a short, stocky man with a receding hairline. His hair was clipped short, and his round face was pockmarked. He appeared to be in his fifties. Mrs. N. had a fair complexion and, unusual for an Indian, wore her hair short. Prabhupāda had brought flower garlands and prasādam from the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities of ISKCON Bombay, and these he offered to Mr. and Mrs. N. Mr. N. invited his guests to sit with him and his wife on the front porch, which faced a picturesque garden.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda openly expressed his appreciation of the Juhu land but admitted he had very little money. Mr. N., however, seemed inclined toward Prabhupāda and said he wanted to sell him the property. Quickly they reached a verbal agreement. To Mrs. N., however, the agreement seemed too liberal. But when she objected, her husband overruled her.
| | | Prabhupāda and Mr. N. agreed on a down payment of 200,000 rupees; after making the down payment, ISKCON would immediately receive the conveyance. ISKCON would pay the remaining balance of 1,400,000 rupees later, in regular installments. Prabhupāda negotiated further regarding the down payment, offering to pay 50,000 rupees now and another 50,000 later, at which time ISKCON would be allowed to move onto the land. As soon as they paid the remaining 100,000 rupees, the down payment would be complete, and Mr. N. would give them the deed. Mr. N. agreed.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda was always one to think carefully over such business transactions. He had said that if a businessman tells you, “Sir, for you I am making no profit,” you should know he is lying. Therefore, even in ISKCON’s early days in New York City, when the real estate shark Mr. Price had posed as a well-wisher of the devotees, Prabhupāda had been suspicious. Mr. Price had, in fact, cheated the devotees, despite Prabhupāda’s warnings to them. Now, as then, Prabhupāda was suspicious. But he wanted the Juhu land and would take the risk.
| | | Prabhupāda had taken similar chances. At Jhansi in 1953 he had occupied a building, although he had had little legal standing or financial security. And in his first storefront in New York, as well as in his largest building to date, the Watseka Avenue church in Los Angeles, he had moved in without assurance of the monthly payments. Practically the entire success of his movement had come by his taking one risk after another for Kṛṣṇa. When the devotees in Boston had written to Prabhupāda that they had rented a big house for one thousand dollars a month, calculating that they would be able to make the payments by dramatically increasing their Back to Godhead sales, Prabhupāda had approved and had even commended their example to others. So if some risks were involved in Bombay, that was only natural.
| | | Once committed to the land, Prabhupāda began to unfold his vision for a grand project in Bombay. On December 22 he wrote to Yamunā,
| | | “Here in Bombay we have got good prospects to purchase a very large land in Juhu for very cheap price, just in the middle of a rich neighborhood. We shall build our camp there and begin constructing a temple immediately, and later on we shall develop a large hotel and school. There is also a chance of getting a nice bungalow in Bombay city also. So in general we shall make our headquarters in Bombay, and also build up Vrindaban and Mayapur.”
| | | While devotees around the world delighted to hear Prabhupāda’s plan for a Bombay center, devotees in Bombay had mixed feelings. To envision a temple rising from what was little more than a jungle tract was not easy. Nor was it easy to envision the five-star ISKCON hotel Prabhupāda spoke of. The tenement buildings in the rear of the land were fully occupied, and according to Indian law, the tenants could not be removed. If the devotees moved onto the land, they would have to erect temporary housing, maybe even a temporary temple, and the land was mosquito-ridden and teeming with rats. Juhu was a small, almost isolated neighborhood, without wealthy ISKCON supporters. Although Prabhupāda (and land speculators) predicted that Juhu would grow, at present it was only a village of about two thousand. To reside at Juhu would be a drastic contrast to the comfortable Akash Ganga Building in downtown Bombay.
| | | Tamāla Kṛṣṇa explained to Prabhupāda, We are Westerners. We cannot live like this. We need doorknobs and running water.
| | | “Don’t you want to become purified?” Prabhupāda replied.
| | | When the Bombay devotees learned of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s response to Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, the words Don’t you want to become purified? went deep into their hearts. They knew that Prabhupāda was asking them to become more austere, and that it was for their ultimate benefit. They began to regard moving to Juhu as a formidable spiritual challenge rather than a drudgery. Developing the Juhu property was important to their spiritual master, and it was something greater and more wonderful than they at present realized.
| | | Prabhupāda knew he was asking his disciples to make a great sacrifice, but he could not avoid it. To preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness, a devotee had to be prepared to tolerate many difficulties. And whatever difficulties he was asking his disciples to undertake, he was prepared to undertake to a much greater degree himself. On the one hand, he didn’t think that living on the undeveloped Juhu property would be too difficult for his disciples, provided they maintained cleanliness and chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa. Yet he knew that because they were Westerners, they would find it hard.
| | | A preacher, nevertheless, had to make sacrifices – not artificially or arbitrarily, but to expand the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Sometimes serving Kṛṣṇa was pleasurable, sometimes difficult. In either case, a devotee had but to do the needful, acting as a menial servant of the spiritual master.
| | | Prabhupāda counseled his Bombay disciples, impressing on them his vision for ISKCON Bombay. Although all of them were ready to follow his decision, some of them had been feeling doubtful and weakhearted. Seeing their spiritual master’s commitment to the project, however, they vowed to give up their separatist mentalities. Prabhupāda then left for Jaipur, for a week’s preaching engagement at the Rādhā-Govinda temple.
| | | Jaipur, January 12, 1972
| | | Jaipur is an ancient city in the state of Rajasthan. Occasionally some of Prabhupāda’s disciples would go there to purchase marble Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities for ISKCON temples in India and around the world. The devotees in ISKCON centers in Detroit, Toronto, Dallas, as well as throughout Europe, wanted to install Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities and, with Śrīla Prabhupāda’s permission, were ordering mūrtis from Jaipur.
| | | On such an errand two women, Kauśalyā and Śrīmatī, had gone to Jaipur in January of 1972 on behalf of the New York City temple. When a government official had discovered Śrīmatī wasn’t carrying her passport, the officials, suspicious of spies due to the war with Pakistan, had insisted the women stay in town until Śrīmatī’s passport arrived in the mail. Meanwhile, the girls had daily visited the Govindajī temple and had sometimes held kīrtana in the street in front of the temple. They had had daily talks with P. K. Gosvāmī, who was in charge of the temple, as well as Jaipur businessmen and other respectable citizens (almost everyone in Jaipur regularly visits the beloved Deities of Rādhā-Govinda).
| | | The citizens of Jaipur had been moved by the devotion of Prabhupāda’s two disciples, and when one of the men had asked, “What can we do to help your movement?” the girls had replied, “Bring Śrīla Prabhupāda here.” Some of Jaipur’s prominent citizens had devised a plan to share expenses and responsibilities in arranging a paṇḍāl program, and the two women had sent a letter to Prabhupāda in Bombay, inviting him to come and preach. He had agreed.
| | | At Śrīla Prabhupāda’s request, devotees from Delhi and other Indian centers came to Jaipur to join him. Prabhupāda took a small room within the Govindajī temple compound, and his disciples moved into a nearby house.
| | | Prabhupāda liked the location. The only disturbance was the many monkeys – large, charcoal-faced monkeys with long curling tails. Climbing through the trees and across the rooftops, they would scamper down unexpectedly to steal whatever they could. The women cooking for Prabhupāda were exasperated by the monkeys’ bold forays to steal vegetables from the kitchen, even capātīs right off the fire, and they complained to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
| | | Neither be their friends nor their enemies, Prabhupāda advised. If you make friends with them, they will simply be a nuisance. If you become their enemies, they will become very vindictive. Just maintain a neutral position.
| | | The monkeys, however, continued to raid the kitchen. Again the cooks complained to Prabhupāda. Yes, Prabhupāda said, if you want to stop the monkeys, then this is what you must do. Purchase one bow and arrow, and shoot a monkey on the top of a tree with the arrow. And then when he falls down, take the monkey and hang him upside down by the legs to a branch of a tree. Next to him you also hang the bow and arrow. This will teach them.
| | | Prabhupāda knew that shooting monkeys was illegal in Jaipur, and he did not expect his disciples to actually shoot them. But he delivered the advice with a serious expression. Indirectly he was advising them not to be so upset over a few monkeys.
| | | Prabhupāda and his disciples immediately joined in the intense devotional atmosphere of Jaipur. Since the Rādhā-Govinda temple was under the jurisdiction of Jaipur’s royal family, to visit the Deity daily was practically required for all citizens. Morning and evening, crowds of enthusiastic worshipers would come and go, worshiping the forms of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa on the altar.
