Swarup: The first temple in New York where there was a living facility for Srila Prabhupada was 26 Second Avenue. However, when the temple moved to 61 Second Avenue, which was really only two blocks up from the first temple, there was no facility for Prabhupada to live. Therefore, when he came through New York on his way to either Europe or India, we had no place for him to stay for two or three days. At the time, my childhood high school friend, Jimmy Feldman, had just joined the temple, and his wealthy father allowed Prabhupada to stay at his apartment in the city near the United Nations. Jimmy called me and said, “I’m on my way over to my dad’s apartment and I want you to come with me to see Prabhupada.” I had no idea who Prabhupada was or anything else Jimmy was involved with. When we got to the apartment, there were devotees assembling there, and apparently Srila Prabhupada was in the living room giving darshan. People were congregating in the living room as Jimmy and I came to the door. I told Jimmy, “I can’t stay, Jimmy. I’m going to leave in a few minutes.” At that moment Prabhupada was about to begin speaking when someone told Jimmy to come inside. He said, “That’s all right. I’ll just stay here.” This discussion caused a bit of a commotion because Jimmy refused to go inside even though it was his father’s apartment. [laughs] He didn’t want to go and mix with the devotees because he felt ashamed having smoked a cigarette with me that morning. Finally, Srila Prabhupada said, “What’s the commotion? What’s going on? What is the difficulty?” Someone tried to explain saying, “Well, Jimmy is feeling ashamed.” Jimmy said, “I’m not worthy of being in the association of Prabhupada.” Srila Prabhupada said, “Whatever you have done, I forgive you. Now come in and join us. Sit down!” [laughs] I remember hearing everybody in the apartment let out a loud “Haribol!” It was a wonderful exchange, which resulted in Jimmy entering the apartment, and I took my leave. That was the first time I ever glimpsed at or had any experience with Srila Prabhupada.
The day before I got initiated in Boston, Brahmananda spoke with Prabhupada about me. He said, “This young boy who joined is my secretary and I thought that we should name him Swarup Damodar.” Brahmananda told me he suggested that because Lord Caitanya’s secretary was Swarup Damodar. [laughs] Prabhupada looked at him and said, “Oh, so if he is Swarup Damodar, who are you? Lord Caitanya? [laughs] Does that make you Lord Caitanya?” And then Srila Prabhupada thought for a minute and said, “No, not Swarup Damodar, just Swarup. It’s easier to remember. We’ll just name him Swarup.” When Prabhupada handed me my beads, I reached out for them, and he said a famous phrase, “Krishna consciousness is simple for the simple but hard for the crooked.” [laughs] Then he said, “Your name is Swarup das.”
We gave Srila Prabhupada a tour of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust warehouse in Los Angeles where we also had the mail order department. Srila Prabhupada was asking questions about the subscriptions and how many letters were coming in. Tamal said, “Srila Prabhupada, Swarup answers all the letters and he is writing to people all over the world.” I felt like Tamal was giving me props. [laughs] He told Prabhupada, “Many people are joining and he’s having a lot of success.” Prabhupada looked at me, smiled, and said, “Yes, one who has Swarup has liberation.” [laughs] And it was also at that time that I received what I consider a very important instruction from Srila Prabhupada. The back-story is that just a few days prior, somebody suggested to me that I make up a form letter for the mail order department. In other words, people would write in, and if they did not have any specific questions, it was suggested that I simply send them a generic “Dear Sir or Madam” form letter along with our catalog. That suggestion of an impersonal form letter just didn’t sit right with me. I had pondered that suggestion a couple of days, and when Prabhupada asked about the mail order program, he began telling me that at one time he worked for Doctor Bose and one of his duties was handling the mail. He said that, “Even if the smallest inquiry would come, I would answer personally and continued to correspond until they became a customer.” So there was the answer to my question. There was no further thinking about form letters. Everybody got a personal letter. Even if it was one line, “Can you tell me about Krishna consciousness? Can you tell me about Hare Krishna?” they got a personal letter from me, and I found out a lot of people joined from those letters. In fact, just before coming here for this interview, I stopped at the temple on Watseka Avenue and I ran into two people who were mail-order devotees. Not mail-order brides [laughs] but mail-order devotees. One was Jagadishananda who, when I was writing to him, was Johnny Gunn from Coon Rapids, Minnesota, and the other one was Ratnabhusana. He joined with his brother Manupriya and they were Wayne and Mark Selzler, 1806 Assumption Drive, Bismarck, North Dakota. A lot of people became devotees, and I like to think that I was working on commission back then [laughs] accruing sukriti. Unfortunately, all that credit was squandered. Over the years I maxed out on those credit vouchers that I had from doing that service. [laughs] I just felt very fortunate to have such a service. Imagine going every day to your office, and all you’re doing all day long is sending people books and magazines, preaching Krishna consciousness, answering their questions, and having them join the movement. It was a lot of fun and we had great results.
