Brahmananda das Remembers Srila Prabhupada
Prabhupada Memories
Interview 01
Brahmananda: I went up to the Swami’s apartment and knocked on the door. The Swami opened the door. "Yes?" he said. I said, "I would like to speak with you." "Oh, yes. Come in." We went together into the sitting room. Prabhupada sat down behind a little metal box, and we started talking. It was very quaint. He asked me my name. I told him, "Bruce." Then Prabhupada told me that in India during the Raj period there was a "Lord Bruce." I started telling the Swami about myself, and I found myself saying, "I want to become your full time student." I had just finished taking a special training course for teaching, and I was employed by The New York City Board Of Education to teach remedial reading, a special program for culturally deprived children in the ghettos. I told the Swami, "I have just finished my training." My assignment was beginning the next day. I said, "I have a job beginning tomorrow, but I just want to be your student." Prabhupada said, "That’s fine, but you have a job." I said, "Yes." He said, "What is the salary?" Prabhupada explained Bhagavad-gita to me in a nutshell. He explained how Krishna told Arjuna to do his duty, to do devotional service, to work for Him, but not to partake in the fruits of the activity. He explained how one should give all the fruits of one’s activity to Krishna. Then Prabhupada gave me a practical instruction. It was my first instruction. He said, "You can be my student, and you can also do your job. You can give the fruits of your job to Krishna." So my first service was to work and give my salary to Prabhupada.
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To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 03 - Brahmananda, Guru das, Nara Narayana
Interview 02
Brahmananda: Here at 26 2nd Avenue there used to be a sink. That sink was important. After the kirtan, while Prabhupada was sitting on the platform, he would slice an apple without coring or skinning it, and then pass it around. He would also take one slice. He would chew it, somehow separate the core and the skin, and then lean back and spit the core and skin into the sink. Everyone would say, “Wow.” No one else did that. But now that sink is missing. That sink should be there with a sign: “Prabhupada used this sink like a spittoon.”
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To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 15 - The 1996 NYC and LA Reunions
Interview 03
Brahmananda: In Montreal, there was a devotee, Dayal Nitai, who was a yogi and was also into health. He strongly criticized our diet—white rice, white sugar, butter—and said that we should eat brown rice, natural sugar, and no butter. At that time, Prabhupada was in Montreal and his apartment was a few blocks from the temple. Since the devotees didn’t have a car, Prabhupada had to walk from his apartment to the temple. So, one day after class, I was walking next to Prabhupada back to his apartment while Dayal Nitai was complaining to Prabhupada about how our food was not healthy and how we were all going to get sick. Prabhupada stopped walking and said, “You see Brahmananda here? He’s been eating this food for so long. Does he look sick?” But Dayal Nitai didn’t get the message. Again he went on about the health thing and the way foods are processed and how we should change our diet. We walked some more and Prabhupada finally stopped and said, “You know, our Brahmananda here is so healthy that he can kill you. If I just say, he can kill you.” I was shocked. What’s Prabhupada doing? But I got ready. Then Dayal Nitai understood that prasadam was okay. |
To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 34 - 25th Anniversary of SP Disappearance
Interview 04
Brahmananda: In Boston, Hamsadutta had just gotten a school bus, the first bus in the movement. One morning Prabhupada called Hamsadutta and said, “Let us go for a ride in your bus.” Hamsadutta excitedly said, “Oh yes.” But then he realized that they had taken all the seats out of the bus. There was just the floor. Prabhupada couldn’t sit like that so I got a chair from the temple and held it down while Prabhupada sat in it. All the devotees piled into the bus. Everyone was very excited. “Where are we going?” I said, “For a ride with Prabhupada.” Vamanadeva was driving, and Prabhupada was giving directions, “Turn here. Go on this road.” Nobody knew where we were going, and no one was bold enough to ask Prabhupada, but Prabhupada knew where he was going. While the devotees chanted on their beads, we got to the downtown area and finally came to the waterfront, the dock area. And then we arrived at Commonwealth Pier. Actually, no devotees had ever even seen it. Prabhupada was always talking about Krishna and didn’t tell us so many details about his arrival in America. Even when we got there, we didn’t realize where we were, but this was the place where Prabhupada had first entered America. Prabhupada started walking, and we clustered around him on this big pier with big roads, warehouses, and factories surrounding us. Prabhupada preached as he always did on his morning walk. He talked about pure devotional service to Krishna, and he used the word “unalloyed.” It’s exotic, this “unalloyed” devotional service, because an “alloy” is a metal made of many different kinds of metal. Prabhupada was always saying “unalloyed.” That meant just one metal, not many. At a certain point he said, “Yes. Unalloyed devotional service” and he pointed with his cane. We all followed the cane, and there was a hundred-foot long sign on the entire side of the warehouse that said, UNALLOYED STEEL COMPANY. We all said, “Yes, unalloyed.” That sign was one of the first things Prabhupada had seen when he entered America, and he showed it to us to explain unalloyed devotional service; a very simple instruction that he made so graphic. We were like Prabhupada’s young students, and Prabhupada was our teacher. As a teacher writes a word on a blackboard and then takes a pointer to show the class, so Prabhupada was showing us.