| | | These were Rūpa Gosvāmī’s original Rādhā-Govinda Deities from Vṛndāvana. Almost five hundred years ago, when a Mogul ruler had attacked the Govindajī temple in Vṛndāvana, the king of Jaipur had arranged for the Deities to come to Jaipur. The worshipers at the Rādhā-Govinda Mandira displayed spontaneous excitement in seeing the Deities. They would come forward, crying, “Jayo! Jayo!” “Govinda! Govinda!” And when the curtains were closing, the people would rush forward to catch a last glimpse of the divine forms. Śrīla Prabhupāda avoided the large crowds before the Deity, keeping to his schedule of rising early and translating the Bhāgavatam.
| | | Speaking with Kauśalyā and Śrīmatī, Prabhupāda praised them for having arranged the Jaipur paṇḍāl program. You girls are carrying on Lord Caitanya’s movement so nicely, he said. Just see! Even without husbands, you go on preaching. He said that the Western women were different from Indian women, who simply stayed at home.
| | | Then Prabhupāda discovered that his two women disciples had not actually done a thorough job. Although the paṇḍāl program was to begin in two days, no one had arranged for the large tent to be erected. Prabhupāda said it was not a woman’s nature to do such organizational work. The women became morose to hear him. When they showed him the flyer they had printed advertising the festival, Prabhupāda became angry. It is not standard, he said. It did not say International Society for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, but only A. C. Bhaktivedanta Svāmī and his foreign disciples.
| | | What is this! Prabhupāda shouted.
What, Śrīla Prabhupāda? Kauśalyā asked.
Foreign! Why do you say foreign? It must be ‘American’ and ‘European’. That is what is attractive, that they are American and European. But you are just a woman. What can I expect? The two women began to cry and left the room.
| | | With Śyāmasundara’s help, Kauśalyā and Śrīmatī had new, corrected flyers printed and returned to tell Śrīla Prabhupāda. But now his mood had changed completely. His anger was gone. He was soft; after all, these disciples had tried their best. In a disarming disclosure, he began to explain that to be a spiritual master was difficult.
| | | I chastise you, he said, because it is my duty. Disciple is related to discipline, so it is my duty to my disciples. Otherwise, I am not upset with anyone. I simply do this to discipline you, because you are my disciples. He consoled them, saying they were sincere and lacked expertise because of poor upbringing. The devotees present felt Śrīla Prabhupāda was wonderfully expressing to them a bit of what he, as spiritual master, felt in training them.
| | | In a great last-minute endeavor, the devotees obtained the paṇḍāl and erected it in time for Prabhupāda to begin his program as advertised. On opening day the devotees held a parade through the streets, with Prabhupāda riding in a palanquin, a large embroidered umbrella sheltering his head. Also in the procession were decorated elephants, brass bands, and devotees – Indian, American, and European – performing kīrtana.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda’s first program was in the morning after the darśana of Govindajī, so as to catch the huge morning crowd. People would come hurrying into the temple to see Rādhā-Govindajī and then proceed out into the large Hare Kṛṣṇa paṇḍāl beside the temple. On the opening morning Prabhupāda performed an abhiṣeka ceremony, bathing marble Deities of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. He named these Deities, soon to be shipped to the ISKCON temple in New York, “Rādhā-Govinda.” After one of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciples had performed a fire sacrifice, Prabhupāda lectured to the crowd in Hindi. The schedule for the remaining days would be morning and evening lecture, kīrtana, and prasādam distribution.
| | | While preaching in Jaipur, Śrīla Prabhupāda was simultaneously reflecting on and, through letters to his disciples, acting on matters in many other parts of the world. Although he participated fully, giving two lectures a day, and although he constantly met and interacted with guests, friends, and devotees, he was also absorbed in thoughts of other places and concerns. He was conducting his movement on many fronts. Wherever he happened to be at present was his “camp,” just as a general makes camps in various places while conducting many battles in the overall effort of a war. His preaching in Jaipur, therefore, was only a small fraction of the scope of his worldwide mission.
| | | From Jaipur Prabhupāda wrote his disciples in Calcutta, urging them in their development of the Māyāpur land; he wanted a grand opening ceremony by Lord Caitanya’s birthday in March. Unfortunately, the government was restricting foreigners from entering Nadia, because of its proximity to Bangladesh. Please try very hard to get those permits, Prabhupāda urged his men in Calcutta, as we must be all assembled there for Lord Caitanya’s appearance day. Repeatedly Prabhupāda mentioned his concern over the government’s restricting his men.
| | | I do not think there will be difficulty if we just go there like the ordinary pilgrims and set up our camp there for kirtan continuously. Anyone will see we are only serious devotees of Lord Caitanya and not Pakistani spies.
| | | Prabhupāda wrote ahead to his disciples in Nairobi, driving them onward with his blessings. Continue to work very hard for His pleasure and all of you will go back to home, back to Godhead.
| | | To the San Diego temple president, Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote, “I am very pleased to hear from you that book sales are increasing very fast. I am hearing such good news from all over the Society, and this pleases me more than anything.”
| | | And Prabhupāda was often thinking of the land in Bombay. Sometimes he talked about it or mentioned it in a letter to his representatives there. The Bombay land purchase was still not finalized, and Prabhupāda was particularly anxious that his disciples pay the money as agreed and move immediately onto the land.
| | | Tamāla Kṛṣṇa was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Governing Body Commission secretary for India. Some of the devotees said that actually Prabhupāda was the G.B.C. secretary for India. Although he allowed his secretaries in other parts of the world to manage mostly on their own and to make their own decisions, in India he would scrutinize even small matters and make most of the decisions himself. Still, he counted on Tamāla Kṛṣṇa as his trusted assistant in important dealings. He would send Tamāla Kṛṣṇa from one Indian center to another to help the local devotees with governmental, legal, organizational, or preaching problems.
| | | In Bombay, just prior to coming to Jaipur, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had asked Prabhupāda’s permission to take sannyāsa, the renounced order. Śrīla Prabhupāda had awarded sannyāsa to only a few men, and he had specified their duties as “traveling and preaching.” Taking sannyāsa, therefore, not only meant giving up wife and family but also renouncing managerial posts. At the same time as Prabhupāda had set up his Governing Body Commission, he had also initiated several sannyāsīs, purposefully not appointing any of them, even though they were some of his most able men, as G.B.C. secretaries. The gṛhasthas were to manage the temples as presidents and G.B.C. secretaries, and the sannyāsīs were to travel and preach. Śrīla Prabhupāda, therefore, had to carefully consider whether or not to give Tamāla Kṛṣṇa sannyāsa and thus lose his G.B.C. secretary for India.
| | | On principle, Śrīla Prabhupāda liked the idea of giving Tamāla Kṛṣṇa sannyāsa. If a young man was actually qualified to give up family life and to use his intelligence and energy in preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then Prabhupāda was always ready to encourage it. The world was in dire need of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and even hundreds of sannyāsīs would still not be enough. On these grounds, how could he not appreciate the request of one of his leading disciples to take sannyāsa? But first he would test Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s determination.
| | | Tamāla Kṛṣṇa was insistent. Seeing that Prabhupāda would not make a commitment, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had adopted the tactic of presenting himself before Prabhupāda early in the morning without saying a word. In Bombay he had entered Prabhupāda’s room, led the maṅgala-ārati before the Deities, and then sat silently before Śrīla Prabhupāda.
| | | Knowing the mind of his disciple, Prabhupāda could understand that Tamāla Kṛṣṇa was not only determined but obstinate. After several days of tolerating Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s silent insistent presence every morning, Prabhupāda had finally agreed to consider seriously the request.
| | | Prabhupāda was also concerned with Mādrī-devī dāsī, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s wife. She was an attractive, intelligent girl who had given her life to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, by his own choice, had married her only a year ago. Spiritually, Mādrī was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s daughter, and Prabhupāda wanted to protect her from undue disturbance. Even as householders, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa and his wife had been renounced, traveling with Prabhupāda throughout India, with little time or facility for private life as husband and wife.
| | | Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had been in Bombay when Śyāmasundara had informed him that Prabhupāda had mentioned in a letter to Brahmānanda Svāmī in Africa that Tamāla Kṛṣṇa might take sannyāsa. Spurred on, he had left his wife in Bombay and joined Prabhupāda in Jaipur. On leaving, however, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had asked Mādrī for his personal copies of the first three volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, signed by Śrīla Prabhupāda. Mādrī had become suspicious. She had asked why he wanted them. I just want to read them, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had answered. But she had suspected the worst: No, you’re not coming back. But assuring her that he would definitely be returning, he had left for Jaipur.
