Urmila devi dasi Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Prabhupada Memories

Interview 01

Urmila: I got first initiation through the mail and for second initiation I received gayatri mantra directly from Prabhupada in Philadelphia. There was a huge initiation that morning where seventy-five devotees got initiated. At that initiation Prabhupada didn’t like a lot of the names that the sannyasis had picked out. At least three times he changed the names and the third time he looked at Brahmananda and said, “Where did you get these names?” One of the names I remember was Buhbrit and I forget the original name but when Prabhupada changed it to Buhbrit he said, “Buhbrit means one who carries all the planets on their head”. The other name the sannyasis had given he said, “That means one who carries a heavy load.” He also gave an interesting lecture about Ajamila. One of the devotees was reading the translation as the book hadn’t been published yet, and it read, “Ajamila called out three times, Narayana, Narayana, Narayana” and Prabhupada said, “Three times? I did not say three times. One time. Once is sufficient, Narayana.” Another time we were staying at the home of one Indian family where the woman had been chanting sixteen rounds, getting up early, offering her food for three years but her husband wasn’t favorable. The temple authorities wouldn’t recommend her for initiation. So she had gone to Prabhupada personally and Prabhupada accepted her. The devotees had the attitude especially with women, “If the husband is not strict, how is the woman going to follow?” But Prabhupada didn’t consider that. “If she wants to follow, she can follow.” He accepted her. I saw them twenty years later in Vrindavan and the husband had become a devotee.

My father went on a morning walk with Srila Prabhupada in Philadelphia in 1975. I couldn’t go but my father got to go. When he came back I said, “So what did Prabhupada say?” My father was just beaming and he said, “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything what he said, but it was the most wonderful experience of my whole life.” mental interference.

I was with my husband and father in Prabhupada’s room in Chicago in 1974 and we had a very sweet conversation. At first Prabhupada thought that my husband was my father’s son and my father said, “No this is my daughter.” Prabhupada said, “Do you have any sons?” My father said, “No, just daughters, three daughters.” Prabhupada then told my father the story of Prahlad and Hiranyakashipu. Basically he was telling my father that he was a demon, but my father really appreciated it and he really enjoyed hearing the story. My father said, “I have my own religion, is it all right if I visit the temple if I have my own religion?” Some places of worship want you to come only if you want to participate. Of course, later my father almost became a devotee but at this point this was his first time meeting Prabhupada. Prabhupada said, “Yes, just like there are so many planes going to Chicago, but they have to know that they are going to Chicago or else what is the meaning of many planes.” He said, “So if you know that the purpose of religion is to know God and to love Him, then you can say that there are so many religions.” I thought about that for many months, that most religions don’t say that their goal is to know God and to love Him. They want to go to heaven and they want salvation. And then my father asked Prabhupada, “Well, I am really coming just to see my daughter and my son-in-law. Is that okay?” In other words it was the same kind of question, not coming to see Krishna. Prabhupada said, “Yes, they are loving Krishna.” I thought to myself, “I don’t love Krishna.” Prabhupada continued, “Chanting and dancing are symptoms of loving Krishna. So they are loving Krishna and you are loving them and two things equal to the same things are equal to each other.” That was very sweet. That was one of the things that Prabhupada had said that has really sustained me over the years. I thought Prabhupada saw at least the potential that I could love Krishna. So if Prabhupada said I love Krishna, someday I will love Krishna. He also really guided me in my relationships with my family, especially the last days in my mother’s life when I was thinking, “If I could just get my mother attached to me then gradually move that into an attachment to Krishna.” My father also asked at that time, “Why are you so anxious to give everyone your food even if they do not know anything about your philosophy?” Prabhupada said, “Do you believe in infection?” My father said, “Yes.” Prabhupada said, “Just like if you eat the food of a sick person you will be infected with their disease. In the same way if you eat the food that Krishna has eaten you will be infected with Krishna’s disease.” So that was really wonderful. When we walked out of the room my father looked at me and said, “Now I understand why you have joined this movement. This is a genuine holy man.”

