Kanti devi dasi Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 05

Kanti: Kanti dasi: I remember thinking when I was really early, “Why did my parents have to die?” So that was already in there. Then the Bible School and the Christians having fun things, and you’d go to that and spend a week and they tell you stories about Jesus and it always seemed very attractive to me. Then as I got older I started going to churches with friends, different Protestant churches. We’d get to a point in the Sunday School and I’d ask a question about “What happens to all those people that don’t know anything about Jesus, the Eskimos or the people in Africa or whatever?” And they’d always come up with this idea that “Well, no, to be saved you have to know about Jesus.” It just didn’t seem fair and I’d argue a little bit, and then I’d lose interest in that church. Eventually I ended up at the Catholic church, and when I asked them that question they said, “Well, innocent people don’t go to hell. There’s purgatory or there’s limbo and we pray and there’s a process, and they can move up to heaven.” It seemed to make sense to me and I thought, “OK, that seems fair.” Sruti-rupa and I by then had gotten also interested together. We had been friends since elementary school and lived down the street from each other. So she and I and my two sisters started going to Catechism at the Catholic church, and we did that for a while and eventually my sisters and I got baptized. The Catholic nun, Sister Dominica, she encouraged me to go for Confirmation. It’s the next step in the Catholic Church. You pass a slight little test, they ask you questions, and if you have any doubts, this is when your doubts would be cleared up because you’re going to go through this ceremony and you’re going to take the Catholic faith as your faith. And if you fall away later, it’s a more grave sin, it’s a mortal sin, a stain on your soul that cannot be removed easily. So I was going to classes, and now I came up with a different question: “What happens with my pets? Do my pets go to heaven?” It was totally sentimental on my part because I wasn’t a vegetarian, but I just wanted to know. She was very sorry, the nun put her head down a little and said, “No, the animals don’t have souls. Only people have souls so only people go to heaven.” Again, that just didn’t seem fair to me. I was by then 12. In the end, I went ahead and got confirmed because I thought, “Well, I haven’t found anything that makes more sense.” Then life goes on and adolescence comes in and you get distracted, and you’re a teenager and so many things happen. Interestingly enough, Sruti and I remained good friends and we would get into other things together. We’d talk about Siddhartha or Eastern stuff in general, not real deep but it was the hippie kind of thing to do, it was kind of cool. At some point in all of that, I had made a type of commitment that if I hear the truth I’ll accept it. Soon after that, I happened to see a TV show with the Hare Krishnas on it. It was a news thing, quick, from out of Miami, and that would have been local for Key West. But the thing that I remembered was the four regulative principles. So I heard that and I immediately made a decision, “I don’t know if I want to find out too much more about this because it might actually be the truth,” and I just didn’t really want to risk…the four regulative principles seemed a little severe to me. So I just didn’t really want to know, and I even almost made an effort to avoid the devotees. Once I saw devotees across the street and I went to the other side of the street. Then a little time passes and Sruti and I decided to take a trip to Europe. We were going to meet friends in Germany that were in the Army and travel with them a little bit, and just before we left somebody at the airport gave us a Teachings of Lord Caitanya and a BTG. So we traveled. We immediately realized after some difficulty and some ups and downs with our friends that we didn’t really have too much in common with them, and we just traveled on our own a little bit. Then we decided, “Why are we traveling all around? What are we looking for? We should just go back to our home and try and just be stable people.” So she gets the idea, she has this BTG, she says, “Why don’t we go to the temple?” It was a difficult trip to get to Paris. We had trouble with being vegetarians. So we got to Paris and we got off at a train stop, and there were two quite large men that were selling there. Sruti immediately went up to them and asked them directions how to get to this address, and they kind of gave us instruction. We started heading in that direction, and we realized that it didn’t seem quite right. So we stopped and asked in a hotel, and that man told us we were going in a completely wrong direction. So we left the hotel and we turned and we started heading the way he told us to go, and then we realized that these fellows were following us. It could have been coincidental; but then when we changed directions, then they also still were following us. It was just a scary scene. We were starting to walk faster and faster, they were walking faster and faster. We were hoping that at the end of this street there was going to be the door with the number on it. So we see the 4 on the door, we