| | | Once with Śrīla Prabhupāda, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa again resumed his silent insistence. Whenever there would be an open meeting in Prabhupāda’s room, the G.B.C. leaders would usually sit in a privileged position near Prabhupāda, so as to best receive direct instruction. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, however, would simply sit outside the door. The first time he did this, Prabhupāda looked up and said, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, you are sitting outside? That is very nice, and the other devotees took it that Prabhupāda was praising his disciple’s humility.
| | | When on one occasion Prabhupāda addressed Tamāla Kṛṣṇa as Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, the devotees were startled. The women devotees in Jaipur, being close friends with Mādrī, became angry at what they took to be Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s duplicity.
| | | Although Prabhupāda had not given permission, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa went ahead with his plans, even to the point of preparing his sannyāsa-daṇḍa and dying his clothes. The women were outraged; Mādrī was not even there to represent herself. All together the women went to see Śrīla Prabhupāda, who patiently and sympathetically heard their presentation.
| | | Then Prabhupāda called for Tamāla Kṛṣṇa and said, Your wife is my daughter, my disciple, and I have to think for her also. So I do not know how I can do this, because she will be in great difficulty. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa argued, but Prabhupāda pacified him and asked him to be patient. The sannyāsa issue had become a topic of controversy among the devotees in Jaipur. The men were rooting for sannyāsa, and the women were opposed. Prabhupāda, however, remained grave.
| | | Throughout the week-long festival large crowds continued to come for Prabhupāda’s morning and evening lectures. Prabhupāda would chant prayers from Brahma-saṁhitā and then lecture in Hindi. Not only did the citizens of Jaipur honor Prabhupāda, but they honored his disciples also. Here, more than in most other Indian cities, the devotees were treated not as foreigners or outsiders but as sādhus. This whole city is made of devotees of Rādhā-Govindajī, Prabhupāda commented. The police chief, who visited often, was cordial and respectful. As Prabhupāda and his disciples went from place to place in Jaipur during the day, policemen would salute them, halting traffic to let them pass. People invited Śrīla Prabhupāda to their homes, and they treated him like a king.
| | | Prabhupāda had also asked several women devotees to carefully observe the Deity worship in Jaipur. They informed him they had observed that every night the Deities were dressed in night clothes and that Their clothes were also changed at two other times, in the morning and in the afternoon. The women told Prabhupāda how a priest offered the Deities scented oils on cotton-tipped sticks, which the priests would later offer, along with flower garlands from the Deities, to the incoming worshipers in exchange for fresh garlands. These devotional practices were standard, Prabhupāda said, and could be introduced throughout ISKCON.
| | | Each evening Prabhupāda spoke at the paṇḍāl, and often a respectable Jaipur citizen would introduce him. When the queen of Jaipur introduced him one evening, she expressed her devotional sentiments for Prabhupāda and his movement.
| | | After lecturing each evening, Prabhupāda would stay for a slide show of ISKCON’s activities around the world. One night during the slide show, Śrīla Prabhupāda called Tamāla Kṛṣṇa over beside his vyāsāsana. Taking sannyāsa will be difficult now, he said softly. Your wife will suffer too much. He sat back a moment while Tamāla Kṛṣṇa took in what he had said. Then Tamāla Kṛṣṇa leaned forward and said with determination, One way or another, Śrīla Prabhupāda, she’s going to suffer. Either she’ll suffer now when I take sannyāsa, or if I take sannyāsa later on, she will be just as unhappy. There will never be a time when she’ll want me to. So since the feeling is going to be the same, it might as well come now. Free me. She’ll get over it.
| | | Prabhupāda said no more, but he remained thoughtful. Later that night after the paṇḍāl program, he called for his sannyāsī disciples, Subala, Madhudviṣa, Gargamuni, and Devānanda, and for his personal secretary, Śyāmasundara. Gathering them together along with Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, he said, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa wants to take sannyāsa. So what is your opinion? Should he take or not?
| | | Everyone agreed he should. Finally, Prabhupāda consented. You will have to prepare things, he said.
Things are prepared already, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa said.
Then, said Prabhupāda, tomorrow morning we must have the ceremony.
The next morning Prabhupāda performed a special ceremony in the paṇḍāl, lighting the sacrificial fire and offering Tamāla Kṛṣṇa the sannyāsa-daṇḍa. The women were angry with Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, but it was too late.
| | | After the ceremony Prabhupāda called Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja to his room. You have given up a very good wife and a high position. Therefore I am giving you the title Gosvāmī. Now you have to be in the same mood as the Gosvāmīs, being able to preach all over the world and accept disciples. Suddenly Prabhupāda began to laugh. I have been testing you, he said, to see whether or not you were determined. So what will you do?
| | | I thought I would go with my daṇḍa, said Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī, and, without anybody else, simply wander from city to city in India and preach about Kṛṣṇa, without any vehicle or anything, just like Lord Caitanya did.
| | | Very good, Prabhupāda said. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja offered obeisances and walked out.
| | | Scarcely an hour later, however, Prabhupāda called him back. This is not a very good proposal, he said. If you want to do something, you should have some assistants and facilities at your disposal. Prabhupāda then assigned a couple of brahmacārīs to go with Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja for preaching. He also gave his new sannyāsī his first assignment. Immediately after Jaipur, Prabhupāda was planning to go to a festival in Nairobi, Africa, yet in Ahmedabad another program awaited him. You go on my behalf to Ahmedabad, said Prabhupāda.
| | | At Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī’s sannyāsa initiation, Śrīla Prabhupāda had given him the sannyāsa-mantra, a verse that describes the surrendered, devotional attitude of the Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī. Vaiṣṇava sannyāsa emphasizes engaging one’s body, mind, and words in ecstatic service to Kṛṣṇa, as distinguished from the sannyāsa of the impersonalists, who speculate on Brahman or sit alone in silent meditation. The Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī, by taking shelter of the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, crosses the ocean of nescience and brings others across with him.
| | | As Śrīla Prabhupāda was demonstrating, a Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī should travel all over the world, working with all his might to reclaim the fallen souls on behalf of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Vaiṣṇava sannyāsa meant coming to places like Jaipur and preaching. It meant worshiping Govindajī in the temple, and it meant sending Rādhā-Govinda to be worshiped by the devotees in New York City. It meant allowing women an equal opportunity to become pure devotees in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And it meant separating a man from his wife for the higher purpose of sannyāsa.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda, although beyond the varṇāśrama designation of sannyāsa, was nevertheless the best sannyāsī and the creator of many other sannyāsīs, whom he instructed to follow in his footsteps. He said his sannyāsīs should do even more than he – make more followers, publish more books, and establish more ISKCON centers.
| | | Bombay, January 24, 1972
| | | On returning to Bombay, Prabhupāda was disappointed to find that the devotees had neither paid Mr. N. nor moved to Juhu. Madhudviṣa Svāmī, whom Prabhupāda had put in charge, frankly admitted his inability to accept the responsibility for such a difficult project. The disciple Prabhupāda had originally deputed to handle such affairs was Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja. But now that he had taken sannyāsa, he had renounced his G.B.C. duties for traveling and preaching, and Prabhupāda was without a manager for Bombay. Already Prabhupāda was doing most of the managing, but he couldn’t do everything – he couldn’t stay constantly in Bombay.
| | | Searching for a veteran disciple to manage Juhu, Prabhupāda thought of Brahmānanda Svāmī, who was still preaching in Nairobi. Prabhupāda decided to fly to Africa and invite Brahmānanda Svāmī to come and manage Bombay. He wanted to act swiftly, so that ISKCON could take possession of the land. Even if Mr. N. changed his mind later, once the devotees were living on the land, getting them to leave would be very difficult for him.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda planned to fly to Nairobi immediately, and he wanted to carry large Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities with him. The Deities he had previously sent to Nairobi had been broken in shipping, so this time Prabhupāda brought with him strong-bodied Madhudviṣa Svāmī to carry the thirty-six-inch marble Deities. With special permission from the airlines, Prabhupāda boarded, followed by Madhudviṣa Svāmī, who held in his arms the one-hundred-pound Deity of Kṛṣṇa. After setting Kṛṣṇa in place beside Prabhupāda’s seat, Madhudviṣa Svāmī left the plane and came back carrying Rādhārāṇī.
| | | Prabhupāda passed most of the flight debating with Madhudviṣa Svāmī, who took the position of the impersonalist. Prabhupāda would always defeat him. This is how you become a preacher, Prabhupāda said. You must be able to take both sides of the argument and defeat your adversary. This is what Lord Caitanya would do.
| | | Since Prabhupāda’s first visit to Nairobi four months ago, Brahmānanda Svāmī and a few American devotees had rented a house near the city. They had recruited some African devotees but had not yet developed the temple and āśrama. Barely able to maintain their own simple program, they were unprepared to receive Śrīla Prabhupāda properly.
