Malati: The first thing he said that struck me was a few straightforward words, spoken without condemnation or opinion, but as a simple fact. If it was raining now, for example, and I said, “Oh, it’s raining outside,” it would be a simple fact. You may or may not like the rain, but the fact is that it’s raining. In the same way he said to us, “There is no love in this material world.” We were all from the hippie generation, and the thrust of the hippie movement, particularly in San Francisco, was love. Every living entity is searching for love. Even little animals can’t go without love. If you have an animal in your house and you ignore it, that animal becomes despondent. Every living creature in this world needs love and innately desires to seek and find love through relationship, through creating a loving situation with others. But all of us have been disappointed. We have all been in love, or almost been in love, or thought we had been in love, only to find that the love was gone, the love was lost. The person we loved went away. That propensity to love brought sorrow, yet that wasn’t what love should be or was supposed to be. We hadn’t found love. So when he said, “There is no love in this material world,” it was such a simple and yet profound statement. It brought great relief to my heart. I didn’t have to look anymore. I didn’t have to think about it anymore. It wasn’t there. And it wasn’t a negative statement, because he went on to explain that the reason we were not finding love was because we didn’t understand what love was. He told us that real love was found in our relationship with Krishna. That was my first strong memory.
We didn’t know very much about Vaishnava etiquette, and we had to get a fire ceremony together, although we had never seen one before. We were told what to get. The first thing was ghee. I found out that it was butter, and that it was going to be put into the fire. I thought, “My God, what a waste.” The whole thing seemed bizarre. But we got the various items together, and Prabhupada performed the yajna. He gave the four of us bananas. We looked at each other, “What do you do with the banana? Well, you peel it.” Somebody came up hurriedly and told us, “No. You put it in the fire.” Okay. We put it in the fire. The next thing you know he said, “Bow down. Bow down,” but his accent was thick. There you are, you have just gotten a new name, you’ve just gotten your neck beads on, the fire is crackling, and “Bow down. Bow down.” We were looking at each other again, “What to do? What to do?” Then Haridas figured it out. He got on his hands and knees and we all got on our hands and knees and started blowing the fire right on Srila Prabhupada’s face. Srila Prabhupada’s eyes could become saucer-like, humongous, and at this time they got very large. He picked up his kartals and started a kirtan. Of course he was asking us to bow down. But we had no concept or instruction on Vaishnava etiquette. This was the third fire ceremony, and we were confused souls exhibiting our confusion through this completely astounding behavior.
In the beginning we were curious about how to chant. What do you do when you chant, and what do you think? Srila Prabhupada said, “Two things. You don’t do anything, and you don’t think anything. You simply hear.” To this day my endeavor is somehow or other to hear this chanting.
Anything from India was exotic and attractive to us. If it came from India, we thought, it must have something to do with Srila Prabhupada, because he was from India too. This was a whole new realm of mysticism. One day an aerogram came, and Janaki took it to Prabhupada, but we were just dying to know what it said, because it was from India. After a while we both went in, and we saw that it had been opened. We were waiting for him to tell us what it said. Why wouldn’t he want to tell us about this aerogram from India? But he didn’t say anything. Finally Janaki said, “Swamiji, you got a letter from India?” He said, “Yes.” “Was it good news?” He said, “Yes.” “What was it?” we asked. He said, “My sister has died. She was a pure devotee. She was a Vaishnava.” We were stunned. Suddenly we realized that Prabhupada’s connection with Krishna was on the absolute level. We got a glimpse of eternity, a glimpse of being part of an eternal connection. And we got a glimpse that there was no loss.
