Hari Sauri: As Srila Prabhupada’s servant, the first instruction he gave me was, “Now your only business is to be with me twenty-four hours a day.” I took that quite literally except, of course, when I was asleep. When we were in Vrindavan for ten days, I was able to live in his quarters, and I was with him day in and day out. I got a chance to observe everything that he did, everything that he spoke, and every little action that he made. One of the first things that struck me very strongly was that Prabhupada was like a living, breathing Srimad-Bhagavatam. In the Bhagavatam and in volumes and volumes of other books, there’s a full description of what it means to be Krishna conscious, and if you read them it might seem as if it’s going to take a long time to realize such a vast subject as Krishna consciousness. But it was all there in Srila Prabhupada at every moment. I understood that, and I resolved to take advantage of the opportunity to see him as much as possible. By observing how he did everything, how he managed things, how he spoke, how he walked, how he relaxed, how he dealt individually with different people showed me the best example of Krishna consciousness.
It was Srila Prabhupada’s qualities of warmth and kindness that touched me the most. From being with Prabhupada you could immediately understand that he had a genuine concern for your welfare. He was serving us. He was putting himself out in so many different ways just to give us the opportunity for spiritual life. It made you want to reciprocate by offering whatever service you could to Srila Prabhupada. There was nice reciprocation going on. I always felt very comfortable in Prabhupada’s presence. Of course, there was the formal guru-disciple relationship, and one had to be careful not to transgress that, but at the same time, Prabhupada was very accommodating. He was wonderfully warm and humble. He always made you feel wanted. He always made you feel significant in some way. He knew what you were doing, and he was happy with it. He would encourage you. He would also chastise you at different times if you did things wrong, but that chastisement had the same effect as his praise—it made you Krishna conscious. You understood that it was for your own benefit. It was never materially motivated. Srila Prabhupada was very happy to be with us. He appreciated the fact that young men had given up the best part of their lives for spreading the Krishna consciousness movement, and he always showed that appreciation.
Whenever Prabhupada talked about anything, somehow he would link it to Krishna consciousness and make a spiritual point. For instance, when we were in India he would sometimes talk about how the British ruled and managed India. He would always use that as an example of how we should manage things. Sometimes he would talk about recent Indian history and point out if a person were acting in a spiritual or mundane way. He would relate that to the degradation of Vedic culture. Prabhupada had a unique ability to see Krishna in everything and to explain things so that we could also see Him. He was teaching us at every moment. He had no private life, for his was the life of an acharya. That meant that he taught by his example at every moment of every day. He was remarkably consistent, absolutely regular. It always amazed me. We traveled all around the world, and he would keep the same schedule. He would do the same things day in and day out and be completely steady and undisturbed. He would be up in the middle of the night translating his books. He would go out for his morning walk. He would take his massages. He would have his meals at the same time, no matter what. It didn’t matter where we were going. I suffered from jetlag as we traveled around. Prabhupada seemed completely impervious to it. It just didn’t seem to affect him. He would go right on. As soon as we arrived in the new place, he would immediately resume his schedule. He never showed any sign of fatigue or disturbance.
On the Disappearance Day of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati we were in Bombay, and in the afternoon a lady came for darshan. She was a follower of a well-known Mayavadi guru. During the conversation there was some discussion on the philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita, and she espoused her guru’s interpretation of Krishna’s words. In Sanskrit the word “Krishna” means “dark.” So this so-called guru had written that Krishna means dark. Dark means unknown, and so the absolute is the unknowable, unmanifested supreme. Prabhupada quickly fired back, “Well, if dark means unknown, and if Krishna is unknowable, then he does not know Krishna. So why is he commenting on Krishna’s words, the Bhagavad-gita?” He said, “Krishna says that His devotee can know Him. Because this man is not a devotee, he cannot know Krishna. Only devotees can comment on Bhagavad-gita.” Prabhupada was very expert. He could pick up the basis of anybody’s argument immediately. In India there were always a lot of different interpretations, false ideas, and misconstruing of Bhagavad-gita. Prabhupada was expert at keeping a person focused on Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Prabhupada liked to eat fairly simply. His standard fare for breakfast was cut fruits, freshly fried cashew nuts, and, in India, sometimes a bowl of puffed rice and a small sandesh. It was a light breakfast. For lunch, he would have the standard rice, dahl, and chapatis, a wet subji, a dry subji, and maybe a small sweet. If the cook was good, he or she could add to that, but those things had to be there. Prabhupada liked the chapatis to be fresh off the stove. He had a little bell on his table. When you first brought the plate in, there would be one hot chapati on it, and as he finished that one he would ring the bell, and we would immediately puff up another one and run in with it.
From Australia we went to New Zealand, but there was nobody who knew how to cook there. So for the first time I had to do the whole thing. I put the cooker on the flame, finished the massage, came back to the cooker, and everything was totally ruined. I had left the flame on too high. All the dahl had dried up at the bottom. The rice was like sludge. It had disintegrated. The vegetables were so soft they fell apart. There was nothing else to cook, and there was nobody else there to do a quick job of cooking either. So I had to serve what I had. When Prabhupada saw it, he was really disappointed. He said, “What is this?” I said, “I must have had the flame too high.” Prabhupada said, “You are too dull—you cannot cook.” My first attempt was a disaster. I felt really bad. Prabhupada’s digestive system was delicate, and it was important that he had a consistent diet. Otherwise he could have all kinds of physical problems. Once Palika cooked in Calcutta and was about ten minutes late bringing Prabhupada his prasadam. He got angry about it and chastised her strongly. I hadn’t seen him chastise one of his women disciples as strongly as that. He explained, “When the appetite comes, it must be fed. Otherwise disease comes.” When I was with him I regulated the time for serving his lunch prasadam to 1:30, regardless of when the massage ended. By 1:30 he expected his prasadam to be there. That meant that the thought of eating made the digestive juices in the stomach flow, and then you have to feed it. Otherwise there is disease. It was a science, and Prabhupada was aware of that. Apart from that, Prabhupada had problems digesting food anyway. It was important to give him a high standard of prasadam regularly. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at cooking it.
Prabhupada explained that one of his strategies for making people Krishna conscious was to distribute profuse amounts of prasadam. He said that people are almost like animals in the way they live. They don’t know anything other than their bodies. “At least let them eat prasadam, for that’s also Krishna,” he said. “Our program is to help people gradually become Krishna conscious. Simply by eating prasadam they’ll gradually develop an attraction to Krishna, and when that develops, they’ll be able to understand the philosophy simply by eating prasadam.” Prasadam distribution was one definite way that people could make some advancement.
I was with Prabhupada in London when my parents went to the Manor, so I went to meet them. I hadn’t seen them for about five years, and they had never seen me as a devotee. During the course of the afternoon, I looked for some prasadam for them, but there was none. I was told, “We have an early Sunday feast here, and there is nothing left.” I wasn’t able to give them prasadam, but I took them around the Manor, and I explained the philosophy to them. Prabhupada came from London just as we were saying goodbye, so they got a glimpse of him. That was all. After they had gone, I went to see Srila Prabhupada, and he asked me, “How did it go with your parents?” I said, “It was nice. They were very favorable. I showed them the Deities, and I explained a bit of the philo- sophy.” Prabhupada said, “Did they get prasadam?” I said, “Oh, well, I was told that there wasn’t any.” Prabhupada said, “Oh.” It was almost like, “What was the use? If they didn’t get prasadam then your service was basically a failure.” He emphasized prasadam. It was a practical way for a person to make advancement in Krishna consciousness.