| | | Typical of Prabhupāda’s stay in Nairobi was his arrival: no one was at the airport to meet him. The devotees were not even sure if Prabhupāda was coming. Prabhupāda’s secretary had phoned Brahmānanda Svāmī that Prabhupāda was willing to come to Kenya but that Brahmānanda Svāmī should try to arrange a meeting with the president and schedule a big paṇḍāl festival. Brahmānanda Svāmī, however, had never received a clear message of when Prabhupāda was coming.
| | | At the airport Prabhupāda and Madhudviṣa Svāmī carefully put the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities into a taxicab and rode with Them to the address of the ISKCON center. Prabhupāda rang the doorbell, and when Brahmānanda Svāmī opened the door and saw his spiritual master, he cried out, “Prabhupāda!” and bowed down.
| | | “What happened?” Prabhupāda asked, standing beside Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. “Why no one came to pick us up at the airport?” Brahmānanda Svāmī was unable to reply.
| | | No sooner did Prabhupāda arrive than his assistant, Madhudviṣa Svāmī, became bedridden with hepatitis. Prabhupāda had left his regular secretary, Śyāmasundara, in India to work on a legal case concerning the Māyāpur land, so he was now without a personal assistant.
| | | In Nairobi Prabhupāda followed his usual schedule of bathing in the afternoon and then putting on fresh clothes, but one day after his bath he found that no clothes were ready. When he asked for them, Brahmānanda Svāmī explained that the African servant had washed them and put them on the line to dry. But when Brahmānanda Svāmī had gone to get them, they hadn’t been there; apparently someone had stolen them from the clothesline. Prabhupāda tolerated the inconvenience without any display of emotion.
| | | That evening, when the devotees of ISKCON Nairobi gathered in the temple to hear Prabhupāda speak from Bhagavad-gītā, Prabhupāda saw the different items of stolen clothing on the African boys; one boy wore the kurtā, another the top piece, and another the dhotī. Prabhupāda pointed this out to Brahmānanda Svāmī, who immediately took the boys out and retrieved the clothing from them. When Brahmānanda Svāmī returned the clothes, Prabhupāda didn’t seem to take the offense seriously, but only laughed.
| | | Prabhupāda did not laugh, however, at the Nairobi devotees’ bad cooking. When they served him white maize mush, he called it pig food, and the hard, white chickpeas, he said, were suitable only for horses. Then Harikṛpā, a black devotee from America, went to the kitchen, boiled some vegetables, and served them to Prabhupāda without any spicing. Prabhupāda called it dog food. You are still an uneducated African, he told Harikṛpā. And he went into the kitchen to cook for himself. Almost a dozen devotees joined him, watching him cook a complete meal of dāl, rice, capātīs, and sabjī. He cooked enough for all the devotees, and everyone was satisfied. Bad cooking and stolen clothing, however, continued to be problems during Prabhupāda’s week-long stay in Nairobi.
| | | Brahmānanda Svāmī found that Prabhupāda was mostly absorbed in his Bombay project. The only reason I’ve come, Śrīla Prabhupāda told Brahmānanda Svāmī, is to get you for this. Once he asked Brahmānanda Svāmī, Which is the most important city in India?
| | | Calcutta? Brahmānanda replied.
Calcutta? Prabhupāda looked at him oddly. Don’t you know Bombay is number one? Delhi is number two, and Calcutta is number three.
| | | Prabhupāda encouraged Brahmānanda Svāmī to return with him and take charge of the Bombay project. This Bombay project, he said, would be unique within ISKCON, incorporating the religious with the cultural in a gorgeous temple, international hotel, theater, and diorama exhibition. Seeing Prabhupāda’s strong desire, Brahmānanda Mahārāja agreed to somehow relinquish his Nairobi responsibilities to others and help in Bombay.
| | | In yet another way Prabhupāda’s visit to Nairobi connected with his Bombay project. When Brahmānanda Svāmī and Cyavana showed Prabhupāda the Nairobi Hilton, a modern building with twin round towers, Prabhupāda liked the design and wanted to give it to his architect for the Bombay hotel and temple.
| | | Prabhupāda, Brahmānanda Svāmī, Bhāgavata, and an African devotee were walking in Nairobi’s public gardens. On being introduced to Prabhupāda, the African had inquired, If I want to, can I get married?
Oh, yes, said Prabhupāda.
But Prabhupāda, the boy continued, if you want to get married in our community, the boy has to pay money to the father of the bride.
| | | This was exactly opposite the Vedic system, Prabhupāda replied, wherein the father of the bride presents a dowry to his son-in-law. Hearing this, Prabhupāda’s new disciple looked worried. He asked, Then, will you give me money when I want to get my wife? Because I’m not working now, I’m just working for you. When I want to get my wife, will you give me money?
| | | Prabhupāda shook his head. You don’t worry about all of this, he said – whether you’ll get a wife, or whether you will get money, or this or that. Later on, when it is time for you to get married, I will bring one American girl, and you will marry her.
| | | Wherever Prabhupāda turned in his fledgling Nairobi temple, he found neophyte disciples and discrepancies. Walking into the brahmacārī āśrama, he found books, boards, and paint cans scattered about the room. When he said things should be kept more neatly and orderly, the temple commander, Harikṛpā, replied, Prabhupāda, I try to tell them, but these boys don’t listen to me.
| | | Prabhupāda bent down and picked up some pieces of wood. If they don’t do it, he said, then you should do it! Put these over here. And Prabhupāda began engaging all the men present. Within five minutes the room was neat.
| | | The World Hare Kṛṣṇa Movement Festival at Nairobi’s City Stadium was a combination success and failure. Although Brahmānanda Svāmī had managed to see many highly posted government officials and diplomats, many of whom had promised to attend the festival, none of them actually appeared – except for Mr. Y. Komora, Kenya’s director of education. But an audience of several hundred attended kīrtana, heard Prabhupāda’s speech, and took prasādam.
| | | Although the devotees had invited the leading Kenyan citizens to enhance the glorification of Kṛṣṇa, their honored guest, Mr. Komora, used the opportunity to speak in praise of Kenya. Nevertheless, he spoke highly of Prabhupāda and the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Regarding Bhagavad-gītā, he said, Your learned founder has made this great book available in the English tradition with an erudite commentary.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda also attended other engagements in and around Nairobi. He told his Nairobi disciples that in preaching to the Africans they should stress the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa by holding public kīrtanas. Lord Caitanya, he said, spoke philosophy only with learned scholars like Sanātana and Rūpa Gosvāmī, never with ordinary men. Just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, he said. This should be appreciated.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda installed the Deities of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and named the Nairobi temple Kirāta-śuddhi, a place for purifying the aborigines. One day shortly after the Deity installation, however, Prabhupāda walked into the temple room and was shocked to find the Deities out of Their proper place in the center of the altar. Kṛṣṇa was standing to the far left beside the bottom step leading up to the altar, and Rādhārāṇī stood to the far right.
| | | Who has done this? Prabhupāda called out loudly. Bhāgavata came running into the temple room. He also was astonished.
Who has put Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa ten miles apart? Prabhupāda demanded. Don’t you know these things? How many times do I have to teach you?
| | | Bhūta-bhāvana suddenly appeared, admitting that he was the culprit. Why are They so far apart? Prabhupāda asked.
