Bahulasva das Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Prabhupada Memories

Interview 01

To view the entire unedited video go to Memories by Bahulasva Prabhu-In Memoriam

The full Prabhupada Memories Series can be viewed here and also at www.prabhupadamemories.com

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 01

Bahulasva: Hridayananda was a brahmacari at the same time as I was there, and Chitsukananda was the temple commander when I first joined. So Hridayananda had lots of friends on campus in Berkeley, and Prabhupada encouraged us to do college preaching. We met Dr. Judah and began…he came to the temple, and Srila Prabhupada corresponded with him. Dr. Judah explained to him the study he was doing to show what the religious conversion experience was like for Westerners, and Prabhupada wrote me back and told me that I should give him full cooperation and help him in whatever way I can—structure questions and make devotees available for him to speak with so that he could conduct his… He did surveys, different devotee surveys, why did they join and so on and so forth. Dr. Judah was very close with Prabhupada in the sense of he sent everything to Prabhupada before it was always published; and so Prabhupada had confidence in him from that, that he was sincere, and Dr. Judah proved to be a very good ally to the movement.

So this building was on Durant, very close to the campus. This is the temple that I joined in. Hansadutta was president here. We used to have wonderful feasts because we were so close to the campus and we were right up where all the frat houses were.

Prabhupada couldn’t come to this himself. There were lots of pictures that were sent. During this time in Berkeley’s history, there was a lot of political upheaval and so Srila Prabhupada said that this will be the antidote for giving that rebellious spirit some proper direction and means to express itself. So he was aware of what was going on.

Interview DVD 02

Bahulasva: Srila Prabhupada sent Nara Narayan up to design the carts. I remember one meeting that Nara Narayan was walking around the room holding his head, and Srila Prabhupada said what was the matter because you could see Nara Narayan was in anxiety. He told Srila Prabhupada that he needed special empowerment, he felt he needed a special empowerment in order to do these carts, and he told Prabhupada it had to come in a name. So Prabhupada told him, “All right, for this now you have become Viswa Karma, the architect of the universe.” Nara Narayan lit up, and that was all he needed to get his inspiration for figuring out how to build all the three carts because he had to invent the scopes for the domes coming down.

When Prabhupada danced, when we had kirtan inside the Family Dog and Srila Prabhupada danced, it was very hard to even express what it was like. Everybody, the crowd went ecstatic. Not just devotees, all the people there were crying in ecstasy. It was a miraculous event. Prabhupada looked like he floated. It appeared that his feet weren’t even touching the stage. Then after the event, we had a little apartment for Srila Prabhupada that was just off of Frederick Street where Prabhupada was staying when he came up. We drove up there, and Prabhupada was sitting in the car and the door was open. I was standing there with Jayananda, and Madhudvisa knelt down at Srila Prabhupada and said to Srila Prabhupada was he pleased with the festival; and Prabhupada grabbed Madhudvisa’s head and pulled it over on his lap and rubbed his head like this and said, “I loved it!” And all of the devotees went crazy over that. It looked like Ramacandra and Hanuman, he looked just like Hanuman kneeling in front of Lord Ramacandra. The whole thing just looked so regal.

Devotees were all putting on garlands, and I came up and paid my obeisances and touched Prabhupada’s lotus feet and put the garland on him. Then when I bowed down to touch Prabhupada’s feet again, he looked down at me and I looked up and that was when I knew that this was my spiritual master. After that, my material life was like a waning moon. Nothing really that I had been doing before was any longer satisfying, and I would just remember that and think of Prabhupada and want to do more and more devotional service. That was the effect that Srila Prabhupada had.

When I would come down from Berkeley to L.A. to see Prabhupada, you would fall asleep in the brahmacari ashram to Vishnujan playing harmonium and then you would wake up in the morning to Vishnujan playing harmonium. You would never know if he ever even slept. Maybe he did, I’m not saying he didn’t sleep, but that was how nonstop Krishna conscious Vishnujan was. You sensed that about being in Vishnujan’s presence, that he was just an otherworldly being. To see Vishnujan and Srila Prabhupada was the most wonderful thing to watch. Of course, everybody wanted to have Prabhupada lead kirtan when Prabhupada was there, but Srila Prabhupada would always want Vishnujan to lead kirtan. And when they would look at each other, you’d start crying sometimes just to see Prabhupada and Vishnujan looking at each other. There was just so much love the way Prabhupada would look at him. You never saw anybody ever look at anybody like that. Vishnujan would always be emotional and get teary-eyed.

