Suresvara das Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Prabhupada Memories

Interview 01

Sureshvar: I was initiated in Detroit in 1971. Being initiated by Srila Prabhupada was such an awesome experience that I was completely stunned at the initiation. The system was that strands of beads were draped on the microphone. Prabhupada chanted one round on each of those beads, and then the initiate would be called to come forward. So, Prabhupada chanted on the beads that were to become mine, and my name was called, “Richard Hall.” I staggered up and knelt in front of him. Now, when you looked at Srila Prabhupada you were looking at a person who was unfathomable. It was like looking at the ocean, the ocean of truth. At the same time he was looking right through you. It was an incredible experience. He asked me the four rules. I answered. He said, “Your name is Sureshvar das. It is a name for Lord Brahma. It means controller of the demigods. You are a servant of the controller.” As he said this, I got more and more stupefied, and he saw that I was stunned. He had the beads in his hand, so he just held out the beads and said, “Come on, take your beads,” and started rattling them in front of my nose.

It was in Miami Beach in 1975 that I got a chance to go on a morning walk with Prabhupada. There were about a dozen of us. As we walked along the shore, with Prabhupada leading the pack, I noticed how his cane put holes in the sand. When someone asked a question, he would stop and turn to answer. At one point in the walk I was right behind Prabhupada. Somebody asked a question. I don’t know what the question was or how Prabhupada answered, because all I could think was “Wow! I am right in back of Prabhupada’s head.” I studied his head. It was golden with silver hairs and furrows in the back of his neck. Then Krishna gave me a wonderful realization. I was close to Prabhupada physically, but spiritually I was millions of miles away. That was too bad but true, and it was also enlivening because I realized that what the devotees had told me all these years was also true, that “real association is not physical, it’s vibration, vani.” I became happy that I had the opportunity to become intimate with Prabhupada through his vibration, through vani.

In September of 1972, Srila Prabhupada flew to Dallas to install Sri Sri Radha Kalachandji. He arrived at Love Field via American Airlines. We ushered him into the VIP room, where he sat on a makeshift dais and immediately started talking about the three ways to fly. He said, “There are three ways to fly.” Reporters were jotting down, “Three ways to fly.” Prabhupada continued, “Pigeon.” (He didn’t say “Swan,” he said “Pigeon.”) “Pigeon, mantra and carpet. Formerly, people knew the art of training pigeons and could get on the pigeons and fly.” I was standing next to a woman reporter and looking at her pad as she wrote, “Pigeon.” Then he said, “Mantra. Simply by vibrating mantras, the yogi knew how to ride on the sound.” She and the other reporters wrote down, “Mantra, machine.” Then a lady asked, “Swami, if you know all these different ways to fly, why did you choose to fly American Airlines today?” Prabhupada said, “To be one with you.” The lady turned to me and said, “I like that man!”

To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 10 - 1995 Prabhupada Festival

Interview 02

Sureshvar: Before the lecture and initiation, Srila Prabhupada sent Silavati’s sons, Girish and Virabhadra, out of the room because they didn’t have tilak on. The boys were living in New Vrindavan with us and were eight and ten years old. Even though they were just boys, Prabhupada motioned them out of the room saying, “Go put on tilak.” While they were out of the room, anointing their bodies with tilak, Prabhupada started talking about tilak and how it was our trademark. Srila Prabhupada said, “We are selling Krishna for free, and still no one will take,” and he started laughing. Then Srila Prabhupada started giving an intricate lecture, or maybe I was tired, but I couldn’t follow what he was talking about. When I finally started to catch on, Bhagavan das’ baby son interrupted his lecture by clanging kartals. When the child did that, Prabhupada expertly used it in his lecture. He said, “Just like this child, he has had practice.” Prabhupada had been talking about transmigration of the soul, and when Prabhupada said, “He has had practice,” he started beaming at this little boy, and the boy started beaming at Srila Prabhupada. We were looking at the boy looking at Prabhupada. There was a dramatic pause, as if there was something going on between Prabhupada and this little boy.

Srila Prabhupada was in New Vrindavan for his Vyasa-puja in 1972, and he gave what became a famous Vyasa-puja address. He very intelligently started talking about the meaning of Vyasa-puja and how the spiritual master considers himself a humble servant of the previous acharyas and of Krishna. The spiritual master doesn’t think he’s God almighty, which is what one may have thought by seeing all of the worship being offered to Srila Prabhupada while he was seated on the vyasasana. There were many guests, journalists, scholars, and all kinds of people present, and Prabhupada talked about how he considered himself “the dog of God.” He said, “If you want to please a big man in this world, it’s difficult to meet him, what to speak of pleasing him, because he’s so big. But if you simply give his dog a two-cent lozenge, then the master is easily pleased. So I am the dog of God. It is very difficult to please Krishna, but it’s easy to please me. Just chant Hare Krishna.” Afterwards we had a roaring kirtan, but before the kirtan, Srila Prabhupada took questions. In his lecture Prabhupada had talked about how strong maya is and the first question was from a longhaired fellow in the back. He said, “If the purpose of life is to know God, Krishna, then why is maya so strong?” Without a blink and with great power Prabhupada said, “Your purpose is not strong!” We all went “Ahhh!” We were stunned by Prabhupada’s rapid and profound reply to that question. He wasn’t just speaking to that guy, but he was speaking to everybody.