I don’t know, Śrīla Prabhupāda, said Bhūta-bhāvana. I guess I just forgot. I was being rushed to go to the festival.
| | | So, Prabhupāda demanded, does that mean They should be put out in the street? Bhūta-bhāvana froze, unable to reply. Prabhupāda relented. Take Them and put Them together, he said. They should not be moved more than three inches apart. Now do it nicely.
| | | After a week Prabhupāda left Nairobi and returned to Bombay. He had gone there to get Brahmānanda Svāmī. And he had accomplished his mission. Unless you agreed to take charge, Prabhupāda said, I could not go ahead and pay so much money. Now it is decided. He felt new hope.
| | | Prabhupāda envisioned his Bombay project as extraordinary within ISKCON and even among all the temples of India. Many of the details of the project already existed within his mind, but he needed competent disciples to carry them out. He was still the lone leader of ISKCON, forging ahead to bring into reality new phases of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. His disciples were behind him, but it was always he who led. Even when he wanted his disciples as leaders of various ISKCON projects, they sometimes could not handle the responsibility. Therefore Śrīla Prabhupāda had gone to Nairobi in the mood of the Bengali aphorism he sometimes quoted: “If you want to accomplish a thing, do it by your own hand.” So by his own hand he had brought Brahmānanda Svāmī from Nairobi to Bombay. And simultaneously he had benefited the devotees and the general populace of Nairobi.
| | | Bombay, February 8, 1972
| | | Prabhupāda met with Mr. N. and reiterated that he wanted to move onto the land as soon as Mr. N. received the second fifty thousand rupees. Mr. N. stood firm on their agreement, and Prabhupāda put the matter into the hands of his lawyer, Mr. D., for legal processing.
| | | Although Prabhupāda was making all the managerial decisions, he wanted the G.B.C. secretaries to take on the responsibility for these practical affairs. He thought it better to use his energy in writing and translating books. If you G.B.C. do everything nicely, he told his secretary Śyāmasundara, then my brain will not be taxed and I can utilize my time completely to produce further books. I can give you Vedas, Upaniṣads, Purāṇas, Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa – so many. There are so many devotional works in our line by the Gosvāmīs. This administrative work is taking too much time. I could be discussing philosophy. My brain is being taxed day and night. Because of this I’m neglecting my real work.
| | | Aside from directly managing the Indian projects, Prabhupāda was answering as many as a dozen letters daily from devotees around the world. Why do they keep writing, asking so many questions? he asked his secretary.
| | | The devotees prefer to ask you personally, Śyāmasundara said, because their G.B.C. men don’t always know the right answer.
| | | They know everything by now, Prabhupāda replied. I have given you everything. If they don’t know the answer, they can find it in my books. Now I am an old man. Let me settle down to philosophy. All day reading letters, doing business, all night signing letters – this is not right. I want to be free from these things. The G.B.C. can do everything now.
| | | But it wasn’t possible. As soon as Prabhupāda would sense that one of his devotees was being cheated, he would immediately become actively involved. And his disciples continued to write him regarding important business and managerial decisions. Nor would he discourage them. His desire for retirement and exclusive literary work remained, but it seemed to be only a wishful thought, a dream. If ISKCON were to develop, then there seemed little scope for his retirement.
| | | After the meeting with Mr. N., Prabhupāda prepared to leave for South India for a five-day paṇḍāl program in Madras; also on his itinerary were visits to Calcutta, Māyāpur, and Vṛndāvana. As he prepared to leave Bombay he felt happy that ISKCON would soon occupy the new Juhu property, and he frequently spoke of his plans.
| | | ISKCON would erect a fabulous temple and form a cooperative housing society of devotees of Kṛṣṇa – the first ISKCON city. Respectable men would purchase flats in ISKCON’s highrise condominium. Devotees would have to become expert to develop and operate such a complex, and as they became successful, they would introduce the same pattern in other cities. Businessmen and professional workers could live as devotees in a co-op society, housing their families and sending their children to an ISKCON school.
| | | Prabhupāda repeatedly talked of constructing an international hotel, somewhat like a Holiday Inn, suitable for foreigners and traveling businessmen, yet reserving a floor for ISKCON life members, who would receive free accommodations. The restaurant would be managed by expert brāhmaṇa cooks, who would prepare dozens of different preparations of sumptuous prasādam. The Deities Rādhā-Rāsavihārī would receive fifty-two offerings daily, and the prasādam would be distributed to residents and guests.
| | | To start things in the right direction, Prabhupāda ordered the devotees to immediately arrange for a ten-day public festival on the new land. First Brahmānanda Svāmī should pay the agreed balance and move onto the land along with all the devotees and the Deities, Rādhā-Rāsavihārī. Then they should prepare a big paṇḍāl tent and arrange a full program as they had previously in Bombay, in Calcutta, and in Delhi. Prabhupāda wanted everything ready for his return in two weeks.
| | | Although, as Prabhupāda would sometimes mention, in South India the original Vedic culture was most intact, he had not been there in several years. Most of the great ācāryas, Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Madhva, had come from South India, and Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, during His own touring, had found South India especially favorable.
| | | Just after the Hare Kṛṣṇa paṇḍāl festival in Delhi, on the eve of Prabhupāda’s first tour of Vṛndāvana with his disciples, back in November of 1971, Acyutānanda Svāmī, Brahmānanda Svāmī, and Girirāja had volunteered to go to Madras to arrange a preaching program for Śrīla Prabhupāda. When Acyutānanda Svāmī had informed Prabhupāda of the plan, Prabhupāda had asked, Oh, you are not going to Vṛndāvana with us?
| | | ISKCON is Vṛndāvana, Acyutananda Svāmī had replied.
Yes, Prabhupāda had said, my Guru Mahārāja used to think like that.
But which do you want us to do? Girirāja had asked. What is the better service?
I want to put on a paṇḍāl in Madras, Prabhupāda had replied. That would be more pleasing.
| | | Madras, February 11, 1972
| | | Prabhupāda, accompanied by twenty disciples, arrived in Madras and immediately took part in a parade through the streets. The parade, led by a decorated elephant and a marching band, followed by the devotees’ kīrtana, featured Prabhupāda riding in an old, flower-covered American limousine.
| | | Prabhupāda stayed as the guest of Mr. Balu, a Madrasi businessman. For three nights in the large hall packed with five thousand people, Prabhupāda lectured in English. One evening he told a story from the Caitanya-caritāmṛta of an illiterate South Indian brāhmaṇa whom Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu recognized for his staunch devotion to his spiritual master and to the Bhagavad-gītā. The next morning and each subsequent morning The Hindu, one of Madras’s two leading newspapers, printed a full summary of Prabhupāda’s lecture. The other principal newspaper gave a more general account of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Svāmī’s arrival and the parade with his Western followers.
| | | The large three-day program was followed by a more select gathering, sponsored by Mr. K. Vira Svāmī, the chief justice of Madras. Attending the function were judges, lawyers, and other leading citizens of the city. Several thousand people gathered beneath the open pavilion as Prabhupāda spoke about Rūpa Gosvāmī and Sanātana Gosvāmī of Vṛndāvana, who had given up their important government positions to join the movement of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Indirectly, Prabhupāda was requesting all the attending leaders of Madras to join the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
| | | Prabhupāda was aware that his audience, although respectful, was steeped in impersonalism – deep-seated conviction that impersonal Brahman was supreme and that all Hindu gods were equal manifestations of the One. And Prabhupāda ended his talk by imploring his audience to accept Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Just repeat, he said, ‘Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.’ His appeal was so urgent and humble that some members of the audience actually repeated aloud, Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Hindu’s editor and publisher, Mr. Kasturi, was in attendance, and he printed a detailed summary of Prabhupāda’s speech in the next day’s paper.
| | | In addition to the usual news coverage, Śrīla Prabhupāda held a press conference at a Madras hotel. Already happy with the press coverage, he appealed further to the roomful of reporters.
| | | Girirāja: Prabhupāda wasn’t speaking to them as if they were newspaper reporters. Usually a newspaper reporter has a stereotyped idea of who he is, and you’re giving an interview, so you have your stereotyped idea of who you are. And you answer his questions, thinking of how it will be published. But I could see that Prabhupāda was speaking to these reporters as spirit souls, as individual persons who are meant to be devotees of Kṛṣṇa. Even though they were addressing him as newspaper reporters, he was answering them in a completely different way. He was encouraging them and saying, “This reporting that you have done is very nice. Kṛṣṇa will bless you. Please help spread this movement.” They were asking questions, thinking of his answers in terms of something to publish in the newspapers. But Prabhupāda took it that they were spirit souls reaching out toward Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and he answered in that way.
| | | Within a few days of Prabhupāda’s arrival, the whole city was feeling the presence of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. Prabhupāda scarcely slept, using the early-morning hours for translating, even after his late-night speaking engagements. He would go from place to place all day with great vitality, outdoing his young followers.
| | | Prabhupāda’s host, Mr. Balu, although a prominent businessman, was also well known as a religious man. He received Prabhupāda warmly and respectfully, according to proper Vedic etiquette. Prabhupāda noted that Mr. Balu had his own temple with beautiful Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities and a large tulasī plant. When the devotees accompanying Śrīla Prabhupāda asked Mr. Balu why the Deities were often dressed in black, he replied that They were so effulgent that if he didn’t dress Them in black he wouldn’t be able to look on Them. He did not make prostrated obeisances to his Deity because he and his wife were Kṛṣṇa’s father and mother, he said, and how can the father pay obeisances to his son?
| | | Prabhupāda and his host related to each other graciously. But one night Mr. Balu and his wife came to Śrīla Prabhupāda and asked him to please speak about the rāsa-līlā(18) of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda replied that the rāsa-līlā, being the most exalted spiritual topic, was meant only for liberated souls. Only one completely free of material desires, Prabhupāda explained, was fit to hear the rāsa-līlā.
