Kaushalya: The first time I met Prabhupada was in 1969. I was a sixteen yearold hippie living on the beach in Hawaii, meditating, reading the Bhagavad-gita, and trying to understand the meaning of life. One day as I was sitting meditating, a flyer flew by which said, “A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami speaking on the Bhagavadgita at Sunset Point.” I thought, “This is amazing. I can hear an actual Indian swami talk about Bhagavad-gita, the book I have been studying for two years.” At the lecture Prabhupada sat on a slightly raised platform covered with a beautiful Indian rug, talking about how a bona fide spiritual master explains Bhagavad-gita as it is, without misinterpreting it, and how we must read such a Bhagavad-gita. There were only five or six devotees present. He finished talking and asked for questions. I said, “Swamiji, I’ve been reading this Bhagavad-gita,” and handed him mine. I said, “Is this one okay?” He said, “Come back to the temple and we’ll talk.” So I got in the back of an open, flatbed-type truck with a couple of devotees. Prabhupada was in the front with a couple of other people, and I was watching his head the whole time because it was a beautiful, bald head and it was bobbing with the motion of the truck. As he walked up the stairs to the temple, he said to me, “Come on in, and we’ll talk.” I went into the room, and he started talking to me about the Bhagavad-gita. I started talking to him about LSD, which I was very much into at the time, and how I had seen Krishna while I was on LSD. He said, “You don’t need to take LSD. You can see Krishna because Krishna loves you and can show His favor to you.” Then Govinda dasi brought in a tray of sugar cane. Prabhupada said, “Would you share this sugar cane with me?” I said, “No, no, I don’t eat sugar.” I was against any kind of sugar-eating. He said, “This is natural. It grows on the side of the road.” He was reading my mind. He knew exactly where I was coming from. He showed me how to eat sugar cane, and we sat together chewing the pieces of sugar cane, putting our chewed pieces on the same plate. In retrospect it was amazing because it was so casual. He played me a tape of a record that he had done and showed me some other books. He said, “I would like you to stay at the temple,” but he also told me that I would have to stop taking LSD. I said, “I can’t do that. I’m getting so much spiritual insight from taking LSD.” He said, “Well, I hope that you will reconsider.” That was the first time I met him. He was pretty wonderful. I went back to the forest to meditate some more and a short time later realized that the only way I could ever get spiritual enlightenment was to find Prabhupada. I called around because I didn’t even know that there was a Hare Krishna movement, and I found out that Prabhupada was going to the La Cienega temple in Los Angeles in two weeks. When I saw him there I was dressed in a sari. He looked at me and said, “I remember you from Hawaii.” He was very glad that I had come. He said, “Come to my apartment and we’ll talk.” So I went back to his apartment and he said to me, “Now do you understand the difference between your Bhagavad-gita and my Bhagavad-gita?”
In Amritsar, he was training us in personal habits. “Because in India,” he said, “everyone will watch all of your habits. Never touch your food with your left hand.” He taught us how to peel a banana without touching it with our left hand. He taught us how to drink water from a glass without touching it to our lips. He was particular about our habits “because,” he said, “everybody will be watching and making sure that I’ve taught you well.” Once, Prabhupada asked me and Yamuna to lead kirtan. We were singing varieties of prayers, and when we finished somebody in the audience criticized our Sanskrit pronunciation. Prabhupada fired back at them, “You do not have one tenth of the devotion of these women. How dare you criticize their Sanskrit!” He was very angry. He had a transcendentally passionate personality and was very protective of us.
We went to the Golden Temple, which is the Sikhs’ most holy temple. One of the temple people there showed us around. Prabhupada really liked it and was very impressed. They had a huge chapati-maker, like an upside down wok, with about ten men around it flipping chapatis with big, long spatulas. They were feeding poor people. We went to the inner sanctum of the Golden Temple and walked around. When we left they asked Prabhupada, “Would you sign our guest book, Swamiji?” He said, “Yes,” and signed the guest book. In the place that said, “What are your impressions of the temple?” Prabhupada wrote, “Very spiritual,” and he made sure that we all knew what he wrote, because he told us while he was writing it. Under religion he wrote, “Krishnite.” It was very funny—not Hindu; Krishnite. That was a wonderful experience in Amritsar.
