Revatinandana: In an evening class Prabhupada mentioned that he’d received a letter saying that a God-brother of his had passed away. Prabhupada said that when he was living in Vrindavan as a vanaprastha, this God-brother had kindly written him a letter, reminding him that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati had wanted him to take sannyas and preach in the West. Prabhupada said, “I did not want to take sannyas, because materially it is a very difficult position. But I received that letter from my God-brother, and around the same time my Guru Maharaj appeared before me three times in dream. Each time he walked away from me, turned around, and beckoned me to follow.” These things prompted Prabhupada to take sannyas. He said, “In this way, my Guru Maharaj pulled me out of this material world.” When he said “pulled”, his voice got thick and two tears suddenly shot out of his eyes, as if they were squeezed out by a shudder of ecstasy, and went running down his cheeks. Everybody in the room was speechless. I was impressed with the intense feeling he had when his Guru Maharaj called him to take sannyas.
One time while we were walking side-by-side I asked, “Srila Prabhupada, this is not a judgmental question because whatever you eat, I’ll eat and feel like it’s what I should be eating. But I think that the food that we’re getting here has not been offered to Krishna. They have a Krishna Deity, but you can’t tell Him from the other Deities. They don’t discriminate. How should we view eating this food?” Prabhupada looked at me and said, “Actually, a Vaishnava takes everything as the mercy of the Lord. We prefer to eat what is offered to Radha and Krishna, but we understand that everything is Krishna’s mercy. But do not preach like this.” I said, “Why is that?” He said, “Because the new devotees will take food simply as sense enjoyment unless they offer it first. We do not want to confuse them.” As I thought about it, I was smiling because it was the first time I saw a clear example of Srila Prabhupada’s priorities. He was an uttama-adhikari who came to the platform of a madhyama-adhikari to preach Krishna consciousness.
Prabhupada was letting us ask questions. I said, “Prabhupada, it says in the Srimad-Bhagavatam that the fourteen different grades of planetary systems are arranged along the stem of the lotus flower. I always envisioned them as they are in the paintings, out in space around Brahmaloka. But here it says that they’re along the stem of the lotus flower. How can that be? Visually they appear to be in all directions.” Prabhupada looked at me, smiled, and said, “It may be a very big lotus flower,” and shook his head a little bit. He said, “We cannot understand these things with our puppy brains,” and smiled. It was immediately revealed to me that I have a very small scope for conceiving such things.
One day on the way back from an engagement, our host wanted to show us a Durga temple that had just been constructed by the side of a river. As we went in Prabhupada told us to do what he did. He said, “I’m going to bow down with my right side toward the Durga Deity. When we bow to Radha Krishna, we bow with our left side toward the Deity.”
One evening Prabhupada said he wanted to have a feast for the Gita Press people. He said, “They have been sheltering us and feeding us, so we will cook for them.” In the afternoon Prabhupada asked what chutney I was going to make, and I said, “apple.” He said, “I do not think apple chutney is very nice. Make tomato or something like that.” I said, “But, Prabhupada, we already purchased the apples.” He said, “All right.” So our cooks made subji and puris, and I made apple chutney and halava with milk. A couple days earlier and throughout that week, Prabhupada had been teaching us Jaya Radha Madhava in the morning by having us repeat it after him. He took a special liking to that song, and that’s when he started singing it before his morning class. We were taking care of beautiful, metal Radha-Damodar Deities. The floor of the temple room was wooden, and Prabhupada mentioned that it hadn’t been properly cleaned. Kaushalya volunteered to clean it, but the next time Prabhupada saw it he still thought it wasn’t clean enough. Prabhupada said, “You’re not doing it properly. Get two pots, one for dirty water and the other one for clean water, and do it like this.” He pulled up his dhoti, got down on his hands and knees, put a rag in one pot of water, and scrubbed the floor. Then in the other pot of water he wrung the rag out and rinsed it. Again he put the rag in the fresh water and mopped up what he had done. He said, “In this way, you will keep one pot of water clean while the other one gets dirty. Always rinse the rag, and then soak up the dirt. That way you’ll pick up the dirt, rather than just moving it around.” He didn’t hesitate to show Kaushalya exactly how he wanted it done and spent two or three minutes on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor in front of the Deities. That was a nice thing to see Prabhupada do.
That night all the people from the Gita Press showed up to hear a very philosophical lecture on the Vedanta Sutra. Prabhupada started speaking about Vedanta Sutra but after about fifteen minutes pointed out that the ultimate knowledge of Vedanta was knowledge of Radha and Krishna. He quoted the line, “jaya radha madhava kunja bihari,” which means that “Radha and Madhava are enjoying in the pleasure groves in Vrindavan.” At that point he stopped talking and sat up very straight with his eyes closed. A little tremble went through his body. When we were traveling in those days, sometimes Prabhupada would be tired and would doze off while sitting in his seat or waiting on the vyasasana. But this time he was sitting up very straight, and there was a little tremor in his body. He sat quietly for several minutes, and both the Gita Press people and the devotees were spellbound watching him. We knew that he had drifted into a trance right there on the vyasasana. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Nobody said anything, nobody moved. Everybody just watched him. Finally he opened his eyes and said, “So, this song is very nice. You should all learn to sing this song,” got off the vyasasana, and went into his room. That was the end of the lecture.