| | | No, Svāmīji, Mr. Balu insisted. My wife and I are very keen. You must recite rāsa-līlā.
| | | Again Prabhupāda described the exalted position of the rāsa dance, repeating that only when one is completely free of all material attachments to wife, family, home, and money could he become fit to hear of Kṛṣṇa’s rāsa dance. Mr. Balu then folded his hands and politely repeated, Svāmīji, my wife and I plead with you. Please recite rāsa-līlā.
| | | Then Prabhupāda replied, Well, you may be fit to hear rāsa-līlā, but I do not feel that I am qualified to speak it. So kindly ask someone else.
| | | Prabhupāda met privately with various important citizens of Madras. If the leaders of society became Kṛṣṇa conscious, he would explain, then they, by their example, would create Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the general populace. Never compromising, never flattering his important visitors, he tried to impart Kṛṣṇa consciousness to whomever he met.
| | | He met with the governor of Madras, K. K. Shah, a staunch Māyāvādī and follower of Śaṅkarācārya. Patiently Prabhupāda tried to teach him Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but the governor would interrupt with his own philosophy. When Prabhupāda asked him to somehow help the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, the man replied that as governor there was nothing he could do, since everything was in the hands of the chief minister.
| | | Residing in Madras was an elderly scholar and former leading politician who had written several books and translations of Vedic philosophy from the impersonalist point of view. Prabhupāda visited him, but the man was paralyzed and could only sit, trembling, without speaking. Prabhupāda spoke for some time about personalism in the Gītā. The old scholar sometimes responded with a glimmer in his eye, but he could only make incoherent sounds. Previously Prabhupāda had criticized this man’s translation of the Gītā, which declares that although Kṛṣṇa says surrender unto Him, we don’t actually have to surrender unto the person Kṛṣṇa but to the impersonal, eternal principle within Kṛṣṇa. The meeting seemed to have a strong effect on Śrīla Prabhupāda, and for days afterward he would sometimes soberly mention how the old Māyāvādī scholar was living almost like a vegetable.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda also met with V. Raj Gopala Acarya (Rajaji), who had been India’s first chief executive after independence. A friend of Mahatma Gandhi, Rajaji was high in the public sentiment as a religious politician. Although in his nineties, he was alert and very sympathetic to Prabhupāda’s movement. Rajaji expressed only one doubt: Prabhupāda had created such a huge institution that now his disciples might identify with the institution rather than with Kṛṣṇa. If that were to happen, then by identifying with the institution they would again fall into the same type of materialism or false identification as before. Prabhupāda replied that because Kṛṣṇa is absolute, Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa’s institution are nondifferent. To identify with Kṛṣṇa’s institution was to identify with Kṛṣṇa directly. Rajaji was satisfied by Prabhupāda’s answer, and after a pleasant conversation the two friends parted.
| | | Prabhupāda received an invitation to Chief Justice Vira Svāmī’s home. The two became friends, and the chief justice requested to join the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement as soon as possible. He liked Prabhupāda’s followers, especially three-year-old Sarasvatī, and gave her a six-inch silver mūrti of Kṛṣṇa playing the flute.
| | | Another evening, Mr. Vira Svāmī came to see Prabhupāda, and Prabhupāda mentioned that he thought Sarasvatī too young to have such a valuable silver mūrti and that he had taken it from her and was going to give her another one. But while they were talking, Sarasvatī burst into the room and ran to her mother, crying, Kṛṣṇa is gone!
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda then called her forward and asked, Sarasvatī, where is Kṛṣṇa?
In anxiety, Sarasvatī replied, I don’t know. Someone took Him.
Prabhupāda repeated, But where is Kṛṣṇa?
Sarasvatī replied, I don’t know.
Is He under the cushion? Prabhupāda suggested. And Sarasvatī ran over to the cushion Prabhupāda pointed to. She picked it up, but Kṛṣṇa was not there.
Is He on the shelf? Prabhupāda asked. Sarasvatī ran to the shelf. Her eyes darted in all directions.
Where is Kṛṣṇa? Sarasvatī began appealing to the faces of the devotees, glancing at their hands, looking behind their backs, searching everywhere.
| | | Prabhupāda, intently watching Sarasvatī, began reciting a verse about the six Gosvāmīs: he rādhe vraja-devike ca lalite he nanda-suno kutaḥ. This is the mood of the Gosvāmīs, he said. They never said, ‘Now I have seen God. Now I am satisfied.’ No, rather they were saying, ‘Where is Rādhā? Where is Kṛṣṇa? Where are You all now? Are You on Govardhana, or are You under the trees on the bank of the Yamunā? Where are You?’ In this way they expressed their moods of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
| | | Sarasvatī’s anxiety had become heightened to the point of tears. One of the devotees then hinted, Sarasvatī, where is Kṛṣṇa? Who has Kṛṣṇa? Sarasvatī’s eyes widened. She exclaimed, Prabhupāda has Kṛṣṇa! and she rushed up to Prabhupāda, convinced that he was holding Kṛṣṇa. And Prabhupāda reached behind his seat and pulled out a small Kṛṣṇa mūrti similar to the silver Kṛṣṇa he had taken from her.
| | | Here is Kṛṣṇa, Sarasvatī Prabhupāda said. Sarasvatī was in ecstasy. All the devotees were struck by Prabhupāda’s exchange of devotional feelings with even a small child; by his expertise he had created within her a mood of separation from Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda continued explaining to the chief justice about the mood of separation from Kṛṣṇa.
| | | For centuries certain religious and social controversies had divided Madras, and Prabhupāda often addressed these issues. One conflict was between the brāhmaṇas and the non-brāhmaṇas. Because those born in brāhmaṇa families had traditionally monopolized the important governmental, social, and religious posts, the non-brāhmaṇas had developed a powerful political opposition, passing laws banning such things as religious pictures. In their mundane political conception of the sacred Rāmāyaṇa, they had even committed offenses to the Deities of Lord Rāma.
| | | In talking with his disciples, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, The chief justice is brāhmaṇa? I don’t think so. He may be a kṣatriya. But you can tell him that we can solve the whole problem between the brāhmaṇas and the non-brāhmaṇas. We will give facility that anyone can become a brāhmaṇa. He simply has to follow our principles, and we will make him a brāhmaṇa. Prabhupāda said the śāstra states that in Kali-yuga the demons will take birth as brāhmaṇas, thus this deep controversy. The so-called brāhmaṇas, the leaders, were not satisfying the people. Prabhupāda said that anyone who followed the four regulative principles, chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa, and took Vaiṣṇava initiation could become a brāhmaṇa, and that would solve the whole problem.
| | | They should begin, Prabhupāda said, by making Chief Justice Vira Svāmī a brāhmaṇa. Mr. Vira Svāmī admitted that he was already eager to take initiation from Śrīla Prabhupāda; his only difficulty was giving up tea-drinking. When Prabhupāda heard this, he said that even if the justice did drink a little tea, he would accept him – as an exceptional case.
| | | Some of Madras’s caste-conscious brāhmaṇas criticized Śrīla Prabhupāda’s creating brāhmaṇas from low-born Westerners. During a gathering at the home of a Madrasi brāhmaṇa, one of the guests commented to Prabhupāda, Svāmīji, your disciples don’t pronounce the Sanskrit very nicely. Even the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra they sometimes do not say correctly.
| | | Yes, Prabhupāda replied, that is why we have come here – to get your association so you can teach us.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda encountered another long-standing South Indian feud – between the Śaivites (followers of Lord Śiva) and the Vaiṣṇavas (followers of Lord Viṣṇu). The Śaivites generally espoused an impersonalistic philosophy, declaring God to be the Impersonal One appearing in many forms, such as Śiva and Kṛṣṇa. But since all the forms were one ultimately, fighting as to which god was best was petty and childish. Prabhupāda’s disciples found this philosophy difficult to deal with, and when Girirāja had argued with a wealthy Śaivite, Mr. Ramakrishna, they had separated with hurt feelings. But in meetings with other persons in Madras, Girirāja was often reminded, Have you met Mr. Ramakrishna? He is a very good man and a leader in religious functions. Girirāja became embarrassed and decided to make another attempt to win Mr. Ramakrishna’s friendship.
| | | They talked again, but remained unsatisfied. Girirāja then informed Prabhupāda and asked if he would meet Mr. Ramakrishna himself. Prabhupāda agreed.
| | | When they met, Mr. Ramakrishna began by saying, Svāmīji, we have been having some discussion about devotion to Lord Kṛṣṇa and devotion to Lord Śiva. What do you say? Who is greater? Kṛṣṇa or Śiva?
