Bahushira: After Prabhupada’s disappearance I began helping Satsvarupa with the Lilamrta by interviewing people in India who had known Srila Prabhupada. One of them was Acharya Prabhakara Misra, Prabhupada’s first disciple. Acharya Prabhakara was clean-cut, well behaved and articulate. His demeanor impressed me. He had an M.A. and Ph.D. and was a very cultured Sanskrit scholar and teacher. In Jhansi Prabhupada had told Acharya Prabhakara, “I met you here because I saw you in a dream and I knew I was supposed to come here.” Prabhupada and he would do bhajan together, they’d hold Ratha-yatra festivals, and they’d have programs in villages in the area. Acharya Prabhakara said that on Krishna Janmastami in 1954, he had to go to Delhi. When he came back to Jhansi, he took a little rest, woke up at 1:00 a.m. and heard Prabhupada ecstatically playing mridanga in the temple room. Prabhupada was chanting in total bliss. Acharya Prabhakara went upstairs and saw Prabhupada bouncing around the temple room doing kirtan. Prabhupada was wearing a kadamba flower garland that went all the way down to his feet. Kadamba flowers are very rare in Jhansi and when they are available they are usually the size of a golf ball, but the ones on Prabhupada’s garland were big—the size of tennis balls. And he said the atmosphere and aroma was aprakrt— nonmaterial. It was surcharged and smelled like the heavenly planets. Acharya Prabhakara wanted to ask Srila Prabhupada, “Where did this garland come from? You can’t buy it in a market.” But Prabhupada wouldn’t answer. He just kept doing kirtan, bouncing around the temple room chanting. The next morning Acharya Prabhakara asked Srila Prabhupada, “Where did you get the garland, why did it smell so much, and why were you feeling so blissful?” Srila Prabhupada told him, “I was chanting to Krishna and feeling some love for Him, and He appeared and gave me this garland. I went to touch His feet, and He disappeared. Because of that, I was dancing around the temple room.” Prabhupada was crying. Acharya Prabhakara was very believable and I felt that what he said was valid. He also said that sometimes Srila Prabhupada’s mood was to do kirtan intensely. He would chant on and on and on—for three days straight without eating and sleeping. Ordinarily we never hear about Srila Prabhupada chanting for two or three days straight. We hear that sometimes he wouldn’t eat for long periods, especially near the end, but remarkably, in Jhansi, he was doing kirtan for a long period of time without eating and sleeping. And the result of his bhajan was that Krishna appeared.
Kailash Chandra das was a heavy controller—Mars exalted, ready to fight. When he got initiated in Chicago, Srila Prabhupada saw right through him, as he could see right through everyone. It’s a sensitive moment when a controller bows down to someone because at that time that person doesn’t have control. So, as Kailash Chandra bowed down, Prabhupada said, “Your name is Kailash Chandra das…das, das, a thousand times das! Not God …das!” Kailash Chandra jerked while he was bowing down because Prabhupada was being so strong and direct. Kailash Chandra was amazed at how Prabhupada treated him. He thought, “What am I supposed to do with this?”
All six vans were lined up near the Lotus Building, the original building in Mayapur. Srila Prabhupada was on his morning walk and I was feeling weak from diarrhea. I thought, “If I get some rest before Srila Prabhupada’s morning class, then I won’t fall asleep in it.” And I thought, “If Srila Prabhupada were to look in a van, which one would he look in?” I was trying to outwit my spiritual master. I figured he’d check Gargamuni’s because that was the first one and he was coming from that direction. He might also check the last one and maybe the middle one. But he wouldn’t check the second one from the last. So I crawled in that one and went to sleep. The next minute the door slides open and I see Gargamuni and Prabhupada looking at me. Gargamuni had thunder burning me. I looked up, “Oh, my God!” I offered my obeisances and said, “I’m sorry, Srila Prabhupada, I’m sick.” Prabhupada said, “Ohhh,” and walked away. I thought that I could outsmart the pure devotee, but you can never outsmart the pure devotee. He knew to check the second van from the end. Another lesson from Srila Prabhupada was that you could never outsmart your spiritual master.
Dadhi Bhaksha das was innocent, boyish, and small, and an albino. He became Prabhupada’s disciple in an unusual way. During one Kartik he was going around the Krishna Balaram temple on a morning walk with Srila Prabhupada. Prabhupada had said that if you circumambulate the temple it’s like seeing all the holy places. Dadhi Bhaksha was in the back and many different sannyasis—Tamal Krishna, Adi-keshava, and others—were walking with Srila Prabhupada. Prabhupada was saying, “And so Krishna likes sweets.” From way in the back Dadhi Bhaksha interjected, “Srila Prabhupada, I like sweets!” Everyone stopped, turned around and looked, and you could almost see the arrows from the eyes of the sannyasis, “What is this?” Prabhupada said, “So your name is Dadhi Bhaksha das [‘servant of Krishna, the yogurt eater’]!” He was initiated on the spot, and everybody said, “Jaya, Prabhupada!” It was completely perfect. Prabhupada was like that, soft as a rose, hard as a thunderbolt. Dadhi Bhaksha Prabhu thought the thunderbolt was coming, but the rose came.
In 1977 in Bombay, we were on the library program and were getting a lot of reviews of Srila Prabhupada’s books. Vaiyasaki had collected a lot, as well as Maha Vishnu, Prabha Vishnu, Birsringha, Yajna das, Nrsingha Caitanya, Abhinanda and I. We had taken these reviews to Srila Prabhupada and Prabhupada started crying when he read them. If Srila Prabhupada cries from joy at some service, that service is the utmost a disciple can do. When Gargamuni told us how Prabhupada had responded, we felt we’d done something in our life that was very pertinent. We felt successful and complete.
