Surabhi das Remembers Srila Prabhupada

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Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 03

Surabhi: I came after shaving my head and then when I was asked by Brahmananda to go and see Srila Prabhupada. Then when I walked in he said, “Oh, now you look very nice.” First he asked me where I was from. I said, “I’m from Holland.” Then he asked me, “What is the use of decorating dead bodies?” Then I said, “No use,” and he said, “Exactly. Don’t waste your life in decorating dead bodies.” I was an artist, I was a designer, I would make things, beautiful things. I was definitely a decorator, so I understood the hint. So he would say, “Don’t waste your time on making beautiful things for the wrong purpose.” And then immediately he hinted that “Krishna has sent you here to design His temples,” that’s the next thing he said. “And tomorrow we have a ceremony here, it’s called the initiation ceremony, and then you will be initiated.” And then he asked the secretary, he said, “Give him some paper and some pencils so he can start designing, and you can sit over there next to the secretary.” So then he called Shyamasundara and he asked him to give me the photos of the Radha-Gopinath Mandir. So I got 20, 30 different photos, different shots that they had taken, and that is the temple he liked. He wanted that type of temple to be built in Bombay. I knew enough about the movement that that was a great honor, and I could hear the reactions around me that people said, “Krishna! Krishna!” They were making certain sounds that “This is quite unusual,” and I was also told later on that they had no record that Prabhupada ever did that before – a guy walking in and give him initiation the next day. So I could feel yes, there was something that gave me the energy, there was something that allowed me to do this that normally I probably wouldn’t be able to do. That I could feel, what does it mean to be empowered. And when Prabhupada tells you, “You are going to do this,” and then it actually happens, then you believe for the rest of your life that it exists.


Interview DVD 08

Surabhi: In all those two years that all these temples were built, two or three years, there was always this pressure on time. It had to be done quickly, everything had to be done so fast. And there were always delays, and that was a kind of a disappointment. I really did my best, I tried my best. And I think at times there was an ego thing in me that I would feel that it couldn’t be faster, but I could see that Prabhupada disagreed with me. These were moments that you could probably make a lot of spiritual advancement because you’ve really got to face yourself, you’ve got to accept the fact that no, it is too slow even though I could have had millions of reasons why including there was no money, including the electricity went down, there were blackouts. Whatever I would come up with, it would not register on Prabhupada, he would not accept that. It was “Now I have to surrender.” So this was my battle of surrender. It was always “There is a way to do it faster,” and then you have to find that out.


The Vrindavan project was actually the very first real temple in ISKCON. This established Prabhupada so much in Vrindavan. I think he felt very good about that. Because actually Bombay was started earlier, but it was stopped because of the court cases. I think at that time he was trying to get Bombay first, and then everything was blocked there. And Mayapur was a long-term project, it wasn’t so urgent. And then Vrindavan became priority. So it only took about two years to build Vrindavan, less than two years. Most ashrams and temples, they were very slow. When money came there, they would build something. And ours went very fast, very quickly done, and that was the same with Bombay actually. Of course, Vrindavan had beautiful buildings, very classic buildings, but the standards were not very high in most of them. They were sort of run down a little bit, they were dark inside, and they didn’t have much life actually. Then this one was so clean and fresh and lively and everything was beautiful in there, and that’s what people felt also when they would come to the temple. It sort of woke up Vrindavan.