Prabhupada spent most of the lecture blasting and hammering away at modern, materialistic, industrial civilization. During the questions and answers one fellow from Jamaica, who was an industrialist, raised his hand and said, “Prabhupada, what about the wheels of industry?” Without hesitating Prabhupada said, “Stop those wheels.” At other times Prabhupada encouraged us to use technology for Krishna’s service, but in this case Srila Prabhupada came down heavily by saying, “Stop those wheels.” He must have known the man could hear that in the right spirit. Of course Prabhupada also used those wheels, but he turned them in a spiritual direction.

I went in the temple room in time to hear some questions and answers that Srila Prabhupada was fielding after his arrival talk. Jay, Mother Jahnava’s younger brother, had been associating with some born-again Christians, and he asked a question in a challenging mood. He said, “So, what is this love of God you’re feeling?” When Prabhupada answered questions, he would answer the mode or the intent of the questioner. He would answer the spirit of the questioner. In this case Srila Prabhupada said, “What is this love of God that I am feeling? It is that I am not afraid of anything.” Because the questioner was challenging, that’s how Prabhupada chose to answer.

There were initiations going on at the time, before the actual inaugural arati, and Srila Prabhupada was sitting on the vyasasana. I was sitting to the left of His Divine Grace. While the initiation ceremony was going on he was moving his lips. I wanted to hear what he was saying, so I snuck up behind the vyasasana and put my ear behind Srila Prabhupada. He was chanting the Brahma-samhita in deep, soft, resonant tones. Premanjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena . . . On and on, it was just wonderful. Then I went back to my place. During the initiation, all of a sudden Srila Prabhupada wanted something, but neither Shyamasundar nor Pradyumna could understand what he wanted. Srila Prabhupada was looking all over the room to see if anybody could understand what he wanted. Finally his eyes fell on me. It’s the only time I remember Srila Prabhupada looking directly at me, except for my initiation. He looked at me with such compassion while I was sitting there with a stupid grin on my face. His look said to me that I was an idiot but he still loved me. I thought, “That’s right, Srila Prabhupada, I’m an idiot. You love me, and I’m an idiot.” I was blissful. Anyway, finally somebody understood what he wanted, and the ceremony continued. Then at some point Srila Prabhupada got off the vyasasana and left the room. But the ceremony still went on. Finally it was time for the inaugural arati of Radha-Kalachandji, and when the curtains opened, there was Srila Prabhupada on the stage doing achaman, with Sri Sri Radha-Kalachandji in front of a very spartan background. I thought, “What a treat. I’ve never seen Srila Prabhupada do arati.” I watched him perform this arati, and it made a strong impression on me. It was deliberate and meditative, with deep bhakti. It wasn’t quick circles. After Srila Prabhupada offered the water in the conch to the Deities, he turned to us, put the water in his hand, and started flinging drops of water out at the congregation. I was leaping up in the air to catch these droplets of water and thinking how the spiritual master extinguishes the blazing fire of material existence. That was wonderful.

At some point during one of those lectures, Srila Prabhupada told us frankly that we had all come to Krishna because of prasadam. He told us that we were all prasadam bhaktas. When Prabhupada said that, he was being fanned by Abhirama prabhu, who was the temple president. Abhirama is reserved. He doesn’t open his mind, he’s a cool customer. But, when Prabhupada said that we were all prasadam devotees, he looked at Abhirama and said, “You too, Abhirama?” Abhirama became sheepish, out of character completely, and said, “Yes, Srila Prabhupada, me too.” Srila Prabhupada said, “Jaya,” his head wheeled slowly, like the sun rising, and his smile got bigger until it was ear to ear. It was so funny.

