Hari Sauri das Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Prabhupada Memories

Interview 01

Hari Sauri: As Srila Prabhupada’s servant, the first instruction he gave me was, “Now your only business is to be with me twenty-four hours a day.” I took that quite literally except, of course, when I was asleep. When we were in Vrindavan for ten days, I was able to live in his quarters, and I was with him day in and day out. I got a chance to observe everything that he did, everything that he spoke, and every little action that he made. One of the first things that struck me very strongly was that Prabhupada was like a living, breathing Srimad-Bhagavatam. In the Bhagavatam and in volumes and volumes of other books, there’s a full description of what it means to be Krishna conscious, and if you read them it might seem as if it’s going to take a long time to realize such a vast subject as Krishna consciousness. But it was all there in Srila Prabhupada at every moment. I understood that, and I resolved to take advantage of the opportunity to see him as much as possible. By observing how he did everything, how he managed things, how he spoke, how he walked, how he relaxed, how he dealt individually with different people showed me the best example of Krishna consciousness.

It was Srila Prabhupada’s qualities of warmth and kindness that touched me the most. From being with Prabhupada you could immediately understand that he had a genuine concern for your welfare. He was serving us. He was putting himself out in so many different ways just to give us the opportunity for spiritual life. It made you want to reciprocate by offering whatever service you could to Srila Prabhupada. There was nice reciprocation going on. I always felt very comfortable in Prabhupada’s presence. Of course, there was the formal guru-disciple relationship, and one had to be careful not to transgress that, but at the same time, Prabhupada was very accommodating. He was wonderfully warm and humble. He always made you feel wanted. He always made you feel significant in some way. He knew what you were doing, and he was happy with it. He would encourage you. He would also chastise you at different times if you did things wrong, but that chastisement had the same effect as his praise—it made you Krishna conscious. You understood that it was for your own benefit. It was never materially motivated. Srila Prabhupada was very happy to be with us. He appreciated the fact that young men had given up the best part of their lives for spreading the Krishna consciousness movement, and he always showed that appreciation.

Whenever Prabhupada talked about anything, somehow he would link it to Krishna consciousness and make a spiritual point. For instance, when we were in India he would sometimes talk about how the British ruled and managed India. He would always use that as an example of how we should manage things. Sometimes he would talk about recent Indian history and point out if a person were acting in a spiritual or mundane way. He would relate that to the degradation of Vedic culture. Prabhupada had a unique ability to see Krishna in everything and to explain things so that we could also see Him. He was teaching us at every moment. He had no private life, for his was the life of an acharya. That meant that he taught by his example at every moment of every day. He was remarkably consistent, absolutely regular. It always amazed me. We traveled all around the world, and he would keep the same schedule. He would do the same things day in and day out and be completely steady and undisturbed. He would be up in the middle of the night translating his books. He would go out for his morning walk. He would take his massages. He would have his meals at the same time, no matter what. It didn’t matter where we were going. I suffered from jetlag as we traveled around. Prabhupada seemed completely impervious to it. It just didn’t seem to affect him. He would go right on. As soon as we arrived in the new place, he would immediately resume his schedule. He never showed any sign of fatigue or disturbance.

On the Disappearance Day of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati we were in Bombay, and in the afternoon a lady came for darshan. She was a follower of a well-known Mayavadi guru. During the conversation there was some discussion on the philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita, and she espoused her guru’s interpretation of Krishna’s words. In Sanskrit the word “Krishna” means “dark.” So this so-called guru had written that Krishna means dark. Dark means unknown, and so the absolute is the unknowable, unmanifested supreme. Prabhupada quickly fired back, “Well, if dark means unknown, and if Krishna is unknowable, then he does not know Krishna. So why is he commenting on Krishna’s words, the Bhagavad-gita?” He said, “Krishna says that His devotee can know Him. Because this man is not a devotee, he cannot know Krishna. Only devotees can comment on Bhagavad-gita.” Prabhupada was very expert. He could pick up the basis of anybody’s argument immediately. In India there were always a lot of different interpretations, false ideas, and misconstruing of Bhagavad-gita. Prabhupada was expert at keeping a person focused on Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Prabhupada liked to eat fairly simply. His standard fare for breakfast was cut fruits, freshly fried cashew nuts, and, in India, sometimes a bowl of puffed rice and a small sandesh. It was a light breakfast. For lunch, he would have the standard rice, dahl, and chapatis, a wet subji, a dry subji, and maybe a small sweet. If the cook was good, he or she could add to that, but those things had to be there. Prabhupada liked the chapatis to be fresh off the stove. He had a little bell on his table. When you first brought the plate in, there would be one hot chapati on it, and as he finished that one he would ring the bell, and we would immediately puff up another one and run in with it.