When we first arrived in Mayapur, it was the days of the huts with the thatched roofs, the water pump, and the mud everywhere. Srila Prabhupada was staying in the brick hut. My husband, Shyamasundar, was his secretary, and I was his cook. I had always wanted to be his cook, and Krishna had rewarded me. But in Mayapur I was faced with not only service of guru, but service of husband, service of daughter, and trying to maintain my sanity in the situation. Materially it was impossible. There was no facility. I was living in a tent. I had two buckets of water to cook with and the servant would come every day and grab one of the buckets before the meal ended to heat water for Prabhupada’s bath. Each day I had to confront the treasurer, whose duty it was to not give money, and I would usually have a royal argument with him concerning funds for Srila Prabhupada’s bhoga. Then, while going to buy the bhoga, I would have an argument concerning money with the riksha-wala, with the boatman, with the vegetable walas, because they all expected ten times the proper amount from a white person. I had to fight with everybody I dealt with. To double my anxiety, which was already at peak level, Prabhupada’s servant would come and take away the stove just before lunch. On top of that, every day I was thinking, “How can I please Srila Prabhupada?” I really wanted to cook perfectly for him. I would think about it all day. Even when I wasn’t cooking, I would be planning for the next day, “How can I do it perfectly?” And it seemed as if every single day he told me something that I was doing imperfectly. One day there was too much salt. The next day there was too little. I started thinking, “What am I doing? I can’t do it right. Everything I do is wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t be cooking. Yeah, someone else should be cooking. I will tell Prabhupada to get someone else, or I will get someone else who can do it better.” I started feeling relieved. All I had to do was tell Prabhupada, and that was it. The next day I went into his room full of this idea. His God-brothers were coming for lunch that day. Another source of my anxiety was that Prabhupada’s God-brothers were criticizing Prabhupada for many things, and one of them was that Prabhupada had a female cook. I was the cook, and therefore I felt badly about that too. Since his God-brothers were coming for lunch I thought, “He certainly won’t have me cook today. I will tell him tomorrow.” But he called me into the room and started telling me what he wanted for lunch. So, I went to make the lunch, and I brought it in. He was sitting at the end of the room like a royal king, and on each side of him were old, stately Vaishnavas with dandas. It was an impressive sight. I felt completely intimidated, but I had to go in. I entirely covered my head and hands with my sari, and I got down on the floor on my hands and knees. I curled in with the plate, put it down, offered obeisances, and started slithering back out. Then I heard Srila Prabhupada say, “Yes, she cooks for me, and all I do is criticize her. But she would slit her throat for me, and I would do the same for her.” When he said that, I completely disintegrated. By the time I got to the other door, my sari was wet with tears. I realized how mundane my consciousness had been and how my anxiety had been based upon a misunderstanding of the relationship between the guru and the disciple. Every day I had been thinking, “How can I do it perfectly? What would he want?” and he was telling me. He wasn’t criticizing me. I was just taking it in a mundane way. But because I wanted to know how it could be more pleasing to him, he told me. I was in illusion as to the position of a disciple and what the relationship of servitude meant. It is not, “You pat me on my back.” That was my misconception. When I heard Srila Prabhupada say that, I realized that it was absolutely true. There was no doubt about it. My mood was that I would have done anything for him. But it had never occurred to me how Prabhupada would also do anything for us. Then I realized that he was already doing everything for us. My insignificance at that point was immense, along with my gratitude and love for him. The potential for love was certainly revealed to me.
During the early days when we were trying to understand and follow the initial principles, Shyamasundar was carving the first Jagannath Deities. To see how the work was going, Prabhupada surprised us by visiting us in our apartment. He was looking at this Deity, that Deity, and the other Deity. All three of Them. On top of Balaram’s head was a package of Pall Malls. Prabhupada said, “What is that?” Shyamasundar said, “Oh.” Prabhupada said, “That is all right. It is very difficult to give up smoking. But why not smoke one less cigarette every day?” He said, “Don’t let such a small thing as a little cigarette stand between you and Krishna.” It was a loving, gentle instruction, and it was very clear. Shyamasundar followed that instruction. Prabhupada was tolerant, but at the same time he didn’t say, “Yes, go on smoking.” He explained how to stop smoking. It was a positive way of prohibiting smoking.
