Sarvabhavana: At first I found some of the management policies regarding the restaurant, the guesthouse and the cooking a little strange, but later on I understood. For example, in Vrindavan Prabhupada wanted three separate small kitchens, each with a little mud-caked oven that burns wood or coal. Prabhupada said, “I don’t want our life members to go outside to drink tea. If they want it, let them brew their tea here. Provide this facility.” So we made three small cubicles where life members could make tea for themselves. Initially, you might think that tea is an intoxicant that devotees are not supposed to take, and here Prabhupada is providing tea facilities for guests and life members. I asked, “Prabhupada, sometimes fanatic devotees say, ‘How can you do that?’” He said, “When a guest comes to the house, then you try to fulfill all his wishes as long as it doesn’t involve sinful activities. We may not drink tea because that is part of sadhana and because drinking tea is in the mode of ignorance, but it’s not sinful. There is no harm if you provide facilities for guests to make their own tea.”
Regarding translating, Prabhupada gave me some wonderful instructions that I treasure and try to follow. He told me there are two ways of translating. One is literal and the other is bhavartha—to capture the spirit, to convey the deep spiritual and devotional mood of the acharya who wrote the original work. Prabhupada said, “I prefer bhavartha, to translate the spirit and mood of these writings rather than to translate literally. I want you to read the original Bengali or Sanskrit or Hindi, understand it, formulate it in your own words and write it.” Once in Vrindavan when Satsvarupa Maharaj was there, Prabhupada told him, “You should edit Renunciation Through Wisdom, it is a very important book.” And it truly is an incredible book—it’s a gradual unfolding of the philosophy and purport of Bhagavad-gita in which, in the original Bengali writing, Prabhupada excelled himself. In English Prabhupada wrote simply but his Bengali writing was scholarly and erudite. To translate this work was quite challenging and every single day Prabhupada asked me to read the English translation to him while he read the Bengali. He liked my work and that made me blissful.
Once, in the Calcutta temple in ’76, the evening arati had just ended and I was supposed to call Srila Prabhupada from his room so he could come and give the lecture. Before I entered his room, which was near the temple room, I slightly pulled his Venetian blinds and peeked in. Prabhupada was sitting with his back to me. The little garlands from small Radha-Govindaji—the Deities worshiped in the Calcutta temple—were around his ears. Devotees in the temple room were singing the Nrisimha prayers, Prabhupada was swaying his head in time and those garlands were also swinging. He was totally absorbed in his transcendental world but, although I don’t think I made any noise, he immediately said, “Yes, please come in.” That’s Srila Prabhupada. It’s incredible that he was here and at the same time he was totally absorbed in Krishna.
After the Gaur Purnima festival in March-April of 1977, Prabhupada came to Juhu. At that time the Juhu temple had opened but work was still going on in the adjoining twin towers guesthouse. Prabhupada’s quarters were on the top floor of one of the towers. We greeted Srila Prabhupada at the front gate and I took the opportunity to hop into the one little place left in the front seat of the car. Srila Prabhupada was in the back seat, and Gopal Krishna Maharaj, Surabhi Maharaj (the architect), and Hari Sauri Prabhu were also in the car. Srila Prabhupada was looking straight ahead and his features were a little drawn because he was not well. When we passed the twin towers, Prabhupada looked to the right, saw it pass, didn’t say anything and again looked straight ahead. We stopped in front of his old quarters in one of those two-story buildings in the back of the property, where the BBT was housed, and we all hopped out, opened the trunk and took out the luggage while Prabhupada sat in the car. There was a flurry of activity as we took Prabhupada’s luggage and everything else upstairs. Then a devotee informed Prabhupada, “All your luggage is upstairs, you may come now.” Prabhupada said, “This is not my house. My quarters are there in the twin tower. Why did you bring me here?” It was embarrassing for Surabhi Maharaj because Prabhupada’s quarters in the tower were not complete. Surabhi Maharaj hedged and hawed and wrung his hands, and Prabhupada said, “I’m not staying here. You promised to take me to my quarters so take me there,” and remained seated in the car. He didn’t raise his voice—he was very calm. Everybody put all the things back in the car and we returned to the guesthouse. The guesthouse elevator wasn’t complete, it didn’t reach the ground level yet, so two of us carried Prabhupada on a palanquin to the first floor and from there Prabhupada took the elevator to the top floor. We all went up also. His marble floor needed to be polished, there was muck everywhere, and his windows were not in place so a strong breeze was blowing in from the sea about fifty meters away. Prabhupada sat in a chair as we washed his lotus feet and then Surabhi Maharaj offered him gurupuja. Surabhi Maharaj wanted to make amends for what he had done, but the flame in the ghee lamp he was offering kept blowing out and he was fumbling. In the meanwhile Surabhi Maharaj arranged to have Prabhupada’s reception area cleansed and he also arranged for a little carpet, a small table and a sitting asana for Prabhupada there. After the gurupuja, Prabhupada quietly came and sat in his reception area. Most of the devotees were asked to leave and about ten of us remained—Gopal Krishna Maharaj, Surabhi Maharaj, Giriraj and some others—and we all sat down with our heads hanging down. We expected a thunderstorm from Prabhupada because his quarters were so messy and noisy. Prabhupada had his head hanging down also. We sat like this for several minutes in pin drop silence. Time lost its meaning. Finally Prabhupada raised his head and spoke in a soft and tender voice. He said, “All of you are trying so hard to please this old man who gets irritated so fast. I am old and on top of that I am unwell so little things irritate me, but all of you are so tolerant.” He went on like that for about ten minutes. I thought I was the only one who was crying but when I looked around I saw that everyone had tears in their eyes, including Prabhupada. It was so sweet, so wonderful. How can you not love such a person? That was one of the most beautiful experiences I had with Srila Prabhupada.