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To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 05 - Brahmananda, Yasodanandana, Sudama, Gopavrindapala
The full Prabhupada Memories Series can be viewed here and also at www.prabhupadamemories.com
Following Srila Prabhupada
Interview DVD 01
Brahmananda: The first dancing was in Tompkins Square Park, myself and Achyutananda. Prabhupada introduced this style of kirtan, which is very meditative. When Prabhupada sang in the park, that first time I danced and Achyutananda got up and we danced. As I was dancing, I felt I should dance with the kirtan and I should dance as long as Prabhupada has the kirtan, not that I should stop dancing and sit down – that would somehow be disrespectful to the Swamiji. So I danced for as long as Prabhupada had the kirtan, and Prabhupada had the kirtan for three hours, nonstop, he was singing. That’s the way Prabhupada had it, very long kirtans and very meditative. I once asked Srila Prabhupada, “What is the best way to sing kirtan?” He replied that “You sing in such a way that you never get tired.” So the kirtan should be able to go on endlessly. The New York Times, they came to that kirtan and they took a photograph of Achyutananda and myself and Prabhupada sitting there. You see the back of Prabhupada’s head, and he’s holding the bongo drum that he played. The caption was “Swami’s flock finds ecstasy in the park.” Prabhupada said the Times of New Yorkwas the most important newspaper in the world. “This article,” he said, “marked the beginning of my movement.”
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Interview DVD 02
Brahmananda: I got the Krsna Bookpublished in Japan by Dai Nippon. I had to go there to supervise. This was the first book with color photos. This was very special. The windows to the spiritual world. I went there in I think it was May, and I told Dai Nippon…I met with all the executives…that there was a festival in July and I wanted to bring the finished book to the festival in San Francisco. So it meant they had two months to produce the book and they said, “Impossible.” I said, “Well, there is no impossible. You have to do it because I want to present the book to the spiritual master at the festival.” They said, “Well, it’s impossible, but anyway we’ll try.” So they worked so hard, and I would go every day and push them. Every day I would ask them, “Are you going to have it ready? Are you going to have it ready?” They’d say, “It’s impossible, it’s impossible.” Then I booked my return flight to arrive in San Francisco the day of Rathayatra, and actually they didn’t have it ready. I said, “This is going to have serious repercussions for our future business with you” and so on, and then I went to the airport. So as I was walking up the stairs to get on the plane, this big black limousine drove out onto the tarmac, it had flags on it. Dai Nippon was one of the largest companies in Japan, they printed Timemagazine and everything. This long black limousine and it comes right to the airplane, and out come all the Dai Nippon executives in their blue suits. There were about five of them. So I went down and they were all bowing from the waist, and they gave me this carton. The stewardess is saying, “Come on, you’ve got to get on the plane, we’ve got to take off.” So I just took the carton, I thanked them and got on the plane. I couldn’t wait for the plane to take off. I tore open the carton, and there is this silver shining KrsnaBook. It was so ecstatic. Then I start going through the book and looking at everything, the pictures and how it all turned out, and there was this man next to me. He was a business executive, American, and he saw me. He said, “What do you got there?” I said, “Oh, this is my spiritual master, I printed the book in Japan, it’s the first book.” He said, “How much is it?” And I said…whatever I said, “Ten dollars” or something, which was a good amount in those days. He said, “OK, I’ll take it.” So then I came to San Francisco, went right away to Prabhupada’s apartment. I brought in the carton, presented the book to Prabhupada. Prabhupada was so pleased and he said, “How many copies do you have?” I said, “Well, there were 20 but now there’s only 19.” He said, “Oh, only 19? What happened to the other one?” I said, “Well, I sold it on the plane to the person next to me.” Prabhupada said, “Oh, very good, this is very auspicious that the first copy was distributed.” Then he ordered, he said, “All these books,” there were only 19 of them. He said, “These should all be distributed at the Rathayatra.” And then the one that he had in his hand, he said, “And this one also.”
