B. A. Paramadvait Swami Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 05

B. A. Paramadvait Swami: I guess like many other disciples of Srila Prabhupada, we worried very much how to please Srila Prabhupada the most. We also were a little bit envious with all those other devotees who had the intimate relationship with Prabhupada, traveling with him to different places and doing confidential services, etc., etc. I joined very far away from Srila Prabhupada, and the first time I actually went to meet him, personal encounter, was in Paris. In that meeting, it was upon my mind the thought that maybe I should also leave my service and join his more close company. Then as I went into his room, I offered my obeisances and as I came up Prabhupada looked at me very piercingly and he only had one thing to say: “The vani is more important than the vapu.” Then he went into lengthy details to say that some devotees, they are very close physically to the spiritual master but they don’t understand what he really wants to be done and they cannot catch that, whereas another devotee who is very surrendered to the spiritual master in some very long distance from him, he may get his most intimate blessings. So when he said that, I was immediately cool in my brain and I could immediately see the capacity of Prabhupada to harmonize my feelings.