Akuti: I got to do some service like cleaning Srila Prabhupada’s apartment and got a taste of what submissiveness is. He actually demanded submissiveness. Somewhere out of the deep depths of my heart came a little bit of submissiveness after many years of being an independent person. This is what created that faith in Srila Prabhupada, that actually we are servants. That solved the problem of who we are, where we are, and I decided I was never going to leave. From then on it’s just been constant service because he convinced us that we were servants of the servant of the servant. He was definitely the person to serve because he had all the answers and he had the engagement for us, the positive alternative that we didn’t have before. I always thought I was spiritual, but I had no engagement in spiritual life. Srila Prabhupada was so kind to immediately engage us. The minute I walked in the temple, “Can you polish the brass? Can you make a garland?” I didn’t even know what a garland was. That is what was so fulfilling, that was the taste, the little nectar that he planted in all of us – that service to Krishna. And just by being submissive, then you got that nectar. And the more submissive you became, the more dependent you became on Srila Prabhupada and thus the more nectar you would get. That is the most convincing factor that keeps us in the movement. Because Prabhupada has given us so much service to do and there’s still so much more to do. That whole other fifty percent of varnashram is there, waiting for us to do.
Srila Prabhupada was listening to a Krsna Book reading. It was the story when Krishna and Balaram were being naughty stealing butter and yogurt. He was really relishing what a rascal Krishna and Balaram were. When it got to the point where They got chastised and then They passed urine on the floor, Prabhupada laughed heartily. You could see his connection with Krishna and Balaram as a cowherd boy. Then we heard doors slamming in the parking lot. Prabhupada said, “Oh, where is everybody going?” The devotees said, “They’re going on sankirtan, Prabhupada. He said, “Ah yes, this is Lord Nityananda’s movement, going door to door and getting everyone to chant Hare Krishna.” Prabhupada was so pleased with sankirtan. That has always sunk very deeply in my heart that in Los Angeles he was always encouraging us to go door to door to get everyone to chant. That has always imbibed in me the foremost instruction of Srila Prabhupada to chant and be happy and make others happy. That’s a big lifetime engagement for us.
In India, I was there for the Krishna-Balaram opening, and I think the most wonderful part was when we went in procession with Srila Prabhupada down to Vrindavan. You felt like, “This is our master, our guide. This is the King coming back, bringing back all his entourage, everything that he’s collected, his booty and everything from the West. And with the elephants and the procession and the torches going down to the most unexpected place we could ever imagine, Vrindavan.” We felt very proud and fortunate to be with him as part of his army. I’ve always felt like we’re just one of Prabhupada’s soldiers.
I was the person in charge of the lady who put salt in the charnamrita. She was a little crazy, but I had given her that duty and then Srila Prabhupada said at the very end of that whole episode, “She should not do that service any more”. It was like a stab in my heart although I didn’t do it, but I was in charge of that person. That struck me as a personal instruction that I really have to use my discrimination when giving important services to people. We have to be very responsible for Krishna and Srila Prabhupada.
Srila Prabhupada was so easily pleased by our actions. I remember at the Family Dog Auditorium, he was so pleased with the Ratha-yatra that went on that day. After he gave his lecture, he looked at all the hippies and all the crazy people in the smoke-filled room. Prabhupada could see that everyone was having a good time. I think that’s the time that I saw him the most pleased. He looked at the people and said, “This is such a wonderful process. You can dance for hours. And when you get tired of dancing and chanting, then you take prasadam.” He said, “This is such a nice process. Everyone can be engaged.” He was just so pleased to see everybody engaged in Krishna consciousness. Once I was given the opportunity to make puffed rice that he kept in a container on his desk. When kids or anyone came up he would give them a little bit of this puffed rice. He was very reciprocal and he was pleased with what we were doing and we were pleased just to get a couple of little grains of puffed rice from him. He really encouraged us by showing that whatever you can do for Krishna, he was very satisfied. And the more we can do, I think, the more we can get satisfied and I think we can do much more. I think the thing that he really struck in my heart is that we can do so much more. Because you could see him as he did more and more. He had a vision of saving the world or sometimes he’d say the whole universe and that we should conquer the whole universe. That was a big order for us, and he really wanted us to do that. So we have no excuse for sitting back being lazy. We’ve got a lot of work to do, even in our old age, to keep up with him.