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Interview DVD 05
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Interview DVD 06
Brahmananda: So one evening Prabhupada was giving out prasadam to all these kids. I said, “Oh, Prabhupada, let me do it,” and I went to take the plate from Prabhupada. And, oh, Prabhupada looked at me. He said, “I will do it.” He was actually giving mercy. That was his mission. This is the program – to worship Krishna and take Krishna prasadam. In New York in 1966, it was an apple, a cut apple, and here it is just some fruit. But this was Prabhupada’s program, very simple but very deep. And Prabhupada gave his full attention to it. He wasn’t doing it in some offhand quick way, but very deliberate.
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Interview DVD 08
Brahmananda: Prabhupada designed the Krishna and Balarama Deities, the mudra. He made a drawing and gave it to Baradraj to have it made in Jaipur. There is no Krishna Balarama Deity like this with Balarama resting His arm on Krishna’s shoulders. There is no Deity like that, Prabhupada made that design. And then he would joke about it, “Who is stronger, Krishna or Balarama?” Bala means strength, He is the strong one. And everyone would say “Balarama.” Then Prabhupada said, “Then why Balarama is resting on Krishna? This means Krishna is stronger.”
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Interview DVD 09
Brahmananda: The first time that Prabhupada came to the new Los Angeles temple, it was done so nicely with all the marble, all the decorations, flowers being showered down and playing Yamuna’s Govindam, and then Prabhupada went up to his apartment. Bhavananda had done the painting – blue walls, the white ceiling and the orange curtains. That was the standard. It was so nice with the incense and I said, “Prabhupada, this is heaven.” And Prabhupada looked at me and he grimaced. He said, “Heaven? This is Vaikuntha.” There was a big difference between heaven and Vaikuntha.
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Interview DVD 10
Brahmananda: Prabhupada was always traveling economy class. So I got the bright idea that Prabhupada should travel first class. So we were going to Mauritius from Bombay. So I arranged for them to get first class seating for Prabhupada and his servant, and the rest of the party they would fly economy. As it was, Prabhupada had me sit with him in first class. So we were sitting there, and there is this huge seat. And then they come around to serve the meals, they have this trolley. And on the trolley is a big side of beef, and they’re carving it to order. This is the luxury. Then they come around with the bar with champagne and wine and liquor, and everybody is drinking. So then Prabhupada asked for prasadam they had packed, so we made a plate for Prabhupada. And the flight attendants, they saw all the nice prasadam, they were curious as to what these things were. And Prabhupada just ate a very little bit. Then he said, “Give to the flight attendants,” because they were expressing interest. So we started giving them things and they loved it, they thought this was great. They admitted that this food was much better. After we landed, Prabhupada called me in and said, “What is the value of flying first class? I don’t require a big seat, we don’t eat their food, we don’t drink their drinks, and you’re paying twice the amount. What is the use?”
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