Janasprha: In Los Angeles in 1973, I received my second initiation from Srila Prabhupada. He asked me, “Do you chant sixteen rounds?” I kind of proudly said, “Srila Prabhupada, I chant thirty-two rounds!” I thought he would say, “Oh, that’s great,” or “That’s wonderful.” But he didn’t say anything. [chuckles] He simply murmured, “Hmmm.” Then he showed me how to count, but I couldn’t do it. He said, “Not to worry, you will learn this.” Then he said, “I say—you say.” Then he began reciting the Gayatri mantra, “Om bhur,” etc. and then he took the brahman thread from his desk. This brahman thread was from India, which came folded up in a bundle. He grabbed the thread and he ran it through his knees to straighten it out. And then he put the thread on me and said, “This does not make you a brahman. This gives you the opportunity to become a brahman.”
Somehow or other I decided in my mind that if I could fan Srila Prabhupada at eight different temples, then my life would have reached perfection. And, of course, we didn’t know how long Prabhupada was going to be on the planet. Some devotees said, “No, you should stay and do your service.” But I said, “I have got to do this!” Prabhupada happened to be in Los Angeles at the time and he was preparing to go to Dallas, Atlanta, Miami and New York. Four of us devotees got a drive-away car in order to follow Prabhupada on his tour. We missed Dallas because we wouldn’t make it in time for Atlanta, so we decided Atlanta would be a better place to start. It was there in Atlanta that I inquired from people, “How do you get to fan Prabhupada?” I heard different versions, but the one version that I used was from the devotee who said, “You stand next to the person fanning Srila Prabhupada, and if he stops for one second, you don’t ask, you just grab the chamara and you start fanning.” [laughs] I was like an eagle, just looking at the devotee who was fanning, and when a fly landed on his nose, he stopped, and when he tried to scare the fly, I grabbed the chamara. He was stunned. He didn’t know what to say or do. But I already had the chamara and Prabhupada was right there allowing me to take over the service of fanning him. During that Atlanta visit Prabhupada taught us the song, “Udilo Aruna.” He taught us each word one by one and then each line. Then he said, “Okay, now we will sing.” He said, “Give me a mridanga.” I was excited because I had never seen Srila Prabhupada play the mridanga. They brought him a drum, and because it was wintertime in Atlanta and the drum was made out of leather, the drum was flat. He said, “This drum is useless. Bring another drum.” Everybody went running like crazy men to find another drum. After bringing Prabhupada the new drum, the same thing happened when he hit it. But this time he hit it three more times and the drum tuned up perfectly. To me, that was like a miracle. From Atlanta we went to Miami where the temple was in Coconut Grove. There was a big banyan tree in the back, but there was no grass. There was only dirt. Abhirama, the temple president, figured it would be better not to sit on the dirt, so he decided to get some dry leaves. We all thought, “Where do you get dry leaves to cover such a huge area?” Somebody said, “Let’s go to the dump.” With several trips to the dump, about ten of us covered the entire yard in about six hours. When Prabhupada came to the temple, he first went into the backyard, swung his cane over the leaves and said, “Why don’t they pick these leaves up? This will only create mosquitoes.” After Prabhupada gave a lecture in the temple, a Rastafarian looking guy said, “I hear Lord Siva smokes ganja.” Srila Prabhupada smiled and said, “Yes, he does.” He paused and then said, “But he also drank an ocean of poison. So, if you could drink this ocean of poison, then okay, then you could smoke.” Everybody was amazed. Another person who wore a turban asked another question. He was a follower of Guru Nanak, and usually when somebody would name any guru, Prabhupada would say, “I don’t know who that is,” or he just didn’t answer. But in this case, he said, “You are so fortunate to have a guru like Guru Nanak.” Of course, we know that the Sikhs defended the Vaishnavas many, many times. With Prabhupada’s response I learned some history.
I was in Los Angeles when a devotee approached Prabhupada and said, “Srila Prabhupada, I must have done so many austerities in a previous life to become your devotee.” Prabhupada said, “You didn’t do anything. It’s all my mercy.” Every time he gave a class, and every devotee will tell you this, he would look straight into every person’s eyes and for that one second you would feel that mercy. You could see that he was looking right through you. He didn’t distinguish whether you were white, black, old, young, poor, or professional. It didn’t matter. You are spirit soul and he is here to take you back home, if you give him the chance.