From Australia we went to New Zealand, but there was nobody who knew how to cook there. So for the first time I had to do the whole thing. I put the cooker on the flame, finished the massage, came back to the cooker, and everything was totally ruined. I had left the flame on too high. All the dahl had dried up at the bottom. The rice was like sludge. It had disintegrated. The vegetables were so soft they fell apart. There was nothing else to cook, and there was nobody else there to do a quick job of cooking either. So I had to serve what I had. When Prabhupada saw it, he was really disappointed. He said, “What is this?” I said, “I must have had the flame too high.” Prabhupada said, “You are too dull—you cannot cook.” My first attempt was a disaster. I felt really bad. Prabhupada’s digestive system was delicate, and it was important that he had a consistent diet. Otherwise he could have all kinds of physical problems. Once Palika cooked in Calcutta and was about ten minutes late bringing Prabhupada his prasadam. He got angry about it and chastised her strongly. I hadn’t seen him chastise one of his women disciples as strongly as that. He explained, “When the appetite comes, it must be fed. Otherwise disease comes.” When I was with him I regulated the time for serving his lunch prasadam to 1:30, regardless of when the massage ended. By 1:30 he expected his prasadam to be there. That meant that the thought of eating made the digestive juices in the stomach flow, and then you have to feed it. Otherwise there is disease. It was a science, and Prabhupada was aware of that. Apart from that, Prabhupada had problems digesting food anyway. It was important to give him a high standard of prasadam regularly. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at cooking it.

Prabhupada explained that one of his strategies for making people Krishna conscious was to distribute profuse amounts of prasadam. He said that people are almost like animals in the way they live. They don’t know anything other than their bodies. “At least let them eat prasadam, for that’s also Krishna,” he said. “Our program is to help people gradually become Krishna conscious. Simply by eating prasadam they’ll gradually develop an attraction to Krishna, and when that develops, they’ll be able to understand the philosophy simply by eating prasadam.” Prasadam distribution was one definite way that people could make some advancement.

I was with Prabhupada in London when my parents went to the Manor, so I went to meet them. I hadn’t seen them for about five years, and they had never seen me as a devotee. During the course of the afternoon, I looked for some prasadam for them, but there was none. I was told, “We have an early Sunday feast here, and there is nothing left.” I wasn’t able to give them prasadam, but I took them around the Manor, and I explained the philosophy to them. Prabhupada came from London just as we were saying goodbye, so they got a glimpse of him. That was all. After they had gone, I went to see Srila Prabhupada, and he asked me, “How did it go with your parents?” I said, “It was nice. They were very favorable. I showed them the Deities, and I explained a bit of the philo- sophy.” Prabhupada said, “Did they get prasadam?” I said, “Oh, well, I was told that there wasn’t any.” Prabhupada said, “Oh.” It was almost like, “What was the use? If they didn’t get prasadam then your service was basically a failure.” He emphasized prasadam. It was a practical way for a person to make advancement in Krishna consciousness.

To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 01 - Hridayananda Goswami, Hari Sauri, Atma Tattva

Interview 02

Hari Sauri: Once in Mayapur, I was speaking with Pusta Krishna and Achyutananda about consciousness and whether every living being in every atom is conscious or not. Achyutananda was trying to argue that they’re not conscious. The living being may be there but its consciousness is not displayed. He said, “If you thought that every living being is conscious, you’d go crazy. You’d think, ‘All the atoms in the floor are conscious. So if I tread on the floor it’ll hurt them.’” I was not satisfied with his reply so I asked Srila Prabhupada about it. Prabhupada immediately referred to a verse in the First Canto of the Srimad-Bhagavatam and then gave me the example of the skin and the fingernail. If you cut the skin, then immediately you’re hurt, but if you cut the nail, there is no difficulty. In other words, there are different states that come from the same source. Therefore, everything is Krishna, but Krishna’s energies work in different ways. Matter and spirit are from the same source but are in different states.