One story about Srila Prabhupada stands out in my mind more than most because of the gravity of the situation. In December of 1973, my sister’s husband, Sridham, met an untimely death. Srila Prabhupada was in Los Angeles when he heard what had happened, and about a week afterwards, Manmohini and I went to speak with Prabhupada in his quarters. Manmohini had questions about her situation and her future. She was only twenty-five years old and she had a two-year-old daughter. She found herself widowed and she wanted to know if she could ever get remarried. She had valid questions, so I went with her and we spoke with Srila Prabhupada that afternoon. Sridham was Prabhupada’s personal servant for some time in Los Angeles, and when Srila Prabhupada began to speak about Sridham, it was as if he were giving a eulogy. He said, “So, he was a good boy. Sridham was my servant. He was driving me.” When Sridham joined, he owned a convertible and that’s what he would use to drive Srila Prabhupada around Los Angeles. Prabhupada said, “He was driving me, he was cooking, he was giving massage, and one day he asked if he could get married. I told him, ‘You are still young. Maybe better you should wait.’ But he insisted, so I let him, and then he went crazy.” This is how Srila Prabhupada was remembering Sridham. Then he paused and said, “So we know from Bhagavad-gita Krishna gives assurance that one who is on the path of bhakti is on the path of enlightenment. If he falls down, he will be given again an opportunity in the next life. He will be born in a big family of yogis, brahmanas, or an aristocratic family where there are few impediments. So, he will be given again the opportunity to make progress on this path and finish his business.” Then Prabhupada paused thoughtfully and said, “But he had the opportunity in this life and now he has to take another birth. So, what is the use?” Those words struck me like a thunderbolt, and it dawned on me that Srila Prabhupada cared so much about us that he did not want to see us take more births and suffer. It is stated that the pure devotee’s only unhappiness is seeing the unhappiness of others. Prabhupada’s mission was to deliver everyone back to Godhead, what to speak of his beloved disciples. When he saw us falling away and wasting the most valuable opportunity, it broke his heart. He didn’t say, “So what is the use?” out of disgust. He said it out of compassion. “Why waste this valuable opportunity?” I think about that all the time.
The very first Ratha-yatra Festival in New York City was in the summertime of 1976 and Srila Prabhupada was there. The temple was on West 55th Street and I don’t know how it came about, but I ended up being the driver that day. We rented a very fancy, dark blue Lincoln town car, and I drove Srila Prabhupada from the temple on West 55th to the parade, which was already in progress. My job was to get Srila Prabhupada in front of Subhadra’s cart, and then they would stop the parade. Srila Prabhupada would get out of the car, climb onto the cart and stay there for the rest of the procession. In the car was Tamal Krishna, who sat beside me, and Brahmananda and Kirtanananda were in the back with Srila Prabhupada. As we pulled away from West 55th Street, Prabhupada asked, “What’s the schedule? What’s the plan for the day?” Kirtanananda said, “Srila Prabhupada, we are going to drop you off to get on Subhadra’s cart and then at the end of the parade we will have the festival. There will be a stage set up where you will speak from and then we’ll have kirtan while we distribute prasadam. So that is the way the day is planned.” Srila Prabhupada was listening and I kept adjusting my rearview mirror to watch his expressions, and Tamal kept giving me dirty looks as if to say, “Swarup, watch the road!” [laughs] Prabhupada was quiet for a while and then he began recalling the past. He said, “In the beginning in the early days, I used to go by myself to Tompkins Square Park and I would chant. And very often the police would come and harass me. They would tell me to move or to stop chanting because I was obstructing the pathway or I was disturbing the peace. So the police would make me stop.” Brahmananda said, “Well, Srila Prabhupada, today the police will be there at the park, but they will be there to make sure no one disturbs you. We have a permit. The park is ours all day long.” Then Kirtanananda said, “Srila Prabhupada, I think it is safe to say that today you have conquered New York.” And then I chimed in and said, “And Prabhupada, when you conquer New York, you’ve conquered the world.” Srila Prabhupada laughed and said, “Yes, that was my thinking from the very start. Let me go to New York and start my mission there.” It was the most important city in the world, so it was nice that Prabhupada was thinking like that. At first, they were throwing him out of the park and now he was the main attraction. [laughs]