One night we received an invitation from local politicians and businessmen to do a program at the Lion’s Club in Indore. Prabhupada didn’t want to go. He said to me, “I’m not going to this one. I do not like these men. They are snakes. You go and give the lecture.” I said, “Oh my gosh. What should I tell them?” He said, “Tell them that we are spreading their Hindu religion all over the world, so they’re obliged to give us a donation. But before you talk, lead a big, good kirtan. The chanting is our mantra for charming snakes. Then they will be able to listen for a few minutes without arguing. Try to get them to give a donation and then go.”
Prabhupada walked in the room, looked at the preparations, and stopped. He said, “Where are the fruits? Where are the flowers? This initiation ceremony is a farce. I cannot bring the Lord of the Universe to a place like this. What is this?” The devotees had gotten rectangular stainless steel hotel pans for bathing the Deities, and Prabhupada was totally dissatisfied. He stood there for a long time, chastising Nanda Kumar, Shyamasundar, Akoyananda, one after the other. He said, “I am not going to do it. You have not prepared for it nicely. There should be flowers and fruit everywhere. I’m leaving.” Then he hesitated. He got on the vyasasana and said, “All right. I will do it, but I do not think this is very nice.” All of this was on TV. He was shouting for perhaps ten minutes. It was incredible. I was shaking. I was thinking, “I’m lucky that I wasn’t in charge of any of the arrangements.” There was a kirtan, and then he said, “All right, Revatinandana Maharaj, perform the fire sacrifice.” Pradyumna was there, and I had assumed that he was going to do the fire sacrifice, but maybe since it was Akoyananda’s sannyas initiation, I was called upon to do it. Every time I made a mistake Prabhupada interrupted me, saying, “No, it is not like that. It is like this,” and the more he chastised me the more nervous and upset I got. All of a sudden I was on the firing line too. His mood was intense that afternoon. I’d never seen him that angry. Finally in my confusion, I skipped “namomaha.” Prabhupada said, “You have forgotten ‘namo.’ All right, I will finish these mantras.” Much to my relief, he concluded the mantra chanting. I started feeding sticks into the fire with my right hand and using the ladle in my left hand to pour ghee on the fire. As I held up the ladle I realized, “Oops, it’s supposed to be in my right hand.” Prabhupada was looking at me as I switched hands, and he made a disgusted face and shook his head. Then Prabhupada gave Akoyananda sannyas. Besides taking sannyas, which is serious enough, Akoyananda had also just been chastised very heavily. He was standing there shaking, holding a danda with his teeth clenched. When the ceremony was over, Prabhupada said, “All right,” pointed at me and said, “Begin kirtan.” I started leading kirtan. Prabhupada looked over at Akoyananda, and for the first time that afternoon he smiled a little and indicated that Akoyananda should dance. Prabhupada was pleased with his seriousness, but he also wanted him to get into the swing of the kirtan. It wasn’t that serious. He should enjoy Krishna consciousness also. Afterwards he got up and went to the back door to leave, but the car hadn’t gotten there yet, and he had to stand in a drizzle of rain for a few minutes. The crowd was so packed in behind him that he couldn’t go back inside. He got into the car and asked Nanda Kumar, “So, you have brought my prasadam?” Nanda Kumar said, “Well, Prabhupada, I thought that you would take your usual prasadam, since it’s not as rich.” Prabhupada said, “No, this is a Deity installation. I want maha prasadam. Go and get me a plate.” Nanda Kumar went back in, came out with a plate of maha, and drove Prabhupada off. Nanda Kumar told me later that when they arrived at Prabhupada’s apartment, Prabhupada’s plate of prasadam fell off the back seat and landed face down on the floor of the car. Nanda Kumar went, “Oh no,” to himself. Prabhupada went upstairs, and Nanda Kumar thought, “I hope Prabhupada forgets about his prasadam.” But the first thing Prabhupada said was “Where is my prasadam? Bring me my prasadam.” Nanda Kumar said, “Prabhupada, it fell on the floor.” Prabhupada said, “Bring it.” Nanda Kumar picked it off the floor, put it back on the plate, and brought it to him. Prabhupada ate the whole plate. It probably had dirt and whatnot in it, but Prabhupada ate it anyway because it was prasadam.