| | | Prabhupāda replied that actually the word bhakti, or “devotion,” could not properly be applied to the worship of Lord Śiva. Bhakti, he said, meant service without any material desire, whereas pūjā included service with the desire for some return. Bhakti, therefore, could only be applied to Kṛṣṇa.
| | | But isn’t it possible, asked Mr. Ramakrishna, for someone to be a bhakta of Lord Śiva and to worship Lord Śiva simply out of devotion, without desiring any material benefit?
| | | It may be possible, Prabhupāda replied, but generally not. Just like when a person enters a liquor shop, generally it’s taken that he is going for drinking, although there may be some exception.
| | | Prabhupāda gave the example of the gopīs’ worship of the goddess Kātyāyanī; their worship had not been for material benefit but for devotion to Kṛṣṇa. Similarly, if one worshiped Lord Śiva with the aim of serving Lord Kṛṣṇa, that would be bhakti. But people generally approach Śiva for material benefit. Although Mr. Ramakrishna was usually prone to argue these points, Prabhupāda’s answer satisfied him.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda’s most acute controversy in Madras was not with smārta-brāhmaṇas, Māyāvādīs, or Śaivites, but with some of his own Godbrothers. Although some of them acknowledged Śrīla Prabhupāda’s incomparable preaching in the West on behalf of their spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, others were envious. One envious Godbrother wrote to Śrīla Prabhupāda in Madras.
| | | “Reverend Svāmīji,
I listened to your discourse on Bhakti at Rajiswari Kalayana Mandapam on the 12th instant. I am filled with doubts on the following:
Your disciples dance with Hare Kṛṣṇa mantram, (I) are they really God-intoxicated as Lord Caitanya (II) Have you Svāmīji really got free of your ego? If so, why you said, “I challenge,” and why are words like “I” and “my” always on your lips? (III) Why do you use a cushion unlike a real yogi – Did Lord Caitanya use cushions? (IV) Why do you wear ring and a wrist gold watch? Are you not free from material attachment? (V) Did you visit Lord Caitanya Kṛṣṇa Temple at Gauḍīya Maṭh? If not, why not – The purest Vaishnava cult is indwelling there with pious Svāmījis with Lord Kṛṣṇa dwelling therein. Melodious sound from your throat is absent but a jarceing [sic] undivine comes out. Is there any divinity in your person? I doubt.
One disgusted on hearing your speech.”
| | | Although Śrīla Prabhupāda was surprised and hurt by the extreme virulence of such a letter, he was accustomed to his Godbrothers’ slights and insults. He forbade his disciples, however, to get involved in fights with his Godbrothers. Rather, they should simply avoid them. He said that persons who criticize the spreading of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement were useless and that he would push on: The dogs may bark, but the caravan will pass.
| | | In contrast to the venomous letter came a letter from Tridaṇḍī Svāmī B.V. Purī Mahārāja, another of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Godbrothers. Purī Mahārāja, as Prabhupāda called him, had a small āśrama in Visakhapatnam, on the Bay of Bengal between Madras and Calcutta. Hearing that Prabhupāda was going next to Calcutta, Purī Mahārāja invited him to visit.
| | | “With innumerable Satsanga Dandabats at Thy lotus feet, I beg to acknowledge the kind letter... The citizens of Visakhapatnam are very anxious to have the darshan of your holiness... We are exceedingly glad and eager to hear Sankirtana and the divine message from your holy lips. I hope the Sankirtana movement at Madras is attracting thousands of citizens. Again, with dandabats to all the Vaishnavas, I remain dasanu B.V. Puri.”
| | | Visakhapatnam, February 17, 1972
| | | A broad beach of white sparkling sands and the Bay of Bengal’s warm, clear waters were special features of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s visit to Visakhapatnam. Purī Mahārāja’s small āśrama, where Śrīla Prabhupāda stayed, was only five minutes from the ocean, and every morning Prabhupāda and his entourage of about fifteen devotees would take long walks along the seashore.
| | | Yamunā: I don’t think Prabhupāda ever excluded any of us from going with him to the beach. All the devotees knew at which time Śrīla Prabhupāda would be taking his walk, and we would come out from our different quarters and follow him to the seashore. The walks were brisk and refreshing and full of talk about Kṛṣṇa. Somehow or other, we were all able to hear Śrīla Prabhupāda speak.
| | | Gurudāsa: I always went on every morning walk. But one time I was sitting in the temple, when suddenly I saw Prabhupāda and the devotees going toward the beach. I immediately ran out of the temple to join them, without even taking time to get my shoes. But there were barnacles and rocks leading down to the beach. When Prabhupāda saw me coming, lifting my feet up high, painfully hobbling down the rough road, he looked over and said, “Oh, your feet are hurting? Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” And I said, “Prabhupāda, when I’m with you, I don’t feel any pain.” Prabhupāda stopped and said, “Then why don’t you cut your throat?” Everyone laughed, and I laughed also. He said, “There is enough tapasya. Why create your own?”
| | | Gurukṛpā: Prabhupāda would talk philosophy on and on. There were many things I couldn’t understand. I would just listen anyway, although I couldn’t remember anything. I would just hear and hear, but it hadn’t registered yet. I used to walk behind him on the beach, and I figured that, “If I can’t follow his teachings or example yet, at least let me step in his footsteps in the sand.”
| | | Viśākhā: Sometimes a dog would try to follow us or would bark at us. We were all surprised to see how Prabhupāda would flick his cane and the dog would run away. Once when we passed a cow on the road, Prabhupāda gave her ample room to pass, and he told us the story of how he had been gored by a cow shortly after he had taken sannyāsa.
| | | Tejās: Once on a morning walk Prabhupāda was speaking about the dog. He gave a reference to a śloka by Cāṇakya Paṇḍita about the five good qualities of a dog – that he is very faithful and satisfied with anything. And soon Prabhupāda said we should be Kṛṣṇa’s dog. He was also speaking about how our pūjārīs should never be paid. The teacher and the pūjārī should never receive a salary. They must work in pure devotion. The kṣatriya also. He said that was the mistake in government today, that the kṣatriyas are being paid. He discussed so many things, one after another.
| | | Nanda-kumāra: Śrīla Prabhupāda would tell us to go bathe in the ocean. “Go to the beach,” he would say. So one day I asked him, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, whenever I go down to the beach, the sun is warm on my body, the water feels so good, the sand – it seems like such a comfortable material situation. How should I understand your reason for asking us to go to the beach? I know the spiritual master never gives the disciple anything that will cause him to become materially attached but always gives him whatever he needs to remember Kṛṣṇa. But when I go to the beach, it seems I just enjoy my senses. How can I relate that to Kṛṣṇa? How can I understand that this instruction is for my spiritual benefit?”
| | | Prabhupāda said, The sun is there – Kṛṣṇa is the light of the sun. The ocean is there – Kṛṣṇa is the taste of water. You are surrounded by Kṛṣṇa. How can you forget Kṛṣṇa? He is all around you.
| | | Pāñcajanya: I was a new devotee, and I asked Prabhupāda, “What about swimming, Śrīla Prabhupāda? Is that not māyā?” Prabhupāda said, “Lord Caitanya used to go swimming all the time. He used to play ball. So you can go and swim. Just make sure you remember Kṛṣṇa.”
| | | Purī Mahārāja’s āśrama was a simple single-story building of about eight rooms. When he offered Prabhupāda a room next to his own, Prabhupāda was pleased, accepting it as an expression of friendship. Prabhupāda relaxed with his Godbrothers, Purī Mahārāja and Ānanda Brahmacārī, speaking with them in Bengali. Purī Mahārāja said he appreciated Prabhupāda’s work and his Western disciples.
| | | Prabhupāda’s disciples had already seen formal exchanges of obeisances between Prabhupāda and his Godbrothers, as when in Bombay they had seen Prabhupāda get off his vyāsāsana and offer daṇḍavats to his Godbrothers. But in Visakhapatnam they saw more intimate dealings. They saw for the first time Śrīla Prabhupāda living comfortably, at ease, in the same quarters as his Godbrothers. And they didn’t feel themselves being treated condescendingly or superficially, or being regarded as oddities. Through Prabhupāda’s guidance they began to learn more of the essential friendly and humble exchanges between Vaiṣṇavas.
| | | Prabhupāda’s Godbrother Ānanda was eager to cook and serve not only Śrīla Prabhupāda but all his disciples. Ānanda was elderly, and yet he took the position of always offering menial service. Although he spoke very little English, Prabhupāda’s disciples could perceive the affection of Ānanda and Śrīla Prabhupāda for each other. Ānanda’s communication with Prabhupāda’s disciples was particularly through his cooking and serving prasādam.
