Tripurari Swami: Sometime in 1972 I got to go on one of Prabhupada’s famous morning walks. At that time I had become a little bit known for distributing his books. Someone said, “Prabhupada, Tripurari das is here and he’s distributing books.” Prabhupada turned to me and opened his eyes quite wide and quoted the verse from Bhagavad-gita, “No one will ever be more dear to Me than one who preaches the message of Bhagavad-gita.” He encouraged me along those lines, and by his grace, I was already enthusiastic. His words further catapulted me into the service that I did for a long time in his manifest presence, namely distributing his literature and inspiring others to do so.
On morning walks Srila Prabhupada used to ask me, “So, Tripurari Maharaj, what are they saying?” That was his standard kind of question to me, because he knew I was always in the field preaching to people, distributing literature and so forth. He knew that I would need arguments to counteract the people’s arguments, and he was curious what their arguments were. Each time Prabhupada asked me I would give one or two of their arguments, and Prabhupada would defeat it in an enlightening way. Once in Mayapur I told Prabhupada, “They’re saying that we should use our intelligence to understand absolute knowledge and the truth of life and we should apply ourselves with all of our God-given reasoning,” as if to say Krishna consciousness was deviating from reasoning. It does go beyond reasoning, but it picks up where reasoning leaves off. Prabhupada immediately replied, “Okay, use your intelligence. Read and study the Bhagavad-gita.” He usually responded in short bursts like that. One time in Vrindavan he asked me what they were saying. I said, “Prabhupada, they’re saying that we’re parasites; that we are simply leeching off the society without contributing anything.” He said, “So stop giving.” Everyone was silent. He said, “But you can’t.” That’s all he said, but it was profound. I appreciated the point that, “You say we’re only parasites. Then we say ‘Stop giving,’” because in fact someone else is supplying us. This sankirtan movement is going on not because you’re supporting us, but you are benefited by participating. The support is coming from above. Krishna’s in the background supplying and supporting.
During 1974 I traveled as a brahmachari, organizing book distribution and preaching throughout America. Then I came to Mayapur, but I had no GBC because the fellow who was my GBC in Los Angeles had left. The GBC called me in and asked me, “Who is your GBC?” I thought, “I don’t know, I don’t have a GBC.” I didn’t really understand what the GBC was. I didn’t realize that you had to have one.
At any rate, after their meetings the GBC would read their resolutions to Prabhupada, and he would say, “Yes, this one is all right. Adjust that one. That one is not good.” They brought up my name, and Prabhupada said, “What has Tripurari done?” With a quiver in their voice they said, “Well, Prabhupada, he doesn’t have any GBC, and he’s traveling around and raising so much—” Prabhu- pada cut them off and said, “He’s distributing my books, he doesn’t need a GBC.” That was the end of the story. Three GBCs came to me afterwards and apologized. In that way, in my mind and in the minds of a number of leading men, I came directly under Prabhupada. Therefore they didn’t really complain when I forced my way into the morning walks, because at the time I was Prabhupada’s main instrument for distributing books. Prabhupada gave me encouraging words about preaching. In 1977, when he had fallen ill and the festival was ending in Mayapur, he decided not to go to Vrindavan. I went to him with Panchadravida Maharaj and said, “Prabhupada, I’m not interested in going to Vrindavan for the rest of the festival.” He said, “Why not?” I said, “Because you are the festival. Without you, there is no meaning to Vrindavan and the festival there. I would like to stay here with you.” I felt that he deeply appreciated my sentiment, but he said, “No, you are a preacher. You should go.”
Shortly thereafter many of us were sitting with Prabhupada when Ramesvara gave him a report that to date sixty-four million books in many different languages had been distributed. Prabhupada heard the report and said to me, “This sixty-four million is all your credit.” I thought, “Prabhupada, this is all your credit. You are so encouraging to us.” I got some deep realizations when Prabhupada opened the Krishna-Balaram temple in Vrindavan. We had all worked hard selling books and directly raising money to build that temple. It was a great struggle for Prabhupada, and when I saw him offering arati to Krishna-Balaram, I was deeply touched. The temple was wonderful, and Prabhupada had wanted it so much. Now it was done, and somehow we’d been instruments in it. Watching him offer the arati to Krishna and Balaram was glorious. Visakha, the photographer, was behind me, and there was quite a push and a shove to get close to Prabhupada to witness the first arati. She said to me, “Maharaj, I want to photograph this for preaching.” Preaching was so important that she wanted me to let her in front. I thought, “The hell with preaching. I’m not moving from here. I’m going to watch Srila Prabhupada offering arati to Krishna and Balaram.”