Earlier that day soon after the yajna when I got second initiation, my husband, my father and my son all went to see Srila Prabhupada. My father brought a big fruit gift basket wrapped in cellophane. It was loaded very high over the basket and my father was really proud because he had told them only fruit since he figured Prabhupada wouldn’t eat the cooked nuts or candy. At that point my father was chanting everyday and following the principles and offering his food to a picture and buying some flowers for a picture he had of the deities. He was also coming to the temple once a week for guru puja and Bhagavatam class. He was really blossoming in his life. So he told Prabhupada he had brought the fruits and Prabhupada said, “Oh, so many fruits!” My father said, “Yes, only fruits.” Then my father, who was radiating joy, asked Prabhupada, “Is it possible to be reborn in the same body?” It was interesting because my father was speaking more about a spiritual birth. But Prabhupada just explained how in this body we travel from one body to another. He said everyone is taking birth over and over again even in this body. He said, “I am an old man and you are an old man and when the body is no longer to be changed, then we’ll die.” It struck me that Prabhupada didn’t necessarily answer people’s questions the way they expected them to be answered. He answered in his own way. Prabhupada was just very friendly with my father. The first thing he said was, “Oh, I have seen you before?” My father said, “Yes, twice before.” Prabhupada said, “Oh, so how are you now?” like he was meeting an old friend; very warm and friendly so that you felt that Prabhupada was so happy to see you and that you were the person he was just waiting to see. Sometimes when you meet somebody, especially a busy person, you feel like you are intruding on their time as maybe they are just seeing you out of an obligation. But Prabhupada didn’t make you feel that way. He would put everything else aside to meet with you and be with you because he liked you so much.

In 1975 in New York there were about fifteen or twenty of us with Srila Prabhupada at the airport. As per the custom then we all had brought flower petals with us. We had thrown them throughout the corridors and offices of the airport as we walked Prabhupada to the departure area. There was an airport official arguing with our GBC Rupanuga at the back of the lounge about cleaning up the petals. At a certain point Prabhupada said, “What’s the problem?” Obviously that man was very agitated and Jayadvaita who was a brahmachari at the time said, “Prabhupada, they are complaining about the flower petals. They want us to clean up the flower petals.” We had never cleaned up flower petals. We didn’t think about public opinion at that time. Jayadvaita said, “Oh Prabhupada, there are so many cigarette butts everywhere and they never complain about that.” Nowadays you can’t even smoke in the airport but those days you could smoke and people would just throw the cigarette butts everywhere. There was someone who had to go through the airport constantly to clean that up and then Prabhupada told the story about his God-brother’s preaching in Burma. The local people couldn’t tolerate the smell of ghee cooking, which we think is such a sweet smell, but they would take dead animals and preserve them in such a way that their flesh became liquified and they would drink that as a very special beverage. So this was an example of “What is night for the self-realized soul is day for the common man.” But Prabhupada told that story with such humor that he wasn’t criticizing the people, but more with kindness and love and compassion.

I along with my son and father met Prabhupada up in his room. It was supposed to be a meeting just between Srila Prabhupada and us, but maybe forty or fifty devotees came. I heard afterwards that Prabhupada said, “If I am meeting with some person, I should just meet with that person and not that everybody should come.” So in that meeting my son was sitting on my lap and Prabhupada was talking to my father about Krishna. Prabhupada looked at me and said, “Just like this mother is loving her son without any expectation of return. In the same way, you should love Krishna.” My father asked, “Will loving her son help her to love Krishna?” Prabhupada said, “No, loving Krishna will help her to love her son.” Sometimes now, however, I hear devotees say the way you love your family members will help you understand love for Krishna. But that’s not what Prabhupada said. He said, “No.” We have to do it the other way. He said, “If you eat good food, you’ll have good eyesight. But if you put the food in your eye, you will become blind.”

A big reason why I joined the Krishna consciousness movement was the philosophy. The philosophy made a lot of sense to me. The lifestyle really gave you a way to be spiritual twenty-four hours a day. You could say that I was attracted to Prabhupada because of what he was teaching, his role as the acharya, teaching not only a perfect philosophy but also a perfect way to live the philosophy. But as I said about the first time I met Srila Prabhupada, I saw that he was the acharya and he was also an individual. Guru is one but still they’re also individuals. What I really liked about Srila Prabhupada as an individual was how genuine he was. He was authentically there with you and caring about you. He wasn’t putting on any kind of pretense. Most of us in our social interactions pretend to be something that we’re not. We don’t have authentic relationships. Even our most authentic relationships are not fully authentic. We can’t really show who we are. First of all, we don’t know who we are. We’re all making this show of, “I’m the controller and I am God in this world.” We have our guard up to some extent, but Prabhupada didn’t. He was just there, “This is who I am.” What I saw in my personal dealings with him was that he was casual, loving, and very humorous. Being with you was the most wonderful thing he could do in the world. And he really enjoyed being with you and he wanted to be with you. Where do you find that quality of total authenticity with anybody? That’s only there when a person has both absolute humility and really knows who they are and is happy with what they are. Prabhupada knows, “I’m a soul, I’m a servant of Krishna” and he’s happy with that. He has no drive to try and be anything else. And he has no drive to prove himself to anybody, wondering what other people are thinking about him. That was very noticeable and tangible.

