Bhaktisiddhanta: After graduating from the Los Angeles Art Center School, I joined the temple in Miami with my wife. It was a flip of a coin whether it was going to be the TM [Transcendental Meditation] guys or the “Hares.” The “Hares” won out, and Narahari was the guy that answered the phone when we called the local temple. He said, “Yeah, we just had a huge Sunday feast here. Come over, and we’ll save a plate for you.” Ultimately, the prasad knocked us out. It was absolutely amazing with mangoes and every kind of preparation. Being trained as an artist, I painted a banyan tree with Radha-Krishna under the tree. That painting was taken to Los Angeles and shown to Prabhupada, who heard that an artist had joined. Abhirama, the president of Miami at the time, told Prabhupada that I was the artist, so I got swapped for a Jadurani painting. Abhirama got a Jadurani painting and I got to be in Los Angeles to work on Prabhupada’s books. The first morning Prabhupada came out for darshan, he looked at me, and with his eyes he said, “Well, finally you’ve come.”
Baradraj told me, “I want you to make the first Prabhupada murti. I said, “But I’m a brand-new devotee.” He said, “That’s okay. You know you are qualified. You can do it.” I said, “Well, okay if you say so.” [chuckles] We talked to Locana prabhu and he suggested making pictures of Srila Prabhupada first as reference for the murti. My skill at that time was as a portrait artist, so I decided to make some drawings of Prabhupada while he gave his Bhagavatam classes. The problem was, however, that every time I looked up at Prabhupada, his face had changed. It was like a kaleidoscope in that the shape and the color of Prabhupada’s face always changed as though there were different people sitting there. I gave up. I couldn’t do it because he kept changing all the time. The second day I tried again and it was worse. Prabhupada looked over at me with a wry smile as if to say, “You can’t capture the spiritual master that easily.”
We, as painters, were always full of questions. We asked Prabhupada, “What about Lord Brahma? Should we give him a beard?” He said, “Yes, give him that. He is an elderly person, so let him have a beard.” “What about tilak?” “Yes, tilak.” “And what about the color of mother Yasoda? Some people say she is the color of Krishna.” Prabhupada immediately replied, “Who has said? Who started this? She’s not the same color as Krishna. She has her own color. She is tanned color. She is normal color.” A lot of these things may be misrepresented because people don’t have the exact knowledge that came from Prabhupada. That was the blessing of having Prabhupada with us so we could receive this knowledge directly from him.
My main experience with Prabhupada was mostly in Vrindavan. On one morning walk all the FATE devotees were there and Prabhupada was walking really fast. [FATE, or First American Transcendental Exhibition, is a multi-media art museum in Los Angeles dedicated to illustrating the philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita.] He was moving along so fast that everybody behind him was half running to catch up with him. Prabhupada was advanced in age, but all these young guys couldn’t keep up with him. I got closer to Prabhupada and could hear Ramesvara ask some wonderful questions. At one point, Prabhupada said, “The seer is the same in the waking and sleeping state.” At the time it didn’t make any sense, but over time, of course, I realized he was speaking about the soul being separate from the body and always conscious.
There was a moment when Tamal Krishna was saying to Prabhupada, “You have mentioned in Bombay that making dioramas would make your mission successful around the world. Is that true?” Prabhupada said, “Yes, of course.” He said, “We have the Change of Body diorama in the window at FATE in Los Angeles, and people are always stopping and asking questions. They want to know the story behind it.” Prabhupada said, “The change of body means from birth to death in one shot. People are curious and want to know what happens between the two points.” Then he continued by saying, “We are giving Bhagavad-gita that explains it. The reason for dioramas is that you can explain everything without a word. That’s what my Guru Maharaj wanted. He wanted dioramas to glorify Krishna and Lord Caitanya and to preach like that as an art form.” It is to give everything in a single glance: an entire message, very strong, and then supplemented by the Bhagavad-gita. That’s what Prabhupada wanted. He was very strong about that. He wanted it to happen, but it’s not easy. Prabhupada wanted us to “shoot for the rhinoceros,” but it wasn’t all that easy to do. We tried our best and we did what we could in that timeframe.
When Prabhupada came to the doll studio in Los Angeles, he asked us about the Gandharvas we had clinging to the walls of the upper level of the studio. We said, “Oh, Srila Prabhupada, those are angels. Prabhupada replied, “They don’t have wings.” Then the tour of the studio went onto the Change of Body display that I had the good fortune of making. Baradraj presented it to Prabhupada, and as Prabhupada was looking at the diorama, Baradraj asked him, “Srila Prabhupada, would you like this for your room?” Prabhupada looked at it and shook his head, “My room?” In other words, he didn’t have to know he wasn’t his body or that he was going to be changing his body. He proved that would happen for all of us.
I was with Srila Prabhupada on his departure day. The kaviraja that came in the morning to help Prabhupada was telling him, “Your uric acid is killing, is poisonous. It is building up and if you don’t relieve it, ultimately you are going to go.” He predicted that Prabhupada would leave around 7:30 at night. And it was about 7:15 p.m. when Srila Prabhupada uttered, “Hare Krishna” and gloriously left his body. The devotees had been chanting and crying, anticipating this heart wrenching moment. I remember looking up above our heads and I could feel spiritual energy coming down on us. It literally felt as if Narada Muni, Lord Brahma, Lord Indra and so many other demigods were witnessing this moment along with Prabhupada’s disciples. The energy was definitely palpable. And then when he did depart, all that energy disappeared. It was gone in a flash. Srila Prabhupada’s mission had been completed in that moment as he showed us with his last breath, as he is the true acharya, how to leave this material world.