Anyway, I got so much inspiration at that time. Hamsadutta was standing next to me, and tears were flowing from his eyes. I was also choked up and crying.
Later I went to Prabhupada, and his secretary didn’t want to let me in, but I got in anyway. I said, “Prabhupada, I think I’d like to take sannyas.” But I was submissive. I was known as an independent, rebellious maverick, but I have both sides, and before Prabhupada I was submissive. I was afraid to ask anything of him. I tried to say, “If you don’t want me to take sannyas, then I don’t want to. But maybe you’ll want it. I want it only because that kind of commitment will draw me closer to you.” I tried to explain all this to Prabhupada when he asked me, “Why you should take?” Prabhupada played with me. He knew me, but he said, “So, you are brahmachari?” I said, “Prabhupada, it’s me, Tripurari.” I had a wife when I joined, but she had left. He said, “Oh, you are a vanaprastha?” Then he said, “What if you give up sannyas after you take it?” I said, “Prabhupada, I would never do that.” I thought, “Out of love I want to do this for you.” He said, “Others have said that ‘I will never give it up,’ and they have gone.” I thought, “Well, maybe he doesn’t want me to do it. Gosh, I don’t want to force my idea on him. This is not bhakti; bhakti is to take his idea and do his bidding. Not to impose my idea.” I said, “I want to be as closely connected with you as possible. I want all three initiations.” Then I backed off, I said, “Anyway, Prabhupada, I don’t want to push it.”
He didn’t say “no” and he didn’t say “yes.” He was amused by it. I went to every GBC member there and told them, “I’m thinking of taking sannyas.” They had just passed a rule that you couldn’t do that, but they had also just been told that “Tripurari doesn’t need a GBC.” None of them opposed me except Brahmananda. Maybe I took it that the majority rules. When Tamal Krishna Maharaj heard that I was talking about taking sannyas, he told me, “Yes, you should do it immediately. Let’s go to Prabhupada,” and he dragged me back to Srila Prabhupada. He said, “Prabhupada, Tripurari wants to take sannyas, and all
of us think it’s a wonderful idea.” Prabhupada said, “Tomorrow he will take sannyas.” In a sense, my sannyas was in violation of the GBC resolution.
Prabhupada was present when Satsvarupa Maharaj performed a fire sacrifice for my sannyas initiation in the courtyard of the Krishna-Balaram temple. Afterwards, in Prabhupada’s quarters, Prabhupada gave me the mantras, the danda and some instructions to preach.
I asked him a question about sickness, because many of the devotees in my party were getting worn out and sick. A notion was going around that, because we were having intimate exchanges with many secular people with bad habits in an overtly non-devotional context, maybe we were taking some karma from the people. We were dressed in secular clothing, and in the context of preaching we would meet people on the street, shake their hands or pat them on the back, and they’d blow smoke in our faces.
Prabhupada answered strongly. He said, “By performing sankirtan you can never become infected by anything. The infection that others have will be counteracted, but you cannot become implicated.” This is a principle of accepting service. Their reactions shouldn’t show up on us, but instead they should become purified of those reactions.
Once Gopavrindapal wanted to ask Prabhupada about organizing book distribution in a systematic way and about training the devotees to conduct themselves in a particular way. Gopavrindapal and I were in
Vrindavan and he was pushing me, “Let’s go and see Prabhupada and talk to him about it.” I was a little reluctant.