To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 51 - Bhakti Vikasa Swami , Chaturatma, Laksmi Nrsimhadev, Laxmimoni dd, Urmila dd

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

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 07

Urmila: The first time that I ever saw Prabhupada was in the morning. He was sitting on the vyasasana at the Chicago temple. He was giving a lecture about how we all want to see God but we can’t even see a little piece of God, the soul. Otherwise, why would we be crying when some relative has died? And if we haven’t seen a piece of God, how can we think that we can see God? I was standing right near the vyasasana, maybe two feet away, and fanning Prabhupada with a peacock feather fan all during the lecture, and I was simultaneously very happy and very disappointed. I was very happy because I realized that hearing Prabhupada there on the vyasasana was no different than hearing a tape recording of him. All that time I’d been listening to Prabhupada lectures on tapes, I’d been with him hearing him, and I felt so happy and so satisfied. But I had wanted something different. I hadn’t wanted it to be just the same as a tape recording. I had wanted to get to know Prabhupada the person. A few hours later, my father, my husband and I went into Prabhupada’s room; and right before, Prabhupada was speaking to a reporter, which is what you’re seeing here. He was very much joking, very congenial, very relaxed. Right after the reporters left, then my father and my husband and I were introduced. At that point, Prabhupada leaned back on the cushion and he had one of his legs up, and his dhoti was such that you could see his calves and his lotus feet. I remember thinking how soft his skin was, it looked like the skin of a baby. As the conversation began to unfold, I realized that here Krishna was fulfilling my desire to get to see Prabhupada as an individual person. When I was listening to him on the vyasasana, I was seeing him as the guru, as the acharya, and here I was seeing him as Prabhupada the individual person. It was very, very sweet. This was the first time also that my father had met Srila Prabhupada. My father had been coming to the temple periodically since I joined. First he introduced himself but Prabhupada thought that my husband was my father’s son, and then he understood that it was the daughter. He said, “Do you have any sons?” My father said, “No, only daughters.” Prabhupada said, “Oh, only daughters.” Then my father said, “I’m coming to this temple not because I want to see Krishna but because I want to see my daughter and my son-in-law. Is that all right?” Prabhupada said, “Yes. They are loving Krishna.” And I was thinking, “I don’t love Krishna.” He said, “Chanting and dancing are symptoms of loving Krishna, and they are loving Krishna and you are loving them. So two things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” Then my father said, “But I’m a Jew, and is it really all right that I come to the temple even though I’m Jewish?” Prabhupada said, “Yes. There can be many planes going through Chicago, but they have to know they are going through Chicago. Otherwise, what is the meaning of many planes? So there can be many religions, but they have to know what is the goal. The goal is to know God and to love Him. If you know that the goal is to know God and to love Him, then there can be many religions.” After we walked out, my father turned to me and said, “Now I know why you’ve come to this Hare Krishna movement. That is a genuine holy man.”

Interview DVD 09

Urmila: For Srimad-Bhagavatam class, Prabhupada was reading from the story of Ajamila. He had somebody else recite the verse and purport, and that devotee said, “Then Ajamila cried out three times very loudly, ‘Narayana! Narayana! Narayana!’” Prabhupada said, “Have I said three times? It is not three times. Once is sufficient.” Then at the initiation, someone else had chosen the names for the initiates. So they’d call the person up by their regular name, and then Prabhupada would ask what was their new devotee name. And the devotee would read from the list, I think it was Brahmananda, and several times Prabhupada would change the name. They had mentioned some name and Prabhupada said, “What is this?” He said, “It’s supposed to be Bhubrt, meaning ‘one who carries the planets.’ This name you have chosen means ‘one who carries a heavy load.’” He said, “Where did you get these names?”