On a morning walk with Srila Prabhupada in Vrindavan, India, in August during Janmastami time of 1974, it was extraordinarily hot. The flies were especially aggressive and just very intense driving everyone nuts. As the sun came up, it was getting hotter and hotter and the flies were becoming more and more active. Finally, I got so frustrated and exasperated I turned to Prabhupada and asked, “Srila Prabhupada, are there flies in the spiritual world?” He said, “Yes, but they are not bothersome like these flies, and when they buzz, they are chanting Hare Krishna.” [laughs] That was good enough of an answer for me. I was able to tolerate the flies a little better after that. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I thought, “Oh, my God, did I really just ask that question? Are there flies in the spiritual world?” It was valid and there are. [laughs]
The grand opening of the Krishna-Balaram Mandir was to take place in August of 1974. I decided it was my turn to go to India, so I bought my ticket from Los Angeles to New York and then New York to India. While I was in New York waiting to board my next flight, I found out that Srila Prabhupada had arrived in Vrindavan and he looked around and decided that the Krishna-Balaram Mandir was not ready for the grand opening. The guesthouse wasn’t finished and there was so much more construction that needed to be done, so he called the festival off. But I was already in New York, so I thought, “I’m going anyway.” Because there was no festival going on, there were far fewer devotees in Vrindavan than anticipated, which translated into me having some association with Srila Prabhupada. In fact, that first afternoon I was standing outside of Srila Prabhupada’s room as he was perparing to give darshan with the local people of Vrindavan. Palika came out of the pujari room with a garland and said, “Here Swarup, give this to Srila Prabhupada.” When I entered the room, there were already some elderly gentlemen sitting there talking with Srila Prabhupada as he sat behind his desk. While they were having their conversation, I put the garland on Srila Prabhupada, offered my obeisances, and as I was walking out, Srila Prabhupada said, “No, you can stay. Sit down.” Happily surprised, I sat against the back wall and I just watched. I observed how Srila Prabhupada was interacting with these gentlemen, who were local Brijabasis or maybe his god-brothers, as they spoke in Bengali with an occasional Sanskrit verse. Prabhupada would be joking with them very casually, and then he would get serious and quote a verse that I would recognize from Srimad-Bhagavatam or Bhagavad-gita. I realized that all of us as his disciples had so much awe and reverence for Srila Prabhupada, not only for his spiritual potency but also just the fact that he was so much older than us. We always referred to Prabhupada as our spiritual father, but in reality he was more the age of our grandparents. As a matter of fact, coincidentally, Srila Prabhupada was born the same exact day as my maternal grandpa, Abe, September 1st, 1896. What I was noticing in the room, however, was that these were gentlemen of Prabhupada’s age and his generation, but they gave so much respect to Srila Prabhupada. There were friendly exchanges with casual talk, but I could tell they were giving so much respect to Srila Prabhupada, as they recognized his stature and status. It was nice to see that Srila Prabhupada’s reputation and who he was did not go unnoticed amongst the Brijabasis and his god-brothers. Even by 1974 his accomplishments were phenomenal. It was only nine years since he had established ISKCON, and what he had accomplished in just those few years was unbelievable. He was conquering the world. He was like a transcendental Alexander the Great, and so when he went back to India with his dancing white elephants, he was given his due respect. It was nice to witness those exchanges in Prabhupada’s room.
