Rama Sraddha: The first time Srila Prabhupada came to Mayapur I was still wearing karmi clothes. I went to Prabhupada’s quarters where he had recently moved into the Lotus building. Everybody was sitting around Prabhupada and I sat right at the corner of his desk. Many questions were being asked and Prabhupada went to great lengths to explain them. I thought this was my chance to ask some nice question and please him and thus get blessed. Getting the blessings of Prabhupada was the sole idea behind asking a question. With great courage I lifted my hand, “Prabhupada, I have one question.” Prabhupada looked towards me and in a very grave voice said, “Yes???” I said, “Prabhupada, I am reading your books. I am so happy about that, but I have one question. How did Brahma understand the meaning of the word tapah? Nothing was created including Sanskrit, so how did he understand?” Prabhupada just looked at me one more time and said, “Don’t think Krishna doesn’t know what He’s doing and don’t ask such stupid questions.” [laughs] I thought, “Oh, Prabhupada this was meant for your pleasure,” but he reduced me to stupidity. My mind was fraught with anxiety, but how could I argue with Prabhupada? We are completely ignorant, but somehow or other I was quiet as we sat for an hour or more, and then we all left the room. I was thinking, “What did I do wrong?” But by that time, I had already become attached to Prabhupada, so the next step was initiation. I was not in a hurry to just join a club because I already gave up everything for this, including my family.
My interaction with Prabhupada was very unique, just like Krishna deals with every soul in a very unique way. In my case, I was always chastised by Prabhupada. [laughs] There was never a point where he said, “Oh, that is very nice.” There was never any pampering. As a disciple we should be chastised by the guru because we didn’t have gurukula training. Normally you are chastised until you become smoothened out. Like fire brings iron into the proper shape, Prabhupada did that to me most of the time. However, in Bangalore where we were preaching, there was one person whom we wanted to make a life member. He was a famous dentist in India and someone recommended him to me. I showed him Prabhupada’s books, and I said, “Please become our life member.” He said, “But we are also doing similar work.” I said, “Oh, really? Then we should work together if we’re doing similar work because there will be more strength.” But he was hesitating. Then I said, “But you should become a member first and then we can work together.” But then he spelled it out, “We accept Sai Baba as God.” Then I realized this was going to be a tough case. But on that day, I had the First Canto, Part Three, of the Bhagavatam where there is a schedule of the Lord’s incarnations. I said, “You know, if I would wear your dress and a little mirror on my head, do I become a dentist? No. I have to go through the process that you went through. So similarly, you may think Sai Baba is God. That’s nice—it’s okay—it’s your choice. But let us refer to the shastras. Where in the shastras is Sai Baba’s name mentioned? Please give me one reference and I’ll be happy with that.” Then he told me, “Swamiji, you are a bookworm. [laughs] You go by the book.” Then I again told him with a little sarcasm, “Well, I guess anybody can become a dentist by putting the uniform on with no need for any qualification, reference, or exams.” Then I went to Nellore where Prabhupada was and met up with him on his morning walk. I told Prabhupada about the incident with the dentist. I said, “Prabhupada, this man told me that we are bookworms.” Prabhupada looked at me and said, “Tell him that he is a worm in the stool. [laughs] We follow the book definitely, but they are not ordinary books. It is a shastra spoken by the Supreme Lord. It is the law book that guides the whole universe. Why we should not follow?” That response from Prabhupada was a little more soothing to me than his normal use of the stick. [laughs] When Prabhupada came to Hyderabad, I had the good fortune of doing public relations work for him. The temple opening was happening, but there was no one around except the temple president, Mahamsa; the architect, Murti das; and me. Everyone else had gone out for collection to help finish the temple. For me, it was a great chance to do public relations work because I was trained in Bangalore by one Indian life member lady who was from Harvard and Stanford University. She trained me how to do press conferences and it was a big success. On the opening day about one hundred fifty thousand people came as well as forty-five members of the press. Prabhupada asked me, “So what am I going to