In Iran, in August of 1976, Jnanagamya was keen on making a commercial, full-scale movie, with a budget of millions of dollars, to popularize the movement. His idea was to show a scenario that included the devotees, so that people could see how devotees lived and appreciate the devotees’ lifestyle. Prabhupada wasn’t very keen about it. Jnanagamya brought up five or six different angles, to get a “yes” from Prabhupada, but Prabhupada would not endorse it at all. Prabhupada dismissed the idea. Prabhupada said, “For the kind of money that you would spend on such a film, how many books could you distribute? I have personal experience in spending so much money and getting practically no result. When I first went to New York, I put a classified ad in the New York Times. One small ad, which ran for one or two days, cost me so much money, and I had practically no money. I got three responses from that ad, and none of them bought my books. It was a waste.” Of course in India you can make movies about Krishna, and they’ve done it often, but they tend to focus on Krishna’s pastimes with the gopis. When we were in Bhuvaneshwar, in late January and early February of 1977, two or three moviemakers came. They told Srila Prabhupada that they were making a movie and that they wanted to popularize Krishna’s pastimes. They said, “Hare Krishna is becoming popular, and we want everybody to know about Krishna. We want to show Krishna’s Vrindavan pastimes. Since you are the guru of the Hare Krishna movement, we would like to get your blessings for making this movie, and in the movie we’d also like to offer you our humble thanks for popularizing Krishna’s pastimes.” Prabhupada immediately told them, “No.” Prabhupada said, “Why do you immediately jump to Krishna’s pastimes from the Tenth Canto? Nobody will understand. They will take it as mythology when Krishna kills the Trinavarta whirlwind demon or whatever other pastimes.” They said, “But, Swamiji, everybody in India is a Krishna bhakta.” As it happens, the evening before, Prabhupada had had a conversation with an educated Indian man who asked, “Who is Krishna?” Prabhupada had been shocked and chastised that man, saying, “You are born in India and you do not know who Krishna is?” Prabhupada mentioned this conversation in his evening lecture also by saying, “Here we are in Bharatabhumi, but now people are so degraded that they’re asking, ‘Who is Krishna?’” So when these filmmakers said, “Oh but, Swamiji, in India everybody’s a Krishna bhakta,” Prabhupada said, “You say that they’re Krishna bhaktas, but last night a guest asked me, ‘Who is Krishna?’” Then Prabhupada said, “Why don’t you first make a movie of the First Canto and then go progressively through the Bhagavatam and do the Tenth Canto at the end?” But, of course, they wanted the Tenth Canto, Krishna with the gopis, and they were simply trying to capitalize on Prabhupada’s popularity by advertising, “Oh, this movie is approved by Bhaktivedanta Swami.” But they could not get an endorsement from Srila Prabhupada. Prabhupada would not budge an inch even after they brought up various arguments for about a half an hour. Prabhupada said, “If you make one movie of the First Canto, then we’ll see.”

There was a Christian minister who was heavily criticizing us on different talk shows. He accused us of worshiping a mythological, ordinary man who had sex with sixteen thousand wives. To this minister our whole movement was based on immorality. Prabhupada strongly but expertly explained how sex desire is there originally in the spiritual world, and for Krishna, sex is not bad. He’s God, He enjoys everything, so why only sixteen thousand? He can enjoy sixteen million wives, and for Him it is not bad. But, Prabhupada said, “For you, it is bad. You cannot have sex.” Attacking was Prabhupada’s method. He would cut critics down with genuine philosophical reasoning. He was very strong. On this occasion he explained adi-rasa is the original form of sex desire, the original rasa that Krishna has in the spiritual world. However, when we imitate Krishna in the material world, we become degraded. What is the highest activity for Krishna, when reflected pervertedly in the material world, becomes the very lowest, most degraded activity.

When we got to Mayapur in 1977, just before Prabhupada got that really bad sickness that eventually led to his disappearance, a pujari from Maheshpandit Sunadi came. He wanted Srila Prabhupada to do a program there. We knew it was going to be a small, rinky-dink affair. But Prabhupada immediately agreed. I was unhappy because I knew how weak Prabhupada was by that time. In fact, when we first arrived in Mayapur, one morning on the balcony after breakfast Prabhupada was looking out over the fields and then turned to me and said, “Never in my life have I felt as weak as I do now. But still I would like to finish this Bhagavatam.” I had seen evidences of Prabhupada’s decrease in general health and fitness. Several times I had to literally pick him up when he had collapsed on staircases. So, anyway I was very concerned, and I really didn’t want Prabhupada to go to this program. I complained, “Srila Prabhupada, why do you have to go?” Prabhupada said, “No, no, he has asked, I must go. It is preaching.” I said, “But Prabhupada, there are so many sannyasis here, they can do the program.” He said, “No, he wants me to go. I must go.” Since I was upset, Prabhupada said, “Just like that story in the Krishna Book about Pradyumna. He was injured on the battlefield and taken away, but then he immediately went back to fight even though he was injured. That was his duty.” I said, “But, Srila Prabhupada, it was his charioteer’s duty to take him off the battlefield when he was sick.” Prabhupada said, “Yes, and it was his duty to immediately return and fight.” So he defeated me. It was his determination, and we did that program. Prabhupada wanted to encourage that pujari. It was a pandal program with four or five rickety steps leading up to the stage. Prabhupada immediately started stepping up one by one. By that time I was aware of how weak he was, so I stood on the step below him. As he went up one step, I went up one step, and I had my hands out just in case anything happened. Prabhupada was pushing himself up the steps with his cane. He had little strength in his legs, so he put one foot up and then to get the other one up he would actually push himself up with his cane. When he got to the second to the last step, he was straining, and then his strength went and he collapsed. I caught him and literally carried him up and put him on the stage. Prabhupada walked over to his seat and sat down like nothing had happened. Prabhupada literally sacrificed his life for us. I saw it. He wore his body out. The non-devotees are fond of identifying the cause of death. You could say that Prabhupada wore out his body in the service of mankind. That was the cause of his disappearance.

