Trivikram Swami: Prabhupada came to Buffalo in the spring of 1969. He stayed at an Indian man’s apartment near the temple. At that time I had been living in the temple for six months or so, and Prabhupada initiated me. I remember sitting in the back of Prabhupada’s room and watching Prabhupada at his desk. I was trying to penetrate the mystery of Prabhupada. Suddenly he looked up and saw me looking at him. He said, “Yes?” I was caught. I lowered my eyes. In a sense I was intruding, and I realized I couldn’t know him in that way. I had to somehow get his mercy if I wanted to know him better.
I was twenty-six, a little older than the other devotees, and I thought, “I’m going to give this Krishna consciousness a good try. I don’t know anything about it, but before I graduate and become involved in my career I’m going to try this Krishna consciousness.” During the initiation ceremony I was taking the achman and drinking it with enthusiasm. Prabhupada turned to Brahmananda and said, “Now, he’s a good one,” meaning me. Prabhupada appreciated that I was a little forward pushing.
Prabhupada said, “What are you studying at the university?” I said, “Sociology.” He said, “What does that mean?” I said, “We study social problems like alcoholism.” Prabhupada was sober for a minute, and then he said, “Yes, they study alcoholism, and after they’ve studied for the day they say, ‘Okay, now we’re finished, let’s go have a drink.’” Prabhupada wasn’t inspired by the education students receive in the universities.
In the morning the other devotees and I went to Prabhupada’s apartment to join him on a walk. We went to the third story where Prabhupada stayed, and as we were leaving I remembered I had left my beads inside. I asked the secretary, “Can I have the key to get my beads?” I opened the door, got my beads, closed the door, and went down the hall just in time to get on the elevator with everybody else. On the elevator, Prabhupada spoke to me just like he would speak to a five-year-old child. In a slow voice he said, “Did you lock the door?” He knew I had left my beads and thought that I might have made another mistake. The devotees laughed, but I didn’t mind, because I understood that I was like a foolish child in Prabhupada’s presence. We went on the walk, and I was thinking, “Prabhupada’s an old man. I have to protect him.” We came to a busy intersection, and I was looking on the left for an opportunity to pass and help Prabhupada cross. But when I looked back Prabhupada was already across the street. He walked quickly and boldly. Running after him I felt foolish to have thought I could protect him.
I told Prabhupada, “I’m going to go to the library to get a book on massage because I’m not very conversant.” Prabhupada said, “No, that is not necessary. You read the Bhagavad-gita, and Krishna will tell you how to give massage. It doesn’t require study.” A couple days later, Prabhupada asked me, “How is your health?” I said, “I have a little problem, I have a toothache.” Prabhupada said, “Oh, what are you doing for it?” He was concerned. I said, “I’m going to the dentist this afternoon.” He said, “Oh.” The next morning I was going to his room. His room was upstairs, and I would call up, “Haribol!” He would say, “Come on,” if he was ready. Otherwise he would say, “Wait five minutes.” This time he said, “Come on,” and I started upstairs. Before I got there he asked, “How is your tooth?” I felt bad. Here was the most important person on the planet worrying about my tooth. But that was Prabhupada’s way. He was concerned about individuals on all levels. Once in Tokyo, Shyamasundar was traveling with Prabhupada, when Shyamasundar got sick for some time. When Shyamasundar was better he complained to Prabhupada that the devotees hadn’t taken care of him properly. Prabhupada called an istagosthi and asked everybody, “Why didn’t you take care of him? We’ve given up everything to come to spiritual life. How can we neglect a devotee?” Then Prabhupada feelingly turned to Shyamasundar and said with intensity and emotion, “Why didn’t you ask me? I would have come and nursed you.” That was Prabhupada’s mood. He was compassionate, and at the same time bold or strong if necessary. We always got the feeling that he loved us and that he wasn’t exploiting us in any way.