| | | Each morning everyone would gather on the veranda outside Prabhupāda’s quarters, the men sitting on one side, the ladies on the other. Down the center aisle Ānanda would walk briskly, distributing prasādam, while Prabhupāda sat at one end in a wooden chair, fingering his japa beads and observing the devotees take prasādam. Prabhupāda had supplied money to the āśrama, and Ānanda was regularly cooking sumptuous feasts: deep-fried chunks of potatoes in powdered spices, rice, yogurt, dāl, three different types of sabjīs, french fries, chutney, malpurā, rājkeli, sandeśa, kṣīra – and everything cooked to a nectarean standard of excellence.
| | | Prabhupāda would sit at the head of the two rows of devotees and encourage them to take prasādam: Give him more! Prabhupāda would praise Ānanda’s cooking, smiling with pleasure to see his disciples accept prasādam. The devotees would finish, having been induced to eat as much as they possibly could, and Śrīla Prabhupāda would say aloud the prema-dhvani. Then all the devotees would shout in response, Jaya!
| | | After one such feast, Prabhupāda called the devotees into his room and remarked, See how he is cooking. He cooks everything, he serves it, and then he doesn’t eat until everyone is fully satisfied. This is Vaiṣṇava, how he should act. He is more satisfied to serve than to enjoy himself. The feasts continued twice a day, and in the evening many guests arrived to take prasādam, chant in the kīrtanas, and hear Śrīla Prabhupāda lecture.
| | | One day Śrīla Prabhupāda took his disciples to see a famous temple of Lord Nṛsiṁha, Śrī Siṁhācalam, on top of a hill about five miles north of Visakhapatnam. Thousands of stone steps led up the hill to the temple, which was situated in a natural amphitheater on the side of the hill. Prabhupāda said the temple, which was now run by followers of the Rāmānuja sect, was particularly important because Lord Caitanya had visited there on His tour of South India.
| | | Śrīla Prabhupāda chose to approach the temple by car, riding up the winding road past orchards of mango, jackfruits, and cashew, and fields of pineapple. On arriving at the temple, Śrīla Prabhupāda and his disciples met one of the temple brāhmaṇas, who showed them around the grounds. The temple buildings were of black granite, and carved into the rock were the forms and pastimes of Viṣṇu, especially in His incarnation of Lord Nṛsiṁha. As Prabhupāda moved from place to place, building to building, he sometimes rode up steep stairs on a palanquin carried by four men.
| | | When Prabhupāda came upon an immense banyan tree at the lower end of the temple grounds, he said that the tree must be thousands of years old. As he stood beneath the tree, his servant, Nanda-kumāra, handed him a small campaka flower. Extending his thumb and forefinger from his bead bag, Prabhupāda held the campaka flower and looked fondly at it. This flower, he said, is the color of Lord Caitanya. And this flower is the most loved all over India. This flower is beautiful to look at and beautiful to smell. He carried the small saffron-gold flower between his fingers throughout the rest of the morning.
| | | When Prabhupāda and his group entered the inner sanctum, where the Deity of Lord Nṛsiṁha resided, their guide explained that the mūrti dated back to the time of Prahlāda Mahārāja. An ancient king named Purūravā and his consort Urvaśī had once visited this hill, and at the request of Urvaśī, the mūrti, who appeared to her in a dream, had been excavated. The Lord had ordained that He should be worshiped in this place but that He would give darśana only one day a year, during the month of Vaiśākha. The rest of the year He would be entirely covered with ground sandalwood pulp mixed with camphor and other scents. Therefore, the Deity now appeared to be only a lump covered with a layer of sandalwood. Prabhupāda commented that the sandalwood was to keep the Deity “cool-headed.”
| | | Mādhavānanda: When Prabhupāda was at the Nṛsiṁha temple in Visakhapatnam, it was the same as when he was in Vṛndāvana. When he got out of the car, he was very grave. We went into the temple, and there was a chamber. Then we went down. The walls were four feet thick, and it seemed like hundreds of feet of tunnels before we got into the inner sanctum. There was the Deity with just a mound of sandalwood paste on Him. As soon as we entered, Prabhupāda said, “Begin chanting the Nṛsiṁha mantra.” So we started singing tava kara-kamala-vare nakham adbhuta-śṛṅgam. And we circumambulated the Deity. Then we stood before the Deity, and Prabhupāda offered obeisances.
| | | Gurukṛpā: When we came into the Deity room, Prabhupāda had us sing the Nṛsiṁha prayers. He always manifested such devotion. That was what separated him from us – not only his learning or his knowledge, but his devotion. In these places we would see him become very silent, very grave, and when he would speak, such peace would fill us from within. When he would speak, you could feel it. He was constantly convincing us of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Not purposely, but he was just being himself. In these places it would come out.
| | | When Prabhupāda stood with us before the Deity, we couldn’t even see. There was just a mound of sandalwood. There was one brāhmaṇa with big earlobes, and he had a ring in his ear. We offered some money. But it was a very devotional time. Prabhupāda didn’t say much, and the main reason was that these places are appreciated according to one’s spiritual advancement. The details and facts and the history are not really that important. There is nothing really to say. Prabhupāda would just make sure we had the proper respect and didn’t commit any offense.
| | | Prabhupāda would lecture in the evening, speaking sometimes at schools and social clubs in Visakhapatnam. During the program at the Ramakrishna Hall, where more than a thousand people attended, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s dancing induced the entire audience to dance. The devotees danced in a ring around Śrīla Prabhupāda, and the kīrtana continued for an hour.
| | | At another program a bearded American anthropologist rode up on a motorcycle to attend Prabhupāda’s lecture and kīrtana. Afterward, the anthropologist told Śrīla Prabhupāda that he had come to India to study the primitive tribes. Prabhupāda told him it was simply a waste of time. Why do you want to study the primitive people? he asked. Why don’t you study the exalted people? And Prabhupāda narrated a story:
| | | One time a poor man roasted a cob of corn and then began picking off the kernels one at a time and eating them. In this way it took him many hours to finish. He did this, Prabhupāda said, because he had nothing else to do, just to pass the time of day. In the same way, the study of anthropology was simply a waste of time. Prabhupāda asked, Why don’t you study some person or group of persons from whom you can learn something?
| | | During the day Prabhupāda would sit outside his room and enjoy the atmosphere. He wore no shirt, and his healthy body shone with a golden luster as he sat drinking freshly pressed sugarcane juice. This is just how it is in Vaikuṇṭha, he said. There is always a very cool, pleasant breeze. He often walked about, chanting, talking about Kṛṣṇa, listening to the devotees’ kīrtanas, and observing the activities of the temple.
| | | Repeatedly Prabhupāda invited Purī Mahārāja to come and preach in the West. He requested him to at least come to Māyāpur for ISKCON’s international gathering of devotees. Prabhupāda felt that Purī Mahārāja, on seeing all the Western disciples, might feel moved to join him and preach. Purī Mahārāja agreed to accompany Prabhupāda to Calcutta and Māyāpur, and the pleasant week in Visakhapatnam came to an end with Prabhupāda, his disciples, and Purī Mahārāja looking forward to traveling together to Calcutta.
| | | Gurukṛpā: Although we arrived at the train station early, the train was already at the platform. It was very hot, and five or six of us were having kīrtana. Then Śyāmasundara climbed up a coconut tree and got this fantastic coconut. He opened it and gave it to Prabhupāda, who proceeded to drink a lot. Then Prabhupāda gave it to Śyāmasundara, and Śyāmasundara drank. Then Prabhupāda said, “Give it to the kīrtana members.” Each man in the kīrtana group was so thirsty that he wasn’t even thinking of leaving any for the next man but would just pass this coconut around. And the thing wouldn’t empty. I tilted it up, and the coconut water was coming out, pouring on my shirt, and I was drinking and drinking. But still it wouldn’t empty. We were amazed. Prabhupāda was smiling, and we were chanting. We all became cool and satisfied.
| | | Śyāmasundara: Prabhupāda and I were in a first-class railway coach, a private compartment for two persons, clackity-clacking through the warm Indian night, somewhere between Visakhapatnam and Calcutta. Prabhupāda was talking and joking and playing tapes until around ten-thirty P.M., when he lay down to take rest. For a while I switched off the lights. At about midnight Prabhupāda sat upright and called my name. “Śyāmasundara, take dictation,” he said. Then followed a train of thoughts so lucid and coherent that I could only conclude that while we think Śrīla Prabhupāda is sleeping he is usually not sleeping but is thinking, reflecting on ways to serve Kṛṣṇa more and more.
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NOTES
| 18 | | The most exalted and intimate of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes, His dancing with the cowherd girls in Vṛndāvana.
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