Srila Prabhupada stayed in New Dvaraka for more than a week in June 1976. It was at this time that some devotees had formed a “Gopi Bhava” club, and Prabhupada corrected the sahajiya tendency that they had developed. I went to one of their Gopi Bhava meetings, and I knew something was wrong, because they minimized Bhagavad-gita. Prabhupada came down heavily on these Gopi Bhava devotees, and it’s what they needed, what we all needed to hear. They were the first full-blown sahajiya group in the West. It was a weed growing around our creeper of devotion, bhakti lata, so Prabhupada pulled it out strongly. There were many famous quotes that came out of their meeting. The devotees asked him, “But Prabhupada, you say that everything is in your books, and the pastimes of the gopis are there too.” He said, “Yes, my books are like a drug store but when you walk in the drug store, you can’t just buy any medicine. You have to get the medicine that’s appropriate for you. First Kurukshetra lila, then rasa lila.” Another answer Prabhupada gave to one of their challenges was, “First deserve, then desire.” So Srila Prabhupada was so sweet but so heavy. He was as hard as a thunderbolt and as soft as a rose. At that time I was indexing the Eighth Canto at the BBT in Los Angeles, and I had mixed feelings. On the one hand I thought, “Boy, Srila Prabhupada’s been here a week. This is great.” On the other hand I thought, “I wonder when he’s going to leave,” because he was so heavy. I wasn’t even his personal servant. I was just living in the same neighborhood where he stayed. He was in his quarters in Rukmini-Dwarakadish dham, and I was thinking, “This is intense. I don’t know how long I can go on being in the same neighborhood as Prabhupada.” So that was another indication that I had a long way to go before I could be intimate with Srila Prabhupada.

When Srila Prabhupada first came to Chicago for Ratha-yatra, he arrived around 6:30 in the morning. We had gurupuja for him with ecstatic chanting and dancing. One devotee, perhaps Mahabuddhi prabhu, was dancing like he was doing the twist or boogeying. Srila Prabhupada stopped this ecstatic kirtan and pointed to a picture of Lord Chaitanya with his arms upraised. He said, “Dance like Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.” Sometimes he would encourage anybody, however they were dancing, but in this case he wanted the devotees to come to a high platform. “Dance like Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.”

The last time I saw Srila Prabhupada was in Los Ange- les when I worked at the BBT indexing his books—at that time, Canto Eight. In that canto, Srila Prabhupada writes about the days of the week and how they relate to the planets. In one morning lecture in Los Angeles, Srila Prabhupada said, “I am traveling all over the world, and I’m asking this question, ‘Why are the days of the week in that order?’” He was asking us, too. “Why is Sunday the first day?” Some devotee piped up and said, “Because it is the Lord’s day.” Srila Prabhupada said, “Don’t bring in religion.” He wanted to establish this information on a scientific basis, as many people view religion as sectarian and sentimental. He said that the order of days of the week relates directly to the order of the planets. Sunday is first because the Sun is closest. Then Monday as the next planet is the Moon, Tuesday—Mars, Wednesday—Mercury, Thursday—Jupiter, Friday—Venus and Saturday—Saturn. Another memory I have was when the sun was just peeking through the trees on a morning walk in a park in Santa Monica, and a little old lady in the park saw our squadron of saffron moving toward her. I was wondering what Srila Prabhupada was going to say. He didn’t say “Hare Krishna,” but he said, “Good morning,” with very long, gracious tones. The lady gave a nice return greeting and a look as if to say, “This is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.” Srila Prabhupada knew just what to say and when to say it.

To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 14 - Prahladananda Swami, Balavanta, Suresvara, Dayananda

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

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 02

Suresvara: This is August 1970, New Vrindavan. I was a brand new devotee, and Satsvarupa das Adhikari and Uddhava prabhu drove some of us new guys down from Boston to New Vrindavan for Janmastami Festival, which was thefestival in ISKCON at the time, it was pre-India gatherings.

So what do I see when I jump out of the van hours and hours later from Boston is one of our sannyasis holding somebody against a fence and saying, “Prabhupada is God, Prabhupada is Krishna, and because we haven’t recognized this he’s left us.” There I was brand new, thrilled by Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita As It Is, joining the Hare Krishna Movement, and here two months later I’m attending my first festival and right before my eyes I appear to be seeing the entire movement torn asunder by this controversy.

Srila Prabhupada had just formed the GBC that summer, and their first act as far as I’m aware is to consult Prabhupada about what his new sannyasis are saying. And Prabhupada’s response is…I’m paraphrasing but “It’s nonsense, that’s not true. The spiritual master is not God. The poison here is personal ambition because if the spiritual master is God, that means you can become God too. So it’s Mayavada philosophy.” Of course, Prabhupada’s books were being consulted by both sides to prove this or that. But Prabhupada responded very strongly, and he expelled them.