At John Lennon’s big estate near London, Prabhupada often talked about his childhood and about Calcutta, which was the capital of India then. Once we looked out and saw a big man named John, who was John Lennon’s driver. Prabhupada asked about him, and I said, “All he does is drive.” Prabhupada said, “That is a sign of a wealthy man. He can keep somebody who works for only a few minutes a day.” I got enthusiastic and said, “Yeah, Prabhupada, John Lennon is very, very wealthy.” Prabhupada said, “What is the use of all his money? He doesn’t know how to spend it.” That made sense to me. I saw that John had spent so much money excavating a big area to make a lake and then later changed his mind and decided not to have a lake. I understood that money was of no use if people didn’t know how to spend it properly. That was a good lesson.
We were staying at John Lennon’s estate, but we regularly went to London for preaching programs. One evening many Indians who had come for the first time challenged Prabhupada during a big program in a public hall. Some of them said, “What about Lord Shiva, and what about this, and what about that?” Prabhupada was strong and forceful. When a man interrupted Prabhupada, Prabhupada said, “Sit down. You are nonsense.” It was that kind of a mood. Prabhupada established Bhagavat-dharma. This program was due to be a series of lectures, and the next day I was giving Prabhupada a massage. He was going to speak that night, and I was in the mood of getting him in shape for another knockout performance, like a trainer with a prizefighter. I was talking vividly about Prabhupada and what he’d done, glorifying and flattering him. Suddenly, Prabhupada said, “No,” in an emphatic, authoritative voice. My hands froze on his body. Then with another voice, the voice of a six-year-old child, he said, “I am just a humble servant.” When he said that, I felt that I didn’t have any right to touch his body. I was a plebeian, and he was an aristocrat. It was by his mercy that I was allowed in the same room with him, what to speak of touch him. He was such a high-class person. I felt like going under the rug. But that was a wonderful lesson for me. I could see that Prabhupada really thought that of himself, that that was his real identity. He was a servant. He didn’t think of himself as a big something, he thought of himself as a servant of his spiritual master, and he wasn’t impressed with flattery. That was a very nice exchange for me.
We had been in England for three months, and I was attached to serving Prabhupada. I wanted to go on to Boston with him. I asked if I could come, and he said, “Let us see.” He never said, “No,” but one day his secretary said, “Stop bothering Prabhupada about going to America. Upendra is there. It’s already settled that he’s going to do your service, so you can’t come.” That day when I was driving Prabhupada to the temple from his apartment I said, “Prabhupada, Purushottam said that Upendra was going to serve you when you go to America.” Prabhupada was silent, so I knew it was true. I was a little discouraged, but I thought, “I shouldn’t disturb Prabhupada.” Since Prabhupada was sober I thought, “Let me change the subject.” I said, “Upendra, he’s a good boy?” I had never met Upendra. Prabhupada appreciated that. He turned to me and very feelingly said, “He’s not as nice as you.” Prabhupada could see that I wasn’t going to insist, “My right is I should be able to come with you. I’ve asked you,” and so on. I was renouncing that, and Prabhupada appreciated it. It was a nice exchange.
In Detroit, 1971, Prabhupada had a nice exchange with a parent of one of his disciples. We would look in Prabhupada’s window to listen to and watch Prabhupada. He didn’t seem to mind. On this day he talked to a devotee’s mother, who was about fifty years old. She said, “Srila Prabhupada, these young boys and girls worship you.” Srila Prabhupada immediately understood her purport and said, “Yes, I also worship my spiritual master. That is our process.” He defused her objection. Ordinary people would think it unusual to worship a human being, but Prabhupada made it like an ordinary thing. The process was, “I worship my spiritual master, and my disciples worship me. It’s not something extraordinary; it’s the tradition, and it’s the parampara.” The lady couldn’t say anything. She accepted Srila Prabhupada’s statement.
I massaged Prabhupada in his apartment everyday. Once I was chanting and waiting for Prabhupada to finish some correspondence. He looked up and said, “Are you listening when you chant Hare Krishna?” Immediately my response was defensive. I thought, “Of course I listen. Otherwise, why am I doing it?” Prabhupada read my mind and said, “I know you listen. You have to listen very carefully. Chanting is the essence of our philosophy.”