On the Vrindavan parikram, Prabhupada and all the devotees stopped at a dharmshala near Govardhan Hill. Prabhupada went into a room to have his massage while I cooked for him on the veranda. The system was that as soon as Prabhupada finished his massage, we would have his lunch ready. I only had so much fuel and so much chapati dough, and it was a tight schedule. Anyway, I had it ready, and we all sat down, the brahmacharis and sannyasis on one side and the grihasthas on the other. Just as we started to eat, two dogs began to bark, “Woof, woof, woof.” Some sannyasis and a couple of brahmacharis got up to save us from these dogs. Prabhupada said, “No, stop,” and he took his chapati, tore it in half, and gave one half to one dog and the other half to the other. Then he said, “Hut!” and they walked away. He turned to us and said, “You never know who they are, these dogs in Vrindavan.” It was intense because we suddenly had a glimpse of the fact that we were in the holy dham and, while we were seeing dogs, Prabhupada was seeing spirit souls, and we didn’t know who they were. Prabhupada didn’t discriminate. He didn’t play with dogs, he didn’t have them in his house, but he didn’t kick them either. He didn’t treat anybody in a mean way. One time in Mayapur Prabhhupada learned that the devotees were beating dogs, and he said, “The devotees who were doing that should be beaten.” Meanwhile, in their ignorance, the devotees had been proud of their dog beating activity. Prabhupada always had genuine concern. His concern was not a superficial pat on the head. He wasn’t ever falsely sympathetic or sentimentally sympathetic.
Prabhupada was personally instructing Yamuna in Deity worship. One night Yamuna was doing the arati to Prabhupada’s little Deities. She offered the flower to the Deities and then gave it to Srila Prabhupada. At that time my daughter Sarasvati started to leave the room, and Prabhupada threw the flower at her, hitting her on the back of her head. She picked it up, marched over to him and popped the flower in his mouth. Prabhupada smiled at her. Purushotam was also there and later mentioned that this incident was one of many reasons why he left Prabhupada’s service. He thought that his spiritual master shouldn’t behave frivolously with a female during arati. Saraswati went to Calcutta when she was four and a half, and Prabhupada would sometimes tease her, “I am going to put a stamp on your forehead and send you to the gurukula.” She would say, “No. No.” “Yes. I will put a stamp on your forehead and you will go to gurukula.” Eventually she did go to gurukula, but her father took her. A year later she came to visit me in India, and when Srila Prabhupada saw her he said, “Oh, you have come back from gurukula. Recite something.” She recited the first verse from the First Canto of the Bhagavatam.” He was pleased with her. “Yes very good. You must always speak like that.” Then he handed me twenty rupees and said, “Here, buy her a dress.” I said, “No. I can’t take this money from you, Srila Prabhupada.” “No. You must buy her a new dress.”
Another mystical experience I had with Srila Prabhupada was after Shyamasundar and I were released from prison. We couldn’t believe what had happened, but we had been sentenced to five years and we had to go. Totally inexplicably, after twenty-four days, we were released. Even the parole officer did not know why we were getting out. I was hesitating to sign the paper, because I didn’t know what it was, and she said, “It’s your release.” I signed it fast, and she said, “I don’t know why you’re being released, because I wouldn’t have approved. It went over my head.” We immediately went to San Francisco. Prabhupada had arrived from India while we were in prison, and the devotees told us, “Hurry up. Prabhupada is here.” We ran home, got changed, and went to see him on Carl Street. I knocked on his door, and he said, “Oh, Malati. Come in. Just last night I was thinking that five years was too much.” He said to Upendra or Kartikeya, “Bring that.” It was his case. He pulled out a sari and gave it to me, a white Bengali sari with a green and red border. It was amazing.
The special quality Srila Prabhupada had, that set him apart from all others, was his loving exchanges. We had contacted other teachers who were purporting some form of so-called spirituality but who were actually “chewing the chewed,” to use Prabhupada’s phrase. There was no spiritual taste from these people. Srila Prabhupada gave us spiritual life. He didn’t come to exploit, but he genuinely cared and was concerned for everyone who came to him. We definitely felt that. Never before, from anyone else in our lives, not even our own parents, had we felt the love and care and concern that Srila Prabhupada had for us. Krishna consciousness was a process of falling in love with Srila Prabhupada. We were responding to the warm, deep, great love that he offered us.