start pounding on the door, and that’s when the door swings open and light just comes pouring out and incense comes billowing out and music comes out, the chanting comes out. And Indradyumna, dressed in white, looking very angelic says, “Yes? Can I help you with something?” We said, “We need help! We need to come in!” He said, “Sure,” and he lets us in and he closes the door. And it was like he closed out all the scary stuff on the other side, and everybody looked up and smiled at us. So he took us upstairs and he said, “These girls just arrived,” and Bhagavan was very friendly. He came out and he said, “Oh, hello,” and we talked for a little while. We ended up staying up all night and working and being helpful. We took showers and had something to eat. Then the next day was the Rathayatra Festival, so we went to the park and there was a feast and a class and nice kirtan. I remember sitting there listening to that class. It was really sweet and the philosophy was so clear, and I could just feel the tears coming out of the sides of my eyes because I was thinking, “This appears to be the truth.” I looked at Sruti and she looked at me, and she just said, “This is amazing.” I was agreeing, we were just stunned: “What did we stumble into?” Bhagavan walked around after that, and he asked us how we were doing. We said, “OK.” He said, “Our spiritual master is coming in a few weeks. Why don’t you girls think about staying for a couple of weeks and then you could meet him.” And he said, “You could help. We’re trying to get ready. We need some sewing, we need some cleaning, we need painting, and we’ve got the new temple.” When we didn’t look like we were jumping at the opportunity, he said, “And you can always go sightseeing. It’s in Paris. You could go to the museums and then just do a little work during the day.” Of course, we never went to any museums. We stayed and pretty soon we were fully engaged doing things around the temple, all the usual things that have to be done. I was sewing a lot. That’s what I had done before I was a devotee, I was a seamstress. So I was sewing every day, and I did a lot of the sewing in Prabhupada’s room – his asana, the curtains and things like that. I remember distinctly every day going in and praying because I was kind of confused. These seemed like really nice people, and that’s how I would pray. I said, “These seem like really nice people, and they say this man who is coming is Your servant. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But in case he is, I would like to be a little bit helpful and I would like to know if he is.” So that was the mood, and that went on for a few weeks. Then Srila Prabhupada did come, and it’s a flurry of excitement because he didn’t come to France very often. So the devotees were really getting ready with programs and people to come see him – dignitaries and educated people. Everybody was real excited. When Prabhupada came in, I remember him sitting on the vyasasan talking, but I can’t really remember what he was saying. I don’t remember really connecting with him. He seemed nice enough, but I was more involved in the activity. There was always something to be done and somebody directing you, “Take this here, take that there.” So everybody was very gracious, and I particularly remember that Yogesvara was very gracious. He was always trying to include, and I was still kind of bewildered. Yogesvara was really excited about Prabhupada speaking to this cardinal, and he was playing it for us. I was interested, and so he starts the tape and Prabhupada is speaking with Cardinal Danielou and we’re listening. There’s translation and you’re getting the gist of it, and it seems like two elderly gentlemen that seem to be equally dignified exchanging ideas about spiritual life. It’s kind of vague, but I got the gist of that and it flows. All of a sudden out of the blue Prabhupada says, “What about the animals?” Even today…without a doubt, even today I get chills when I think of that because I said, “What?” And Prabhupada says, “What about the animals?” and he goes into a whole thing about the animals. And the cardinal says the same thing that the bishop had said to me years before, “Well, the animals don’t have a soul,” and he makes all these justifications, “You need the meat to eat, and it’s more important to feed people.” Prabhupada answers one question after another, and the cardinal persists. It seems to be almost like a…I won’t say a battle, but Prabhupada is very…he won’t let him off the hook. Finally he brings up the analogy of if a man has two children and one child has diminished capacity, does he love the one that’s not so intelligent less than the one that’s qualified? And of course the animals have a soul and of course the animals… It never fails to move me. All of a sudden I felt this real clear understanding, almost like a voice, “Yes, this man is My servant. Yes, this man will answer your questions. He will answer the questions you forgot you had and the questions you haven’t even thought of yet.” It was so clear that I was stunned. So I didn’t have a doubt. I’ve had lots of ups and downs and I never had a lot of association with Prabhupada, but I just felt that Krishna had answered that request. I had had that simple request, “I would like to know.”