Sometime in 1969 I asked Srila Prabhupada whether he thought I should remain a brahmachari or get married. Prabhupada said, “It doesn’t matter. You can be Krishna conscious in any ashram. The main thing is to be Krishna conscious.” I accepted that. One day after that Prabhupada was lecturing about the time he took sannyas and how he was thinking, “How can I leave my wife and children? But somehow my spiritual master came to me in a dream and my God-brother was pushing me and so I took sannyas. Now I have so many children and without the botheration of a wife.” The next day when I was massaging him I said, “Srila Prabhupada, yesterday in your lecture you said that a wife was a botheration.” Prabhupada looked at me, smiled, and said, “I said that?” He was always non-committal with me until he asked me to take sannyas a couple of years later. He saw I was a little older, but he wouldn’t have objected if I wanted to remain a brahmachari or get married or take sannyas. It was like that.
In Mayapur in 1977, Srila Prabhupada was in his room with one of his God-brothers, talking about how Srila Bhaktisiddhanta wanted the Gaudiya Math to remain united and how it had failed to do so. Srila Prabhupada spoke respectfully, because it was his God-brother, but he also spoke authoritatively, with full conviction. He said, “In my opinion the difficulty was that they tried to create one acharya. You cannot create an acharya. An acharya may emerge but you cannot create. They tried to create, and therefore everything was spoiled.” Prabhupada spoke with full authority on this important point, and philosophically this has helped me over the years. A person may claim to be an acharya, but it’s not such an easy thing. Prabhupada gave us the GBC as a workable system. Although individually we may stray, he had faith that collectively we could keep on the right course. Prabhupada strongly opposed artificially creating an acharya, that every year there’s another “acharya.”
In 1975, Gopal Krishna Maharaj was the GBC for India. In Mayapur he said to me, “Bhavananda is going to leave Mayapur, so Prabhupada wants you to stay here with Jayapataka.” I said, “I’m not staying here. I’ve already planned to preach in the Far East with some other devotees.” Later that afternoon, Gopal Krishna, many other devotees, and I were in Prabhupada’s room for darshan. Gopal Krishna said, “Srila Prabhupada, Trivikram Swami says he’s not staying here in Mayapur.” There was silence. Prabhupada looked at me and said, “What is the problem? You don’t want to stay here?” I said, “Prabhupada, I already have a program.” Prabhupada said, “Our formula is plain living and high thinking, but you’re simply addicted to the city.” I said, “Srila Prabhupada, I’m not enlivened by the preaching here in Mayapur. I’d rather go to the Far East.” He said, “You are a sannyasi. You have given up everything but your whim.” I still objected. I said, “But, Prabhupada, I’ve been a sannyasi for five years, and I haven’t had a chance to preach in English. I’ve always been in places where I couldn’t preach in English. If I stay in Mayapur, I also won’t be able to preach in English.” Prabhupada said, “Oh, you’ve been a sannyasi for five years, and you haven’t had a chance to preach? What makes you think you know how to preach?” Then something inside of me said, “Yes, sir.” I was in the Navy, and I was trained to respect superiors. Prabhupada was my superior, so I realized that I better shut up and do what I was told. I stayed for some time.
I heard from Prabhupada’s secretary, Upendra, that the devotees in Japan had been thrown out of the country and that our Society was in jeopardy there. This disturbed me, as I had spent three years in Japan. I felt that the devotees there, headed by Gurukripa and Yasodanandana, were in a passionate mood to collect money. They didn’t care about registering the Society and keeping it in good standing. In my disturbed mood I went into Prabhupada’s room. Prabhupada was alone. I blurted out, “I knew this was going to happen.” Prabhupada looked at me as if to say, “Who is this aborigine coming into my room?” I said, “We’re being thrown out of Japan, and we have Radha Krishna Deities there.” Prabhupada was saddened and said soberly, “I did not want this to happen. All right, you can go back.” I was shocked. I thought, “Oh God, what have I done? I opened my mouth, and now I have to go back to Japan. I didn’t want to do that.” That was the way Prabhupada dealt. If you had an objection or a complaint, you’d better be ready to make a solution. You couldn’t lodge a complaint without being ready to put your neck on the line. The next day I told Prabhupada, “I am willing to go back if that’s what you want.” Prabhupada sent me to Japan with another devotee, and we kept the center open and maintained the Deity worship. I was the pujari. This was a good lesson. It’s easy to criticize, but Prabhupada didn’t appreciate criticism unless we had a positive correction.