speak?” I said, “Prabhupada, the question that everybody asks is, ‘How is society going to be maintained if everybody becomes Krishna conscious? Where will the food come from?’” I selected this verse: annad bhavanti bhutani parjanyad anna-sambhavah yajnad bhavati parjanya yajnah karma-samudhavah [Bg. 3.14] “All living bodies subsist on food grains, which are produced from rains. Rains are produced by performance of yajna (sacrifice), and yajna is born of prescribed duties.” Prabhupada was very happy. He strongly presented the idea of performing yajna. Prabhupada gave the example of how the government doesn’t run without taxes. Every government will tax and the taxes are the yajna of the people. They have to pay a little share of their earnings. So similarly, yajna is a process of paying taxes to the demigods, and in this way the whole universe is maintained. It’s all a question of teamwork. I was very happy that Prabhupada was doing this press conference. It was reported in every newspaper on the front page for five or six days and it was such good publicity. Because it was for Prabhupada’s pleasure, the sky was the limit for my enthusiasm. We could hardly sleep for maybe one or two hours a day for fifteen days. No hunger, no thirst, nothing. We didn’t care for anything because Prabhupada was coming and we had to do everything nicely. It was the first temple in India where land was donated. Everywhere else we had to buy land, like in Mayapur and Bombay. But in Hyderabad we were donated the choice piece of land right in the center of the city. We completed the temple, Radha Madan-Mohana temple, and the opening was a grand success.
We used to go for morning walks at the Hyderabad farm. We got the first farm donated by the Badruka family. Hyderabad was like a hidden gold mine for Prabhupada. We got the first temple land donated, and then we got a farm that was six hundred acres of land, one of the biggest farms in the movement including New Vrindavan. Prabhupada was very happy that we got the land, so we had to do something special there. There was no temple program to speak of except for a little mangala-arati, and then Prabhupada would go on his walk. Because Prabhupada was there, we did some bullock cart traveling to nearby villages, and a lot of people would come out especially for the prasadam distribution. One night the prasadam was distributed and somehow no one thought of cleaning a certain spot where Prabhupada’s vyasasan was located. When Prabhupada came from the morning walk, he first saw one Indian mataji who was brooming outside the house after the sun rose. This was not a good sign because when the sun rises, you should not stand before the Lord with a broom. After all, the Supreme Lord is in the form of the sun, which is giving us light. In other words, you don’t greet Him with a broom in hand. There are subtle reasons for all these things. Prabhupada said, “Indians are forgetting everything.” That particular day Prabhupada was like a fireball. There were mistakes everywhere and he was chastising every one of us. He went to his vyasasan and he could see that the area was muchi. It was not cleaned. He said, “Yesterday it was so clean and today it is so muchi that I cannot even walk.” Somehow or other Prabhupada sat on the vyasasan, and then one of our god-brothers, Patita Udharana, wanted to do something about the situation. He took a penknife to scrape off the leftover prasadam. Prabhupada looked at him and said, “What are you doing?” “I’m cleaning, Prabhupada.” “What are you cleaning with?” “A little penknife.” Prabhupada responded, “Take this knife and cut your throat.” [laughs] I thought, “Oh, my goodness. Prabhupada is on fire today!” Then speaking in Bengali, Prabhupada asked another devotee named Govinda das, “Why don’t you do something about it?” Govinda das said, “Even if we say something, nobody here listens.” Then Prabhupada looked at me and said, “Beware of the association of these mlecchas and yavanas. They’ll spoil everything. You know what is going on here. Why don’t you do something about it?” I thought, “What can I say to Prabhupada?” I just put my head down. It was a very awkward situation. He told me, “You should teach by your example, but beware of your association with these mlecchas and yavanas.” At the time there were many GBCs and senior men like Hansadutta and Harikesa and others. This was a very strong instruction he gave me to be always alert. In other words, he was telling me not to take anything for granted even though I was in the Hare Krishna Movement. Sometimes we assume we are all devotees, not really knowing what is the depth of the meaning of a devotee. A lot of work is still left, but one should not become familiar