To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 17 - The Australian Yatra

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

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 06

Hari Sauri: Prabhupada was very frank and strong with reporters. I think he enjoyed the exchange because sometimes reporters, they like to try to find some fault and Prabhupada would really be very strong with them. But the keynote that they picked up on unfortunately was not Prabhupada’s talk. The devotees had hired a Rolls Royce and as Prabhupada got into the Rolls Royce outside, then a parking warden came up and stuck a parking ticket on the window just to make a statement. So the headlines in the newspaper, of course, had little to do with what Prabhupada had said in the news conference, and they were all mainly about how either the devotees had lavished this Rolls Royce on someone who’s supposed to be an ascetic sadhu or the fact that we got this what we call a “bluey” in Australia or a parking ticket.

When Prabhupada came in for Rathayatra, it was mid-winter, June. That was partly because he had told Madhudvisa, “If you become the number one book distributors in the world, then I will come.” And so we did actually. He organized the BBT party, and Australia was consistently at the top of the book distribution ratings even though we were just a tiny yatra at that time, maybe about 50 or 60 devotees in the whole country. But Prabhupada kept his word, and he came in ’74.

Interview DVD 08

Hari Sauri: A memorable feature about Prabhupada’s visit were the big kirtans that we had every night after Prabhupada’s lecture. Prabhupada had praised Madhudvisa Swami, who was our GBC, for his ability to lead kirtans, his enthusiasm for kirtan. He had once told him, I think in India, that “Madhudvisa is the emperor of kirtan.” Every day we would dance, we would sing, he had enlivened us all for several years. And, of course, when Prabhupada came, he was especially enthusiastic. So he would lead the kirtans. When Prabhupada came, his secretary was Paramahamsa Swami. Paramahamsa, I remember, used to love playing the drum, really pounding away on it. And we would all let loose, we would dance up and down, we would let ourselves go. And seeing Srila Prabhupada sitting on the vyasasana with that characteristic movement of his head from side to side…he would slightly close his eyes, he would play his kartals and become fully absorbed in the kirtan. And when we saw Srila Prabhupada in that kind of concentration and meditation on the Holy Names and seeing him appreciate Madhudvisa leading such enthusiastic kirtans and seeing the devotees so enlivened by it, it was a fantastic reciprocation. All of the devotees just loved it. We would go wild.