Interview DVD 09

Bahulasva: Different people are coming to visit Prabhupada, so everybody is bringing Prabhupada something. So the first person comes in and gives Prabhupada a nice gold Omega watch, a real gold watch. Prabhupada says, “Thank you very much,” puts it on, takes the watch he had on and gives it to whoever was there. Then another person comes in, gives Prabhupada a gold Rolex watch that must have been at least thirty-five hundred bucks. So he takes off the gold Omega, gives that away to somebody, puts the gold Rolex watch on, “Thank you very much.” Then another person comes in and gives Prabhupada a Seiko, the cheapest of all three of them, maybe it was a hundred dollar watch. Prabhupada says, “Oh,” takes the gold Rolex, gives that away, puts the Seiko on, “Thank you very much.” You could see Prabhupada was simply accepting on behalf of Krishna. Nothing like, “Oh, wow, save this one for me, put it in my drawer,” nothing like this. Just “Whatever you are giving, I am taking on Krishna’s behalf.” You would see that in Prabhupada all the time. No mundane attachment.

On one of these walks with Dr. Judah, Srila Prabhupada was explaining that the way to become Krishna conscious is through the practice of devotional service and sadhana and that if you don’t practice getting up in the morning, going to arati, chanting, sravanam kirtanam, all the various ways to practice devotional service, then there is no question of you becoming Krishna conscious. You can’t become Krishna conscious without engaging in the activities of devotional service. So I made some kind of comment, some kind of foolish comment came out of my mouth about the importance of this or that. And Srila Prabhupada turned around and told me that he had been explaining this to me for a hundred lifetimes, and all the devotees said, “Ohhhh,” as if that was a compliment that Prabhupada had had to come back a hundred times to save me from ignorance. But Prabhupada actually meant, at least I took it in a way that “This is how foolish you are that after a hundred lifetimes you are still not getting the message that Krishna consciousness has to be practiced.”

So those people who wrote the Bible did not see God.

When most of these professors came, Prabhupada was always ready to take them on. He didn’t get friendly with many of these professors, but he would always encourage me to bring more. Then we would work hard to cultivate a relationship to get them to come to see Prabhupada, and then Prabhupada would just smash whatever their philosophy was or whatever their point of view was. But there were a few that Prabhupada liked, like Dr. Judah. And Theodore Rosa, Prabhupada was also very nice with him. And I think that was more because they came with a devotional attitude. They didn’t come as if they were the great erudite scholars. When they came, they had a sense who Prabhupada was. They knew they were in the presence of a holy person, and then Prabhupada would treat them differently. But if they came all arrogant and puffed up, then Srila Prabhupada would immediately say, “And so, what is your philosophy? What are you thinking about this?” and he would immediately challenge them and just tear them to shreds. If you listen to any of the dialogues here, you’ll see that Prabhupada would go right at them and usually be very challenging. I think Prabhupada wanted to use these interactions as ways to give the devotees the confidence not to be afraid to speak up. You would get a sense that there was a Japanese Kabuki theater drama going on and Prabhupada was more or less showing you how to do it, regardless of who their positions were, to present Krishna consciousness fearlessly, not to hold back and be overly polite, especially true if anyone brought up meat-eating subjects. I can remember lots of conversations where Prabhupada would talk about how the cow is already giving you the equivalent of its blood in the form of the milk. What is the reason for killing the cow? Why take its blood when it is already providing you this? That theme would come up a lot. But mostly he would always get around to talking about how do you think life came about? How was the universe created? Why do you think you are here? Do you think you are the body? How do you substantiate your sense of who you are? Changing body. Those were the most common things that he would speak about. And then he would always bring it around to talking about the Supreme Personality of Godhead and that you are part and parcel, and you can