In the summer of 1971, Srila Prabhupada arrived in Boston and reservations had been made for him to stay at a hotel. However, Prabhupada didn’t want to go to the hotel, so he ended up going back to the temple where they quickly emptied out one of the rooms upstairs on the second floor for Srila Prabhupada. Originally Satsvarupa had asked me to pick up his luggage from the airport and take it to his hotel. But as there were no cell phones in those days, I never got the message that they by-passed the hotel and went directly to the temple. After calling the temple from a phone booth and realizing what happened, I drove to the temple with his luggage, but I arrived after the short darshan the devotees had with Prabhupada in his room. I was a little taken aback when I knocked on the door, walked in, and saw only Srila Prabhupada sitting behind a table in a bare room with only one Brijabasi poster of baby Krishna, the butter thief, on the far wall. When I walked in, Srila Prabhupada was resting his head on his hands, and I realized he was gazing lovingly across the room at that picture. I felt like, “Oh, my God. I broke his samadhi.” He acknowledged my presence and I asked him where I should put his luggage. With his finger he gracefully pointed to the wall and said, “You can put it up against the wall.” I clumsily walked across the room, and I realized after I put everything down that I had entered the room forgetting to offer my obeisances. Like a fool I said, “Oh, oops, sorry Srila Prabhupada.” [laughs] I didn’t know what to say or how to act. I got in front of the table and I bowed down chanting, “Nama om visnu padaya,” and Prabhupada laughed and he said, “Ah, thank you very much,” for remembering to offer the proper respects. He said, “Get up.” As I got up on my knees, he said, “Swarup das, I have given you a very nice name.” I said, “Yes, Srila Prabhupada and thank you for the letter.” After I had gotten married in June of ’71, I sent Srila Prabhupada a donation of fifty dollars along with some sweaters my wife and I had purchased for him. He then responded with a very nice letter that said, “My dear Swarup, now you’re married in Krishna consciousness. That is very nice. But marriage can be risky business because of too much affection for the wife. The husband can forget Krishna, but if both husband and wife remember Krishna, householder life becomes Vaikuntha.” Then in the next paragraph he said, “In our line we have a perfect example of a householder, Bhaktivinode Thakura. Such a nice householder he was and such nice children he produced. One of them was my Guru Maharaj. So, follow in the footsteps of Bhaktivinode Thakura.” I reminded Srila Prabhupada of what he said in the letter and I asked him jokingly, “Prabhupada, did you mean for me to have as many children as Bhaktivinode Thakura? Did he have ten or eleven children?” Prabhupada laughed and then in a serious tone said, “No, actually in this age it is hard enough to support a wife and one child, two children at most.” He said, “That’s why I recommend two children, no more.” It was nice to have that exchange with Srila Prabhupada, but again I felt so stupid, so clumsy. We are told that the size of the spirit soul is one-ten-thousandth the tip of a hair, and here I am feeling like one hundred ninety pounds of ignorance and clumsiness. But yet in Srila Prabhupada’s association he made me feel as light as one-ten-thousandth of the tip of a hair. I floated on a cloud out of that room feeling very wonderful to have that little informal exchange with Srila Prabhupada.
In 1969 when Srila Prabhupada was in Boston, many devotees had come from the East Coast temples. Somebody was making oatmeal in the morning for all the devotees and apparently that person mistook the salt for the sugar. They ended up pouring a bunch of salt into it and ruining the whole thing, and so everybody had to wait for breakfast to be re-cooked. Word got back to Srila Prabhupada what had happened and he made this comment, “Just like in the process of bhakti in Krishna consciousness, a little sense gratification is all right to make it palatable. Just like in a preparation a little salt to make the preparation palatable is necessary, but too much and the whole thing is ruined.” So he gave that example that the salt was like sense gratification in Krishna consciousness. We are allowed to enjoy somewhat to make it livable, make it doable for us, but too much and it is all ruined. That was the salt analogy.