In Bombay in 1976, Srila Prabhupada had an animated discussion with a yogi. Somehow the talk came to the point of the spiritual master, and then I got into the conversation. I said, “Yes, this is the basic point. We have to accept a spiritual master.” I thought that this man should accept Prabhupada as his spiritual master. Prabhupada immediately picked up on it and looked at me as if to say, “Shut up, get out of this conversation, it’s over your head, don’t be lecturing to this guy.” Prabhupada said that with his eyes. He didn’t say all those words, but I could understand that that was his purport. The yogi was an advanced person, Prabhupada had a relationship with him, and Prabhupada didn’t want me to be telling him anything. That was a nice lesson for me.
Another time Prabhupada was talking with an important person in Bombay, when there was a lull in the conversation and I said something. Prabhupada looked at me as if to say, “Now what are you doing?” But I quoted a verse that was appropriate to Prabhupada’s point about how we should be eager, even greedy, for Krishna consciousness. When Prabhupada saw that I was contributing something, he immediately took it and continued his animated preaching. So we could speak when Prabhupada was preaching, but we’d better be sure that we understood the mood he was in. Otherwise, if we changed the subject, Prabhupada could become disturbed. A similar thing happened on a morning walk in Vrindavan in 1974. Prabhupada had been speaking, and I said, “This reminds me of a teacher that I had when I was in the university, Srila Prabhupada.” Prabhupada looked at me with a look that said, “This better be a good story.” Prabhupada and everybody else stopped walking, and I told the story of my big philosophy teacher who changed his philosophy when he became sick. Prabhupada had been sick at the time, and when I said that, Prabhupada laughed. He said, “We are not changing our philosophy because we become sick.” He appreciated my story, but when I said things that were inappropriate, Prabhupada wouldn’t hesitate to chastise me. In the last days, when Prabhupada was confined to his bed, I said something inappropriate, and Prabhupada showed displeasure. Prabhupada was talking about the doctor that was coming from Calcutta and was asking his secretary, Tamal Krishna Maharaj, questions. At the end of that, Prabhupada changed the subject. He said, “So has he left yet?” I thought that Prabhupada was talking about the doctor, so I said, “Yes, he’s already left.” The whole room was quiet. Prabhupada looked at me and said, “Who do you think I meant?” I started backpedaling. I said, “I guess I was speculating, Prabhupada.” Prabhupada said, “Who do you think I meant?” He wouldn’t let me off. He kept pushing, and I said, “I was talking about the doctor.” Prabhupada didn’t say anything but turned on his bed and gave me a cold shoulder. It went right to my heart. Prabhupada didn’t say a word, but with a slight gesture I felt, “Oh, boy, what have I done? I’ve disturbed the spiritual master in these days when he is not well.” Then Tamal Krishna Maharaj said, “Who were you referring to, Srila Prabhupada?” Prabhupada said, “My son,” because his son had been in Vrindavan and was due to leave. Then they started talking in that way.
To me, Prabhupada’s most striking quality was his ability to encourage everyone. He didn’t flatter, but somehow he’d get people to sacrifice for Krishna, to sacrifice for their own good, for spiritual life. Prabhupada was expert at seeing a little good quality and fanning it to make it grow. This wonderful ability was the most extraordinary thing about Prabhupada. The first impression that Prabhupada gave was that “He sees the best in me,” and this attracted so many people. Later on, of course, he may correct you, but that was out of love. You always had the feeling that Prabhupada was your well-wisher. A teacher, an ordinary person, even parents, might be a little envious or have some motive, but not Prabhupada. His compassion was his most impressive qualification. And it is still present. And we need it. Without his mercy, what is our position?