with this Krishna conscious culture because if you make an aparadha, there is a reaction. There are four types of aparadha: vaishnava-aparadha, nama-aparadha, dhama-aparadha, seva-aparadha. You can commit an aparadha at any level, and when the aparadha happens, you will be taken away from aradhana—from service to Krishna. Some blocks will come. Suddenly you will lose interest in chanting and lose enthusiasm to do service. These are some things that are very important to learn. Prabhupada told us, “Don’t take things for granted. Think.” In other words, I realized that just because somebody says something, it doesn’t mean you have to accept it blindly. There is time to think about all these things. At the same time, Prabhupada said we should work and cooperate together. And in the last days he made the statement, “Your love for me is shown by how you cooperate.” This is a challenging thing for us. We have to also raise our adhikar from kanistha level to madhyama level. We can reconcile all contradictory situations and statements of Prabhupada and resolve them in a way that our determination to serve Krishna becomes very strong. That is what Prabhupada himself did in his own life. After all, the Gaudiya Math suddenly collapsed, and there were some god-brothers whom he loved, but they could not work together any more. But Prabhupada was very determined. He was very fixed. His guru’s order was there, and he had very firm faith that even though his god-brothers did not help him, he would not give up his own service. Prabhupada had no lamentation and no hankering. No lamentation means, “Whatever happens, it is your desire, Lord, but let me do some service for you.” This heavy chastisement Prabhupada gave me was a very significant lesson.
I had respect for prasadam because prasadam brought me to Prabhupada’s movement. Even before coming to the Hare Krishna temple I had gone to the neighboring Laksmi-Narayana temple for prasad. Whatever progress we make, it is by the mercy of the Lord in the form of prasadam. When I came to the Hare Krishna temple one day, there was upma that all the devotees were making into a ball and passing around like a football. I said, “Prabhus, don’t treat prasad like this. This is prasad.” They said, “No, you can have it all.” I was wondering, “Why should I have everything? I can only eat so much.” I took a little bit and put it in my mouth. Immediately I thought, “Oh, what is this?” This was strange upma, but I didn’t want to start criticizing the management, so I decided to keep quiet. I felt, however, whoever cooked this upma really had no idea how to cook. Actually, everything including the rice and dahl was useless. Then at the opening of the new temple in Hyderabad, we had eight hundred guests and Prabhupada saw that all the guests were served a big feast. Prabhupada told Mahamsa, “You’re giving everyone prasadam feast. Bring me some also.” Mahamsa went to the kitchen and made a plate and brought it to Prabhupada. Prabhupada put each item in his mouth and put it right back on the plate. Prabhupada then looked at him and said, “You’re feeding this to the guests?” He said, “Yes, Prabhupada.” Prabhupada said to him, “This is not even fit for feeding to the dogs.” [laughs] Prabhupada was furious. He said, “Who is cooking this?” Mahamsa replied, “We hired a Gujarati man who said he was a cook. He is an honest man, Prabhupada.” This was the main bone of contention that even if his cooking wasn’t to a high standard, the fact that he was ‘honest’ was a big plus. Prabhupada said, “He is not honest. This man is not a cook. This is no symptom of any cook.” Mahamsa said again and again, “But he is an honest man.” Prabhupada replied, “Yes, eating garbage and speaking garbage. He is a cheater. His cheating is that he says he is a cook, but actually he is a rickshaw wallah.” I was so relieved that finally Prabhupada had addressed the bad-cooking situation. He said, “You should throw this man out of this place.” Finally, the next morning they threw him out. It confirmed my thoughts that this was not the standard we should set for Prabhupada’s temples. It was time to upgrade our standards. At the same time during one of the Sunday programs, I was leading the chanting. At one point to encourage the devotees to engage in the chanting, I said, “Bolo, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna...” Immediately Prabhupada sent Hari Sauri down to the temple room and told me, “Prabhupada said that you should not add anything to the Hare Krishna mantra. No ‘bolo.’” I had said it just to encourage people to chant the maha-mantra, not intending to add anything to the maha-mantra. But it was an instruction that came from Prabhupada to make sure we don’t concoct and add anything to the guru’s teachings. I said to Hari Sauri, “Okay, okay.” [laughs]