One of my God-brothers said, “Revatinandana, you know what Prabhupada said the other day?” I said, “What?” He said, “Prabhupada said that sometimes, even after going back to Godhead, a soul can fall again.” I said, “Are you sure?” (I knew that in the Gita Krishna says, “Having returned to My transcendental abode, one never again returns to this world of miseries.”) He said, “You can ask Prabhupada yourself, but that’s what he said.” When I got a chance, I asked Prabhupada, “Is it true that even after going back to Godhead, a soul sometimes falls again into the material energy?” Prabhupada said, “Yes.” I said, “How does that relate with the Gita’s statement?” With a wise, meditative smile Prabhupada said, “‘Never’ means ‘practically never.’ The soul is Krishna’s marginal energy, which means that the soul eternally has the capacity to turn away or to turn toward Krishna. Generally a soul does not fall, but if he did, he probably wouldn’t do it again. However, it is not inconceivable.” People say that souls never fall from the spiritual world in the first place, that they fall from somewhere besides Krishna’s association. But Prabhupada was definitely speaking about being in Krishna’s abode as described in the Bhagavadgita.
I was alone with Prabhupada in his room one time, and I asked him, “Many times when we’re out traveling, we stay up until midnight or two in the morning answering the student’s questions.” Prabhupada asked if we were distributing his books properly. I said, “We use the Krishna Books as altar pieces because Radha-Krishna is on the front and your picture is on the back. We also have a Pancha-tattva painting. We have kirtan, I give a lecture, we have more kirtan, then we give out prasadam, and we invite the students to look at the books and talk with us.” Prabhupada smiled and said, “Oh, that is very nice, continue to do that. As long as you’re presenting the books nicely, it does not matter how many you distribute, because your program is different. Your program will attract devotees.” He was pleased. I said, “I’m a little worried because sometimes we’re not up for mangal arati. We’re not really following the sadhana.” Prabhupada was still smiling. He said, “That is all right. Because you are doing sankirtan that will be fine.” He said, “Our movement runs on two tracks, the pancharatriki vidhi and the bhagavat vidhi. Pancharatriki vidhi refers to the rules and regulations of Deity worship. Our temple sadhana is centered around pancharatriki vidhi because devotees become strong by being regulated. “The bhagavat vidhi process of chanting, dancing, feasting, and philosophy was propagated by Lord Chaitanya. However, the smarta brahman community in India criticized Lord Chaitanya saying, “We do not find Your process in the Vedas.” So, when Lord Chaitanya instructed the Goswamis to write, in order to make the process appear more Vedic, they added some modes of Deity worship from the previous age, and that is the pancharatriki vidhi. “Even though I say in my books that our movement runs on two tracks and they are both equally important, I will tell you that in this age you can get along without the pancharatriki vidhi if necessary. But you cannot get along without the bhagavat vidhi. This is why your sankirtan activity is sustaining you, even without the regulation of Deity worship.” He said, “If a devotee needs to be strengthened, then send him to the temple. But otherwise sankirtan will be all you need.” Then he told me, “Do not preach this.” I said, “Why?” I was ready to run out and start singing. I thought what he explained to me was wonderful. “Many devotees are attached to the Deities, and that helps them to be attached to Krishna consciousness. If you explain this, they may think that you are criticizing Deity worship or that the Deity is less important or unimportant. Therefore, do not preach this. I’m explaining this to you for your own understanding.” That was very nice of him.
When the sannyas initiation was over I said, “Maybe I should go over to Prabhupada’s apartment and apologize on behalf of the devotees.” We all thought that it was the worst disaster we’d ever had, as far as our service was concerned. I got a ride over and asked Nanda Kumar, “Is Prabhupada still up?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Can I see him?” He said, “Put your head in and see if he’ll see you.” I did that and asked Prabhupada, “Can I come in?” He said, “Yes, come.” I came in, offered obeisances and sat down at his feet. I said, “Srila Prabhupada, on behalf of all the devotees I want to apologize. We did it badly and we’re sorry to have displeased you.” Prabhupada smiled a little and said, “Do not pay it any mind.” I was amazed, because he was as cool as a cucumber. I knew from experience that I should never, to Prabhupada’s face, use him as an example of a pure devotee. When I did this once in India, he said with great vehemence, “I am not a pure devotee. I am a rascal.” So this time I said, “Prabhupada can you answer a question about the consciousness of a pure devotee?” He said, “Yes. Ask.” I said, “Sometimes, it appears that a pure devotee may be very angry or happy, but how does that really affect him?” I was thinking that Prabhupada didn’t seem even slightly upset. Prabhupada said, “The consciousness of a pure devotee is very deep. It is like the ocean. Near the surface there may be many waves, but as you go down into the ocean, you will find that it is still.” I immediately understood what he was saying. He continued, “In this way, the consciousness of a pure devotee is so deep that nothing really disturbs it. There may be some ripples on the surface, but underneath remains very deep and still.” I asked, “Is it like that even at death?” He said, “Yes.”