One time in New Delhi, somebody was talking about maya, saying, “This whole world is just an illusion.” Prabhupada objected, “How dare you call it an illusion. It is beautiful. The mountains are beautiful, the oceans are beautiful, the rivers, the sky, the trees. This is a beautiful world. But it’s temporary, and it’s a perverted reflection of the spiritual world. If you see the beauty of this world, you’ll see the beauty of the spiritual world, which is a million times more beautiful. If you said to me, ‘Srila Prabhupada, look at the painting I have done for you,’ and I said, ‘It’s an illusion,’ that would hurt your feelings. In the same way it is offensive for you to call this world an illusion.”
When we were first in India, the little Deities that we traveled with were in Prabhupada’s room, and we would go into his room for mangal arati. Sometimes he would do the puja. After mangal arati he would speak on the Bhagavatam and the Bhagavad-gita. Then after that he would have darshan. Wherever we went throughout India, this would be the schedule. Once in Bombay, a man came in, prostrated himself in front of Prabhupada, and said, “Swamiji, you will save me. You can enlighten me.” Prabhupada looked him squarely in the eye and said, “I cannot enlighten you. I can teach you how you can enlighten yourself. But you have to do the work yourself.” Prabhupada was not one to say that just by his association you would be enlightened. You had to work at it. It would take effort.
The whole town of Surat laid out a red carpet for Prabhupada. People strung saris from building to building to shade the path when we did nagar sankirtan. Everyone hung out of the windows and threw flowers and rice on us. Hundreds of people garlanded us, and the garlands piled up so high we had to take many of them off. Prabhupada tirelessly went to various programs, spoke for hours to hundreds of people, and gave them a little prasadam. Surat was magical. By that time Prabhupada knew that I had memorized the Isopanisad and was able to sing it. So once, when we went to a village outside of Surat, he asked me to sing the Isopanisad. I was only 18 and very nervous, but I stood up and sang all the verses. Prabhupada always treated us like his children, and when I finished he beamed like a proud father. He called me over and put my head in his lap. He patted my back and rubbed my head and said he was proud of me. It was one of those magical moments I’ll never forget. He was very warm and affectionate.
I talked the pujari of Govindaji’s temple into giving Prabhupada a house on the temple grounds. We cleaned this house, and Prabhupada came. He was very pleased. One day while the pandal program was going on, I said, “Prabhupada, it’s kite-flying season. The sky is covered with kites.” He said, “Are you going to fly kites today?” I said, “No, I wasn’t thinking of it.” He said, “I used to fly kites with my sister Pishima when I was young. Her kite always flew higher than mine and that made me angry. One day I decided to cheat and I flew my kite from the roof. My kite flew higher than my sister’s, until she started chanting, “Govinda, Govinda, help me.” Then her kite flew higher than mine. Even in our childhood we were always remembering Krishna.” Finally he said, “So you go fly kites today.”
When he first arrived I showed him the flyers that I had made for the pandal program. They said, “A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami and his foreign disciples will be behind Govindaji’s temple . . .” Prabhupada looked at “foreign disciples,” and said, “Why did you say ‘foreign disciples’?” I said, “I thought it would be attractive to people.” He said, “No. It should say ‘American and European disciples,’ that is the attraction.” He made one of the men redo the whole thing, and then he said, “What can I expect? You’re just an unintelligent woman.” I was so upset that I walked out crying. I had worked so hard to put the program together. I found out later that after I left, Prabhupada said, “I am very pleased with her, but a guru’s business is to discipline. If I don’t discipline, how will you ever learn? Disciple means discipline. So, therefore I discipline.” He was actually not mad at me.
We were in New Delhi during the Bangladesh war. Every night Prabhupada wanted to work, talk to us, have meetings and darshan with different people, but we had to keep the lights off due to mandatory black outs. Prabhupada was unhappy about that and I decided to black out the windows. I put black cloth over the windows and that night surprised him by flipping on the lights. He said, “Oh, Kaushalya, you have blacked out the windows. That is firstclass intelligence. First-class intelligence is you do what needs to be done without anyone telling you to. Second class intelligence is I say to you, ‘Do this and that,’ and you do it. Third-class intelligence is I say, ‘Go do this or that,’ you run out the door and then come back and say, ‘What was I supposed to do?’”
