Srirangapriya das Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 05

Srirangapriya: My mother, father and grandmother were talking with Prabhupada. It was upstairs in Prabhupada’s room, and there were a few other of Prabhupada’s disciples there. I was just playing with some string in the back. I must have been about 7 or 8. My father had been talking with Prabhupada, and then my father called me. The next thing I remember is that one of the disciples said, “Prabhupada, should we train him up for initiation?” And he said, “No, he is our brother’s sisya. He is our brother’s sisya.” Then my father spoke some more things to him, and the next thing I remember Prabhupada saying, he said that “This boy will spread Vaishnavism throughout the world, for which he has my full blessings.” He was sitting cross-legged, and he actually put his foot flush on my head. I just felt really happy that Prabhupada had put his foot on my head. I didn’t think much beyond that. So after Prabhupada left, I wanted to have the initiation into ISKCON, which my father was very much against. So I took initiation, and that initiation didn’t bear the proper fruit. So I feel now that I made a move which maybe was not in accordance with Prabhupada’s greater vision of my destiny. Always from childhood I was always very much attracted to Sriman Narayana and Rama, and I felt that Prabhupada knows the bhava in which I have to relate to the Lord. He knows my relationship with the Lord. That’s why I always remain totally indebted to Prabhupada. I didn’t understand anything what he meant about “he is our brother’s disciple” or anything like that. It was only later, decades later that thinking back I realized that by his brother he meant Ramanujacharya and he knew that I am only to take initiation in that line.