One day I heard that Prabhupada was going to cook, so I decided, “I’m going to go there, invited or not, to witness Prabhupada cooking.” I shaved up, got clean, and went in. Prabhupada was taking massage and said to me, “Why have you come? Do you have some questions?” I said, “Prabhupada, I heard that you were going to cook. I wanted to come and watch or help you cook.” I thought that would be a very enlivening experience. He said, “No, I am not cooking. I am a sannyasi,” and he preached to me about what it meant to be a sannyasi, to be independent and so forth. He said, “I could live in the forest and be independent of all of this. They are making nice arrangements, and I’m accepting it.” Gopavrindapal came in and brought up his question, and, while Prabhupada very much appreciated the devotees’ sincerity and concern for making preaching nice, he said, “It is a little artificial.” Then Gopavrindapal mentioned how Tamal Krishna Maharaj had organized a quota system, i.e. that a certain amount of books should be sold or a certain amount of money collected. Prabhupada said, “That is Tamal Krishna Maharaj’s concoction.” He said that there may be some place for that to inspire the devotees, but Prabhupada’s main point was that preaching was a spontaneous affair.
Prabhupada used me as an example. He said, “Just like our Tripurari Maharaj. Within his heart Krishna’s giving him many things to say. He’s saying them, and books are selling. So from within their heart each devotee will get inspiration. In this way Krishna consciousness will spread.”
That’s the way Prabhupada spread Krishna consciousness. He went in the direction that he saw Krishna manifesting. If devotees were chanting sincerely and practicing, something Krishna conscious must be coming. When a disciple was inspired and had an idea to do something, he would often say “Yes, do it,” and the disciple would start a temple or whatever. It’s not that it was planned out and Prabhupada had a notebook that he was referring to. Krishna was leading and sometimes even leading in the hearts of his disciples. Prabhupada was attentive to that. A mahabhagavata sees Krishna everywhere and in everything. Beginning devotees think, “I’m a devotee, everyone else is a demon.” The higher devotee thinks, “I’m a demon, everyone else is a devotee.”
Prabhupada never gave me any kind of advice or instruction on what to say to sell his books. Once I told Prabhupada, “The devotees are asking me how to sell the books. What is the technique?” He said, “What do you tell them?” I said, “Prabhupada, I tell them that you have to strictly
follow all of the principles and read and chant.” He said, “Yes, this is our only technique.” In other words, preaching is really the overflow of the culture. When your culture overflows, you feel inspired and have something to say. Then you preach effectively. I think Prabhupada used me in his service for preaching and book distribution from internal inspiration, from wanting to please him.
Prabhupada taught us about Krishna-lila when we ventured a question about rasa-tattva. More often than not, he would answer to the effect of, “Why don’t you go there and find out? What can I say about that? What will you know by my speaking about it? What can you grasp intellectually? This shouldn’t be talked about.” Of course, it is in his books, and he does talk about it within certain parameters. But one will really know it by going there, by service and sacrifice. We hope that devotees and newcomers will be inspired by that, as well by serving his message. Then one can know him. Prabhupada is a big subject. Some knew him as “Swamiji,” and when he said, “Now there will be initiations,” some didn’t want to know him any further. Gradually he explained his mission, and some people stayed on while others decided, “That’s enough for me.”
We should try to go the limit. He personally exemplified unlimited service and sacrifice in relation to Siddhanta Sarasvati Thakur. He took the suggestion of his guru as an order. Prabhupada said, “My Guru Maharaj ordered me, ‘If you ever get money, print books.’” Actually his Guru Maharaj suggested it to him at Radha Kunda, but Prabhupada took it as an order. In his commentary on verse 2.41 from Bhagavad-gita, Pra- bhupada writes how one-mindedness, fixed intelligence, is required for spiritual life. He quotes Srila Vishvanath Chakravarti Thakur’s prayer to the spiritual master, yasyaprasada bhagavata prasado yasaprasadan na gatih kuto ’pi. Prabhupada’s idea of one-mindedness was service to the order of the guru. His guru’s order was a suggestion, but he took it as an order and as his life and soul. So he’s very extreme on this point, and if we can follow that example of faith in the guru, then I think we can know Prabhupada as he is.