Interview DVD 04

Suresvara: The next day was Vyasa-puja and Srila Prabhupada, being very sensitive to the time, place and circumstance, gave this wonderful Vyasa-puja address to describe the spiritual master and why the spiritual master is being offered so much honor and homage on this day because, after all, there were many people there, scholars and journalists, etc., who were not familiar with this etiquette. So Srila Prabhupada said, “Krishna is very big, He’s a very big person.” And Prabhupada said, “Just like in this material world, if you want to please or even see a big man, it is very difficult to do.” He often used Ford and Rockefeller. So he said, “Just like Mr. Ford, if you want to please Mr. Ford, it’s very hard or even to see him is very hard. But if you happen to see Mr. Ford walking his dog and you give Mr. Ford’s dog a two-cent lozenge,” Prabhupada used the word lozenge, “then Mr. Ford is very easily pleased.” So Prabhupada said, “I am the dog of God. It is very difficult to approach Krishna. But if you simply please His dog, Krishna will be pleased.”

The day wore on and we were fasting and chanting, and then nighttime fell and the midnight arati. And after fasting and chanting, everybody is ready to break fast. But Srila Prabhupada has the devotees open up Krsna Book because now he wants to hear about Krishna, it’s the appearance of Lord Krishna. So Prabhupada sits up straight and his eyes are open and he’s all ready to hear, and we’re all ready to eat basically. So Krishna’s pastimes are being read. Now it’s twelve-thirty, quarter to one, one o’clock.

Interview DVD 07

Suresvara: So during the Guru Puja, I remember some brahmacaris, they had developed a kind of boogying, doing rock dancing. This was going on during Guru Puja, and all of a sudden Prabhupada, like a conductor, like a maestro, he stopped the Guru Puja cold in an instant and we were all frozen in place. Then Prabhupada gestures to the picture of the Panca Tattva in the distance and how their arms are upraised and he says, “Dance, dance like Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.” So we were all corrected because we were all getting into disco dancing, twisting and boogaloo and shingaling and whatever.

We were all waiting for Prabhupada to come to the carts on State Street. Finally Srila Prabhupada rides up in a Volkswagen, gets out, and without any hesitation just bows down on the filthy street in front of Lord Jagannatha. And that really struck me because I had been thinking in my mind, “I’m not going to bow down in the street.” But Prabhupada didn’t hesitate, he just bowed down right there in front of Lord Jagannatha. Then he gets on the cart, and Prabhupada is riding on the cart below and myself and a few others are riding up top. And we have the blissful engagement of throwing flowers and bags of prasadam – it might have been peanuts and raisins, something like that – off into the throng as we were going down State Street toward the Civic Center. Then it occurred to me that Srila Prabhupada has come to Chicago now and this is 81 years after the first Indian swami had come to America, and that was Vivekananda, the famous Vivekananda who came and was preaching “daridra Narayan” philosophy. At that time, Vivekananda, who had been invited by clergy for the World Parliament of Religions in 1893, he was saying, “What is all this talk of God? I see so many Gods loitering before me in the street, daridra Narayan, poor Narayan.” In other words, everybody is God. Mayavada. So finally 81 years later here is a pure devotee, a Vaishnava, who has come to Chicago, and I was thinking in my mind, “I wonder what Srila Prabhupada is going to say when he gets to the Civic Center because this is very historic actually. Finally the Vaishnava siddhanta is coming to Chicago after all these years.” So we get to the Civic Center, and there aren’t that many people there surprisingly as I remember it. But without hesitation, as soon as Srila Prabhupada took the microphone he said, “In the Vedanta Sutra it is said janmadyasya yatah, the Absolute Truth is that from Whom everything emanates.” So he was establishing that everything comes from a person. So I was really smiling, “I’ll bet Srila Prabhupada was thinking of this.” So that was wonderful.

Interview DVD 09

Suresvara: Srila Prabhupada is ushered into the temple room, small temple room, and he is surrounded by GBCs, and then the rest of the men came in. It was so small that the ladies couldn’t even come inside. There was one window on the side of the room and their noses are pressed against the window trying to at least see Srila Prabhupada, and Prabhupada is about to speak. Then Prabhupada notices them in the window and Prabhupada says, “You have to make room for them. They want to hear.” I remember that, “They want to hear.” So he insists that all the leaders and then the rest of the men squeeze in closer to him so that all the ladies can come in and hear. And it just struck me how he did that because Prabhupada was always very attentive to everything that was going on; and he saw them, how eager they were, and he just immediately, “You have to make room for them. They want to hear.”

Prabhupada gave a short address on this grassy slope in back of this museum. Just as an example of what Prabhupada had to tolerate sometimes, I remember it was very popular at this time in America for young people to streak – just run with no clothes on. So all of a sudden during Prabhupada’s talk there were some streakers, just streaked right across the place. But it didn’t phase His Divine Grace. Sometimes he would work these things into his talk, he’d make some comment that would perfectly crystallize a point. But Prabhupada had to endure the streakers and carry on.