I went through a difficult bout of illnesses. Then I got better, traveled some more and ended up in Calcutta with hepatitis. I was taking Ayurvedic medicine, but I wasn’t getting well. Prabhupada said to me, “You are not getting any better. What are you doing?” I said, “I am taking Ayurvedic medicine.” He said, “Do not take Ayurvedic medicine. Ayurveda is preventative medicine. You are now very sick. You should go to a regular doctor and take regular medicine.” So he thought Ayurveda was preventative, not curative. After all, he was a pharmacist prior to becoming a sannyasi.
When we were in Calcutta Prabhupada showed us his childhood home. He talked about how his father showed him how to do a Ratha-yatra and how he used to have a small, childhood Ratha-yatra festival. I think his father was a very important influence on him. He loved his father and talked about him with reverence and respect. Seeing where he grew up was wonderful.
After almost four years of living in India, I finally went back to America, partly because of my health, and partly because of my husband. Krishna consciousness in India was different from Krishna consciousness in the United States, at least at that time. When I saw the devotees wearing wigs and heard about them “changing people up” at the airports, I thought it was un-Krishna conscious. I was frustrated and unhappy and wanted to get back to Prabhupada as quickly as I could. So I went back to Bombay, walked into his room, and said, “Prabhupada, you wouldn’t believe what they’re doing in the United States. They’re wearing wigs, they’re “changing people up”, they’re doing this, and they’re doing that.” I was tattling on my God-brothers and God-sisters. He said, “Are you perfect?” I said, “No.” He said, “They are doing the best they can. They’re trying. Don’t criticize. Just stay here and cook for me, and don’t worry about it.”
Once he said, “The rules and regulations are there because you have no self-control.”
A lady had prepared a huge and delicious vegetarian feast for us, but there were onions throughout the vegetables. One of the men leaned over to Prabhupada and whispered, “Prabhupada, there’re onions in the vegetables.” Prabhupada looked at him angrily and said, “Quiet. Eat. It doesn’t matter, just eat”. He didn’t want to offend her. Being an appreciative guest was more of a concern to him than the fact that there were onions in the vegetables. He ate it and complimented her on her cooking. Another time we were served chocolate. We all thought, “Oh, you’re not supposed to eat chocolate, because it’s got caffeine in it.” Prabhupada said, “Eat it.” He was casual in some ways and strict in other ways. I think his principle was that he didn’t want to offend our hosts by being a stickler for the rules and regulations. It was a great example.
The Maharaj of Jaipur decided to give us property behind Govindaji’s temple. Prabhupada thought that, being a woman, I couldn’t manage things on my own, so he left Devananda and an Indian brahmachari there to work with me. To make a long story short, the Maharaj backed out on his offer after Prabhupada left, which is why we don’t have a temple in Jaipur. The three of us returned to Mayapur, where the rumor mill had been running hot and heavy that Devananda and I had had an affair. I was very upset about it. I told Prabhupada, “Prabhupada, I can’t take it. I want to shave my head and live in an ashram in the forest. I don’t want to suffer by hearing criticism and rumors.” He said, “Why are you complaining? Look what I have to take. You think you have to take so much? Kaushalya, you are looking for a calm sea and you will not find it in this material world. You will only find it in Goloka Vrindavan with Krishna.” He said, “If you shaved your head and lived in an ashram, I would worry about you, so you cannot go. You must stay with me.” I said, “Fine, as long as I can stay with you.” So that was that.
In Jaipur, Malati was cooking for Prabhupada. There were a lot of rascally, funny, black-faced monkeys in and around the Jaipur temple, and they kept stealing food. Malati went into Prabhupada’s room in a panic, “The monkeys keep stealing your food, Srila Prabhupada.” Prabhupada said, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll take a bow and arrow, shoot one monkey, and hang it over the kitchen. That will scare them all away.” Everybody’s jaw dropped because he said this very seriously. Then he laughed because he was joking. It was funny. He always said funny things like that.