In Los Angeles we couldn’t go to the airport to distribute literature dressed in devotional attire, so we reasoned that we should put on secular clothing and go in a covert way. The first time we went, the devotees with me were told to cease and desist or be arrested, but I managed to get through the day without being apprehended. At the time I thought, “Oh, what a wonderful facility this is. By standing in one place you can send Prabhupada’s litera- ture all over the world.” I prayed to Prabhupada that we could distribute his books widely, and my prayer came true. Even unwillingly, many airports facilitated our distribution. Then a debate started. Kirtanananda Swami was with Prabhupada in India, and he complained, “Many devotees are wearing secular clothing.” He thought that it was a compromise of our principles. Prabhupada was quite concerned. We responded, “It’s not that we’re regressing. We have no interest whatsoever in wearing these clothes.” I would never go before Prabhupada with secular clothing
on, but for the service of Krishna, to increase book distribution, we accepted it. Prabhupada could perceive our mood through our letter, and he sanctioned it. Ultimately he found precedents for this principle based on scripture. For example in Caitanya-caritamrta, Prataparudra Maharaj changed from secular to devotional dress in order to get the association of Mahaprabhu.
When I was first recommended for sannyas, Prabhupada wrote, “Actually he doesn’t need to take sannyas. He is already doing more than any sannyasi.” (laughs.) That made many sannyasis wonder “What is he doing?” They asked me, “How are you pleasing Prabhupada by selling books?” But that statement was just Prabhupada’s generous way of encouraging me. He also wrote, “Anyway, it is against the etiquette for a sannyasi to wear secular clothing as Tripurari must sometimes do so.” But later he explained that the real principle is for the sannyasis to do the needful for preaching. So, there was a controversy about that, and Prabhupada sided with the dynamic idea of making adjustments for preaching, rather than sticking to the form. He was not a man of form but a man of substance. Not a man, but a great devotee.
Akinchana Krishnadas Babaji came to see Prabhupada in Vrindavan when I was there, a month or so before Prabhupada departed. Prabhupada said, “Please forgive me for all my offenses. Now the war is over. Please try to help them.” Akinchana Krishnadas Babaji was quick to say, “No, no, you have not offended anyone. With all that you have done in the name of Guru Maharaj in preaching, you cannot make offense.” It was very charming, very endearing. Prabhupada would speak harshly about his God-brothers, and you have to understand why and for what reason; circumstance, time, and some of his God-brothers were inimical. In Prabhupada’s estimation, one of his God-brothers was inimical at one time, but after that God-brother departed, his Vyasa-puja was being celebrated and Prabhupada sent me with some other sannyasis to go and observe it. I had thought that Prabhupada didn’t like the fellow, but such feelings don’t run very deep. What runs deep in the heart of Prabhupada or any param Vaishnava is love; what to speak of love for the people in general, love for the devotees and devotees of the same banner, God-brothers, certainly.
We should understand this because we have our own experience now with differences amongst God-brothers. They speak strongly about one another. But if they carry on the mission nicely, we also must have some deep appreciation. And we must have a tear for those who are not carrying it on. We’re not against them.
I think that Prabhupada very much demonstrated this, and if we didn’t see it, we didn’t see Prabhupada. As much as he criticized some of them, he loved them deeply, and it came out at different times. He was not a politician, patronizing them, saying something nice about this one or that one. When Prabhupada was in Seattle and he got telegram of the disappearance of Keshava Maharaj from the world, he glorified Keshava Maharaj with a tear in his eye. He had deep feelings for him, deep love.
In terms of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, there was no more-widespread campaign than Srila Prabhupada’s. He was practically on every continent, conducting it like a great general but in an unassuming, humble way. Upon arriving in America he wrote a prayer and signed it, “the most insignificant beggar.” It always amazed me. Usually a humble person gets nowhere. Usually you have to get out there and assert yourself. But Prabhupada was humble in that he was not at all self-asserting but always asserting on behalf of his Guru Maharaj and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. His was a dynamic kind of humility, the kind that would allow him to sit on the elevated seat and to chastise and give or- ders. But he was truly humble to the order of his spiritual master, humble to the call of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