I used to lead kirtans in Bombay in our old temple for Radha-Rasabihari. The devotees knew that I was good at kirtan because I was enthusiastic. They told me, “Prabhupada is here because of the new guest house being built, so you should go.” Prabhupada was a little sickly at this time and not sleeping well. Prabhupada wanted only kirtan as the only medicine. But I said, “I’m not that big of a great soul. What will I sing?” They said, “No, no, you should sing.” I relented and went and sat with one young boy, Laksmi-Narayana. My voice was on a higher note and he would sing on a lower note. We were a little bit entangled with trying to follow each other properly and it didn’t please Prabhupada. At that time Lokanatha Maharaj told Tamal, “Come here and get rid of these two boys. They are not able to consistently sing because there are too many breaks and Prabhupada wants to hear the Holy Name.” This was another situation that confirmed my thought, “When will I ever please Prabhupada and do something that he is happy about?” I realized, however, that I may be imperfect, but I was chastised by a pure devotee. As the sun is purifying, it takes water from all dirty places, and the result is you get pure water. It was Prabhupada that was chastising, not any Tom, Dick or Harry. Let him chastise, which is difficult in the moment, but now I can reconcile my initial reaction. Chastisement by a guru is also a blessing. Actually, it is a supreme form of blessing, like Krishna chastised Arjuna, “You’re talking like a wise man, but you’re lamenting for that which is not worthy of lamentation.” Krishna chastised Arjuna and then He spoke the entire Bhagavad-gita. In that way, if we take it in the bigger picture, the guru’s chastisement is his mercy, pure mercy and that’s what keeps me going. Prabhupada chastised in such a way to make us tough because life is going to be full of problems. Being chastised by the guru himself is a training to mature, “Come on, you cannot be complacent and stay on the lowest level settling for some useless thing. No. You have to improve yourself.” I’m not going to change the world, but the change has to come from me, from within. This was the message that Prabhupada clearly gave me.
For me, Prabhupada was everything. Our life started with Prabhupada. om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya All the shastric statements for me are not theoretical. They are actually facts. We were in the deep darkness of ignorance and still we are struggling. To come up to the standard of devotional service is difficult, but at the same time we are not able to give up devotional service. That means it is not a cheap thing. Prabhupada for me is the be all and end all, but it is a progression. I am not a Prabhupada fanatic, however. The whole Vedic culture doesn’t promote fanaticism. It makes you think. It doesn’t matter if it takes many lifetimes. Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself said: “mama janmani janmanisvare bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi”—life after life. That is my only prayer. Let me be born as a devotee. We should be ready to take birth again. Bhaktivinode Thakura went even further: “Even if I am born as a worm due to my own misdeeds, let me be born in a devotee’s house so that the kirtan of the devotee will enter into my ears and I’ll become purified.” When you have Prabhupada nistha, your faith is also very strong. But when you are a Prabhupada fanatic, you’re very afraid, just like the Christians. Anything that doesn’t appear in the Bible, “Oh, this is all heresy. We do not accept.” But we are not like that. That’s why sometimes I make the point among my god-brothers, “Don’t make Prabhupada into Jesus. He is not Jesus. He is more than Jesus. You cannot believe what he is. Let us not make him into Jesus and let’s not make his books into the Bible.” In other words, we can use the shastras for justifying any statement this way or that way. For example, Christians make a reference to the words of Jesus, “I am the way. I am the truth. Nobody goes to the Father except through me.” Christians say this means that nobody after Jesus or before him can be saved. But Prabhupada would explain, however, “Yes, we accept it one hundred percent. Without guru you cannot go to Krishna.” He in one second reconciled the whole argument. This is Prabhupada. Taking shelter of Prabhupada means fearlessness. Abhaya Carana De must come into our hearts also. This comes like he has done it, by taking shelter of his guru and his instruction. Similarly, Prabhupada has given us this chance to become fearless in our life.
