Divyanga das Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Prabhupada Memories

Interview 01

Divyanga: The first time I saw Srila Prabhupada was at the San Francisco airport. I had joined the movement, but actually I joined a van. I was seventeen years old and living in Ann Arbor, Michigan when I saw a van full of devotees pull up at a gas station. I knew there was a big Moody Blues concert going to happen down the street, so I told my friend, “I’m going to get a ride with them.” He said, “I’m not riding with those guys.” So I ran over to the van just thinking, “I’m going to get a ride to this concert”. I said, “You guys going to the concert?” They said, “Yeah, get in.” I got in the van and Mrgendra handed me a Gita, a Nectar of Devotion and a Bhagavatam. He piled me up and said, “Give a donation.” I happened to have ninety bucks in my pocket so I pulled out a twenty and gave it to him. They were all in dhotis and wearing tilak and when we got to the concert we had a kirtan in the van for maybe fifteen to twenty minutes. After the kirtan they all put on plain clothes and wigs. They said, “We’re going to distribute this incense and these books at this concert. Would you like to help us?” I said, “OK, sure.” So they gave me a big pile of incense and some little books and we were standing there giving people incense and saying, “Give a donation for Bangladesh.” My friends were coming up going, “What the hell? What are you doing?” Anyway, I was giving out books and incense and people were giving donations. I had a ticket to the concert and I sold it. After everybody went in the concert the devotees said, “Well, we’re going to the temple. You want to come with?” I said, “Okay”, because for some reason I was attracted to this. The temple in Detroit was about fifty miles away from Ann Arbor and when we got there, Govardhan came down to greet us. I was a macrobiotic at the time, eating brown rice and miso soup. But when I got there, Govardhan handed me a maha plate. On that maha plate were puris with powdered sugar, halavah, gulabjamins and hot milk. He said, “Here!” I hadn’t eaten anything like that for about a year, and when I saw it, it was like, “Wow!” I ate the whole plate and then we went to bed. They said, “We’re going to wake you up early, so don’t be surprised.” It seemed like I had just laid down and the next thing I knew they were clanging kartals in the brahmachari ashram which was in the basement of the temple. I went to mangal arati and they wrapped me in a dhoti and put some tilak on my head. Afterwards I said, “Can you take me back to Ann Arbor today?” Prabhanu, who was the party leader, said, “Sure, we can take you back.” On the way to Ann Arbor he said, “You want to stop and distribute a few more books before we get there?” So we stopped and we did Bhagavad-gitas. We went to a Pier One store and the manager said we could do it. I couldn’t believe it. He said, “Sure”. We put cases of Bhagavad-gitas right in the foyer of his store. There were two doors and he let us stand there for hours and sell Bhagavad-gitas. By the time the day was over, Mrgendra said, “You still want to go back to Ann Arbor?” I said “Ah, let’s just go to the temple.” I did that for maybe four days. Finally we were driving around doing sankirtan the fourth day and Prabhanu said, “You don’t mind if we don’t go to Ann Arbor do you?” I said, “No, I don’t care.” And off we went to Cleveland, which was the temple they were from. So I joined and just never left. That was what happened to me. After a while, because Mrgendra was into traveling sankirtan, we went to the Expo in Spokane and convinced our temple president that afterwards we could go to the Ratha-yatra in San Francisco to see Srila Prabhupada. That’s the first time I saw him.

We all went into the San Francisco airport to wait for Prabhupada. There were hundreds of devotees with flowers and garlands and performing kirtan. It was amazing. We were watching all these people come in and we were all asking, “Where is he? Where is he?” Then he finally came out and we all paid obeisances and got up. The feeling was like nothing you ever experienced before, although I had been anticipating it for so long by reading and listening to his lectures. When I saw him, I didn’t know what to think. I just felt like I was so lucky to be there, and there he was. There was my spiritual master. I remember Guru Kripa came walking up and he had a check for eighty thousand dollars. He came up to Prabhupada and he handed him the check and Prabhupada took off his chaddar and wrapped it around Guru Kripa. At the Ratha-yatra parade, Mrgendra said, “Don’t just go and chant and dance. Distribute books.” So we were out distributing books in front of the cart, and then at the end when Prabhupada was on the stage, he gave a lecture. I was there in front of the stage just looking at Prabhupada and listening. At one point, and I’ve heard other devotees have said this happened to them too, Prabhupada looked right through me. It was like some kind of electronic transmission of sorts but I knew that he knew. He looked right into me and I almost fainted. I was freaked out for a second. Then he turned away and I was just surprised. But that was the time when Prabhupada looked into my soul.

To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 52 - Prabhupada Memories DVD 52 The Alachua Clan 1

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