One morning in Boston during the summer, Srila Prabhupada was getting ready to go on his morning walk, but the keys to the car that was meant to take him, could not be found. The keys were lost and everybody was panicking at the last minute. One of the hippie guests said, “Look, I have a car. I don’t mind.” He pulled around the corner with his old VW beetle, the old bug. It was all “hippied” out and it was a mess. Srila Prabhupada got in, and the first thing Srila Prabhupada did was to run his finger along the dashboard, which was dirty and dusty. Like a drill sergeant with the white glove, he said, “Everything should be cleansed. Everything belongs to Krishna.” He said it in such a way as to make us understand that since everything belongs to Krishna, everything should be cleaned, no matter whom it belongs to or what it is being used for. He would often say, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” We were supposed to be brahmanas. He was turning feral jungle animals into Vaishnava brahmanas. He was a miracle worker [laughs] because that’s what we were. No couth. [laughs] Animals. Wild. [laughs] Brahmananda used to say, “He loved us even though we were unlovable.” [laughs] He loved us anyway.
In the winter of 1970, Krishna Book was Prabhupada’s main priority, and I was thinking to myself, “Why? Why does Srila Prabhupada want this Krishna Book published, which was the summary of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Tenth Canto?” When I joined, there wasn’t much literature, except for the first three volumes of Canto One. I remember reading an instruction in the preface that one should not go to the Tenth Canto until he has read and realized the content of the first nine cantos. So why was he producing these intimate stories about Krishna? But it dawned on me then that in his infinite wisdom, he was in his war against impersonalism and voidism and he needed to impress upon his young disciples the importance that Krishna is a person as soon as possible. In conjunction with the nama om visnu-padaya prayer, Prabhupada gave us the prayer: namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine [Srila Prabhupada Pranati] I appreciated the fact that Srila Prabhupada was delivering the western countries from the disease of impersonalism and voidism. We, as Srila Prabhupada’s disciples, were infected with impersonalism. In fact, one day a new devotee had just joined and he said, “Swarup, in Prabhupada’s lectures he is always ranting, going on about impersonalism and the Mayavadis. I don’t understand. Who are they?” I said, “They are us; we are them.” I said, “We have all had an impersonal conception of the absolute truth before we joined, especially about merging with a white light and that we are all one.” Even in India they have misconceptions that Brahman is the absolute and Krishna is subordinate to Brahman. So Prabhupada was giving the world the Personality of Godhead by distributing his Krishna Book in everyone’s home. From this book we know that Krishna is a person who has many pastimes. We know what He looks like. [laughs] This is how He spends his time. One time Prabhupada said, “We can give you God’s name, address, phone number, His parent’s names, His friends.” So in no uncertain terms he was presenting the Personality of Godhead, Krishna. When the Krishna Book came out at the end of 1970, along with the Radha-Krishna Temple Album, and George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, which was flooding the airwaves in the U.S. and in Europe, I could feel the pulse of how the movement was growing. From those three things happening, ISKCON really started growing exponentially in the early seventies, and over the next couple of years, it expanded everywhere all over the world. Farms and restaurants were being opened up and devotees were joining in the hundreds and thousands. This was all due to the presence and potency of Srila Prabhupada, the pure devotee of Krishna.
I never really asked Srila Prabhupada questions on morning walks. I got to go on many morning walks, especially in Los Angeles, because when I moved from New York, I had my own car. I think I was the only householder in those days with his own vehicle, so I would just drive down to the beach and join the walk. This particular morning, however, was at Cheviot Hills Park, and one god-brother, who was having some difficulties in his personal life, suddenly asked, “Srila Prabhupada, I know that I have read that the soul is eternal, but is there ever any possibility that Krishna can create a soul, and then at some point in time or for some reason or other, the soul no longer exists? It is extinguished?” He used the word “extinguished.” Srila Prabhupada stopped walking, planted his cane in the ground, curled his lip, and said, “Have any of you read my books? Have you?” He asked this one devotee, “Have you read my books? Have you read Bhagavad-gita? What does it say? Can anyone tell me? What does it say in the Bhagavad-gita?” Just a few days before that morning walk I had been memorizing verses out of the Bhagavad-gita, Second Chapter, that speak about the nature of the soul. So I had it down in Sanskrit and English. I took the cue and said, “Yes, Prabhupada I know.” na jayate mriyate va kadacin nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah ajo nityah sasvato 'yam purano na hanyate hanyamane sarire [Bg. 2.20] Then Prabhupada said, “In English?” “For the soul there...” And then he interrupted me and he said, “So, what does that mean?” Then the devotee who asked the question said, “So, I guess the soul never dies.” Prabhupada said, “Yes!” Then he stopped and he said one more time, “Read my books! Everything is in my books.”