Prabhupada was taking his oil massage in his upstairs room when he heard that Bhakti-Raksaka Sridhar Maharaj had come to the gate. Immediately he put on a gumcha, still fully oiled, and ran straight to the gate to receive him. This showed us the proper Vaishnava etiquette. This was something that Prabhupada did every time. Recently I read in our Guru das’ book how he respected elderly people. Even if they were devotees or not devotees, he had the utmost respect for elderly people. Because he was seeing the soul in an old body, he felt that soul required more attention and time, and what to speak of a Vaishnava who happened to be his own siksa-guru. Sridhar Maharaj was the siksa-guru of Prabhupada, so how much honor he had for him. This is something we have to learn, how to honor Vaishnavas. We need help from them. If you can use a camera or laptop in Krishna’s service, why not a sadhu? After all, Caitanya Mahaprabhu spoke about this: trnad api sunicena taror api sahisnuna amanina manadena kirtaniyah sada harih [Cc. Adi 17.31] “More humble than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree.” He didn’t say as humble as Narada Muni or as tolerant as some great King like Ambarish Maharaj. Not that many people have heard of Ambarish Maharaj or Narada Muni, but a tree and grass everybody knows about. To the utmost degree we must follow that so that offenses don’t happen. This was something that stood out very strongly in Prabhupada’s life. He might speak some strong points at a certain time and situation but never with any false ego.
The unique trait in Srila Prabhupada was the full faith he had in his guru. But he was not hammering it every day, or every minute chanting, “Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada, ki jaya.” The faith he had for his guru was very natural for him. He was not a fanatic. Neither did he ever doubt his guru even though the whole organization fell apart. But his order was very clear. Prabhupada got the instruction that he should preach in the English language. He took that instruction and the rest is history. He went to the West and accomplished so many things. My take away from this observation is that we need to just stick to what Prabhupada has given and just follow the program he has provided for us. Nobody in the world has to know what you are doing and still everything will work out in due course. [laughs] Prabhupada was a purified soul. He was not a businessman. He was simply following the process when he came to America. He was chanting and having classes. He was not engaging in business plans or real estate. He did none of these useless things—simply prasadam, putting a bottle full of gulab jamuns in the New York temple, performing marriages for his disciples, buying saris for the women disciples. A sannyasi buying a sari for a woman? No Gaudiya sannyasi could ever imagine. But that is Prabhupada. [laughs]
In Vrindavan during Prabhupada’s final days with us, I had the service of being in charge of the kitchen. Ayodhyapati, who is now Govinda Bhrnga Maharaj, was the cook. At the very end everybody went to Prabhupada’s room, but I had no time to go because I was too busy with my service. Somebody had to finish the cooking. Prasadam had to be taken care of. Devotees were coming, so this was more important than sitting with Prabhupada in his room, even though I wanted to. The last three hours, however, I did go and sit next to Prabhupada. I sat by his bed right next to his head and feeling a little uncomfortable to even touch Prabhupada to do the last massage. At that time, he was easily available to everybody, but I was very shy and thought, “I am so fallen. How can I touch Prabhupada and give him a massage? Let me just do kirtan.” As the devotees were chanting from the bottom of their hearts, I was very carefully observing Prabhupada’s lips. Prabhupada opened his mouth two times and softly uttered, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.” That was it. I could see very clearly it was “Hare Krishna.” Prabhupada left just by saying “Hare Krishna.”