Interview DVD 10

Hari Sauri: On March the 30th, we traveled down to Aligarh. Aligarh is a city of about 300,000. It’s mainly Muslim, but we had a Life Member there. His name was Surendra Kumar Saigal. He had a big house there like an estate, and he was the owner of the Tiger Lock company. Prabhupada stayed at Surendra Kumar Saigal’s house. He was a nice man, and his wife actually was a worshiper of Krishna. When we went to the house, she took us into a small Deity room that they had and they had a very nice Deity of Krishna. She used to do some simple puja every day. Prabhupada liked it and encouraged her, but he told her that she should buy a Deity of Radharani. He told her, “Why keep Krishna alone?” So they had arranged a program in a big open area in Aligarh, I think it was called the Press Colony Grounds. Then in the evening, we drove out to the Press Colony Grounds. The devotees had already been there for about a half-hour or so and because it was during the festival period, of course there were a lot of devotees and they were doing a very, very lively kirtan. You can see from these pictures that they were very enthusiastic, jumping and dancing. And when Srila Prabhupada came, of course, they became very exuberant because a lot of the devotees only saw Prabhupada once a year. And for many of them, to have the experience of doing a pandal program in India with a huge crowd – there was probably about 7,000 people that turned out for it – it was a very wonderful experience for them. So they were naturally very enthusiastic in their chanting and dancing. When Prabhupada came, he also seemed to become very enthused by the presence of the devotees and the size of the crowd. So you can see he is on the vyasasana there. He is very happy playing his kartals. He is chanting along with the devotees. The lecture that Prabhupada gave was all about chanting the Holy Name. He quoted this verse that “If you just chant the Holy Name of Krishna even once, it will destroy more sins than you can commit in a whole lifetime.” So he was really encouraging the crowd, “These are my disciples. You can see how they’ve been transformed by the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. So you all take up this chanting as well.” But the program, interestingly enough, had been organized by a friend of Mr. Saigal’s who was the head of the Rama Tirtha Mission. Rama Tirtha is a well-known Mayavadi, and this man got swept up with the excitement of having all these Western devotees coming. So he had arranged for all the pandal. There was this very wonderful silver vyasasana that Prabhupada is sitting on there, and it was a very nice arrangement – big area, nice stage and everything. After we had had the pandal, then, of course, we stayed at Saigal’s house. Then the next day in the morning, we went from Aligarh to Vrindavan. So before Prabhupada left Aligarh, this man from the Rama Tirtha Mission came and he presented Srila Prabhupada with a set of three books, compilations of some lectures that had been given by Rama Tirtha Swami. So Prabhupada was very cordial, he thanked the man, but practically he didn’t pay any attention to the books at all. He didn’t even touch them. And then the man, he had a couple of minutes and then he went off. So then Prabhupada got up and he walked out. He didn’t take the books with him, he didn’t even look at them. So I had a squint inside one of the books. When I opened it up, I looked at one of the lectures, a lecture he had delivered to some Westerners. So it started off with the words “Myself in the form of ladies and gentlemen…” All Mayavadi all the way through. Prabhupada just shook his head, and then we left. So then we went off to Vrindavan.

Interview DVD 11

Hari Sauri: The Rathayatra parade was going down Fifth Avenue and we drove down parallel, maybe down Sixth Avenue. We crossed a couple of blocks and we saw on one cross street one of the ratha carts, and then when we got down to the next cross street there was the other one. So it stretched a whole city block, and it looked really impressive from where we were. Then we cut across to the cross street where the Empire State Building is, and then we waited there for a few minutes for the ratha cart and we were a little bit ahead. Then the ratha carts came down and then they stopped just where we were, and then Prabhupada got out. I remember there was this tremendous scrimmage. It was all reporters from newspapers and TV and what have you, and they were all…literally one or two of them were fighting with each other to get in because everybody was so packed up, and the devotees were all around chanting and dancing like crazy when Prabhupada came out. Prabhupada just kind of glided through the whole thing. Prabhupada bumped his head on the decking, it was so low. We were a little paranoid that some crazy people might try to do something, so it was a security measure. We also sat with him under the decking, and there were about three or four devotees that sat on the corners and next to the vyasasana. And I found out later that they were all armed, they all had guns on them. I think the deprogramming stuff had just started up in America and there had been demonstrations in L.A. in early June, so they were a little bit afraid of that. So from our vantage point, we really didn’t see very much. We were underneath the decking there. All we could see was lots and lots of people up and down the streets. Prabhupada really enjoyed it because it was exactly 10 years to the month when he had formed ISKCON in New York in that little tiny storefront with just a small group, 5 or 10 hippies, and now he’s back in New York gliding down Fifth Avenue with these massive ratha carts, hundreds and thousands of people watching. Prabhupada said it was like a dream come true.

We were all sitting on the stage facing Prabhupada and everybody else was on the ground facing Prabhupada, and Prabhupada was the only one that was looking out. So he left after about 20 minutes. He gave a short speech about where the Rathayatra had originated from, and then we left and went back to the temple and he left the devotees to run the rest of the festival. When we got back to the temple, Prabhupada was a little fatigued. He went to take rest right away, and Prabhupada asked me to massage his legs and feet. So as I started massaging him he started chuckling, and then he said, “I thought there would be some fanaticism.” And I said, “What was that, Srila Prabhupada?” Because I remember there were some Christians out there with their “Turn or burn” banners and all the rest of it. Then Prabhupada said, “Did you see?” He said, “There was one man, he was shouting. He was standing on the edge of a fountain and he was heckling.” And he said, “Then one big black man came up and he knocked him into the fountain,” and Prabhupada laughed like anything.