Krishna Bowl, which was fashioned after the television quiz show, College Bowl, came to Los Angeles in 1974. It began in Dallas with the Dallas gurukula when the gurukula teachers decided to help the kids learn the Krishna Book. They had them study chapter by chapter and then answer questions in a competitive fashion. They actually had boards set up with buzzers and a moderator to ask the questions to two teams comprising four devotees on each team. It was a great way to study the Krishna Book. However, a month or two after that, Srila Prabhupada got word that this was going on as Krishna Bowl was spreading everywhere all over ISKCON. As such, Prabhupada nipped it in the bud, as we used to say. [laughs] He stopped it, not out of anger, but he said, “It wasn’t necessary especially for the children in the Dallas gurukula.” He said, “They shouldn’t have such distractions. It is not necessary. We shouldn’t burden them. We shouldn’t tax their brains with these unnecessary things.” So that was the end of the Krishna Bowl. It was just yet another circumstance where we got carried away with something we concocted.
When the first wave of devotees went to India, Srila Prabhupada gave the instruction to go to his room at the Radha-Damodar temple where he had been staying and clean it out. One of my god-brothers said that in cleaning the room he came across a piece of paper. It was folded up like a memo pad and on that front page Prabhupada had written a to-do list. On the very top it said, “Save the world from godlessness.” That was Srila Prabhupada’s to-do list. My to-do list is: “Do the laundry, get an oil change, pay my electric bill.” Srila Prabhupada’s to-do list was: “Save the world from godlessness.” Narahari: Everyone in this material world wants something from us. Even the mother who is described as the closest reflection of true love in this world wants something back. But when I met Srila Prabhupada, it was so clear all he wanted to do was give, simply to give. Srila Prabhupada manifested all spiritual qualities; his compassion, his love, his understanding were there. I couldn’t pick a single quality to say that stands out in my mind because they are all manifest. I feel so incredibly blessed and fortunate that somehow Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu came and Srila Prabhupada became part of that mission by coming to the western world. He got on that Jaladuta and endured everything necessary to come here to advance his mission, and somehow I was dragged to his lotus feet and I am forever grateful.
This is a story that illustrates one quality of Srila Prabhupada, which is his humility. My grandson, Kevala, was staying with me when he was about eleven or twelve. He came out from Honolulu where he grew up, and I took him to the San Francisco Ratha-yatra from our home in Santa Cruz. On the way home we were stuck in traffic and Kevala said something very revealing. He said, “You know, grandpa, I noticed that in Honolulu there are many spiritual organizations. It’s always swami this or yogi that or Baba this or that.” He said, “But with the Hare Krishnas, it is the Hare Krishna Movement, not the Bhaktivedanta Swami movement.” I said, “Kevala, you just explained in a nutshell the most important quality of a pure devotee. A genuine devotee doesn’t promote himself. He is giving Krishna to the world and he is in the background.” In fact, when I was answering letters as the secretary of ISKCON, more often than not, someone would say, “In the books I keep reading that one should find a bona-fide spiritual master. Where can I find one?” Srila Prabhupada was so humble that he never wrote in any of those purports, “I’m your guy! I am the bona-fide spiritual master.” I would write back saying, “Well, the author of the book is a pure devotee.” I was familiar with other so-called gurus and yogis, but when I first saw Prabhupada, what really stood out was his lack of ego. Of course he embodies all twenty-six qualities of a devotee, but his humbleness is so genuine that he never displayed any sense of self-promotion. Generally, when you meet somebody with an ego, that person wants to impress you, manipulate you or exploit you. But with Prabhupada, you knew he just wanted to give you love of God. There was no exploitation. He didn’t want anything from us. He just wanted to give us Krishna consciousness. He wanted to take us back to Godhead and see that we don’t suffer any more.
