Mahaniddhi Swami Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 11

Mahaniddhi Swami: The devotees came from Los Angeles with the new Balarama mridanga, and they were colorful and lightweight. Everyone was excited about it – this will be the new drum for ISKCON. So they put it on Prabhupada’s darshan desk one evening and everyone was holding their breath, what will be the judgment. And then he very deftly and expertly hits it, hits the mridanga, plays one or two bols and tals, and then sits back. Then he said very matter-of-factly, “It’s dead.” All the excitement over that mridanga, Prabhupada dissipated it with two words, “It’s dead.” And we could understand how that it’s not so easy to please the spiritual master, things have to be done correctly and properly, because the whole relationship between the disciple and the guru is one where the guru wants to bring perfection out of our hearts. Like the lady in the village is churning the milk to bring the butter out of the milk, but if she stops halfway and says, “I’ve done my job, that’s enough,” then the butter will not appear. So I saw that he was churning, churning everyone in the room, and especially churning the producers of the mridanga, “More surrender. Your perfection is not here yet. You have to do more churning to get this final product of the perfect mridanga or the perfect offering or the perfectly pure heart.”