Uttamasloka: I went to see Prabhupada at Ratha-yatra in San Francisco. Hundreds of us were waiting anxiously in the airport waiting room to meet him. The plane was twenty minutes late, so it intensified our anxiety and anticipation. Many of us hadn’t seen Prabhupada and were wondering what it was going to be like when we finally saw him. We were chanting and chanting. Finally Prabhupada came around the divider. As soon as I saw him, tears poured from my eyes like a water faucet. It was unbelievable; it was so good. I paid my obeisances and cried. I was so happy; it was wonderful.
Our temple president, Dharmaraj, was artificially austere. To make us austere he didn’t give us enough to eat, so we were always in anxiety and would pig out at the feast. We were addicted to halava. There was something about halava that was irresistible. Once, on yet another day that we hadn’t eaten enough, we were going to Detroit. Dharmaraj was bringing a huge vat of halava, but he wouldn’t let us have any. All the way there I was in total anxiety, trying to steal some halava and eat it. Then I thought, “Here I am going to see the spiritual master, a pure devotee, but I’m thinking of halava,” and I was ashamed. Finally we got there, and we were told, “We need some volunteers to clean the house where Prabhupada will be staying.” Nobody volunteered. I told myself, “Volunteer, you stupid idiot, don’t be a sourpuss.” My service at the temple had been cleaning the bathroom. I surrendered, got into it, and did it well. I accepted that I was a toilet cleaner. I thought about the Gita when I cleaned, so I made a lot of spiritual advancement in the bathroom. When I went to the house that day, they said, “We need somebody to clean the bathroom.” I said, “Me.” I was in ecstasy cleaning the bathroom. I felt as if I had been trained for this. When Prabhupada finally came he was offered a huge plate of fruit. We sat down with Prabhupada, and he said, “Have some.” We were picking at it, and Prabhupada said, “Never be shy in business or in accepting prasadam.” So we ate. I never forgot that instruction, and from that time on I have never been shy in business or prasadam.
Normally, Prabhupada would give a name that started with the first letter of your Western name. Since my name was Ron, I thought I would be Rama or something like that. But instead Prabhupada gave me the name Uttamasloka. He said, “Your name is Uttamasloka, Krishna, who is praised with transcendental songs.” I had enjoyed some local notoriety as a musician and in the beginning wanted to use my musical abilities to serve Krishna, writing songs and so forth. When Prabhupada gave me that name and said, “Krishna, who is praised with transcendental songs,” I was in ecstasy. I thought it was wonderful and very special. I got gayatri at the same time, and Prabhupada personally spoke the mantra into my ear. That was also auspicious.
I found a big church on Avenue Road, which is a very good location in Toronto. It was a huge, wonderful building, perfect for us. The Christian group that had used it was moving to a new place, and it was for sale for a half a million. This was the best place we had found after years of looking. I went to Prabhupada and I told him about the building, “Prabhupada, we found a huge, amazing building. It was a church and has forty-foot-high ceilings. There’s space for brahmachari quarters.” I described everything to him. He said, “It sounds great. How much do they want?” I said, “They want $500,000.” We had never paid that much for a building. He said, “That’s a lot of money. What’s the use of buying anxiety? All you’ll be thinking about is collecting money. We don’t need to purchase anxiety. That’s not our business. Our business is to remember Krishna. That’s all. It’s a good location?” I said, “Oh, yes, Prabhupada.” He said, “In good condition?” I said, “Oh, beautiful. Prabhupada, it’s on a main road.” He said, “Oh, but what’s the use of purchasing anxiety. We don’t need that. We don’t want to purchase anxiety.” I said, “Yeah, okay.” He asked, “Big temple room?” I said, “Yes, Prabhupada, nice temple room, wonderful. Maybe you can come to Toronto and see it.” He said, “Maybe we’ll come.” I said, “Okay.” About three weeks later he came to Toronto. We picked him up at the airport, and as we drove to the temple he said, “Can we go see the building?” I said, “Sure.” We took him on a tour and there was one Christian still there. I told Prabhupada, “Here’s the temple room, and here’s the prasadam room, and we’ll do this here and that there . . .” We were walking by a table where some Christian books had been left behind, and one title was, “What Does God Look Like?” Prabhupada picked it up and said, “Ask him if we can buy this.” I said, “Can we buy this book?” He said, “You can have it.” I said, “Okay.” We got in the car and Prabhupada said, “Read something to me, read the book.” I started reading the book, and it was going nowhere. He said, “They don’t know what God looks like, it’s just a bluff.” About 10:00 that night I got a phone call, “Prabhupada wants to see you. Come over to the apartment right away.” I went over to the apartment and Prabhupada said, “Do you have all the plans, the blueprints of how you want to lay out the temple?” I said, “Yes, Prabhupada, I have everything.” He said, “I think it would be an ideal temple.” I said, “Yes, Prabhupada, it would be wonderful.” He said, “How much do they want?” I said, “Five hundred thousand.” He said, “Well, why don’t we go there and ask if they’ll take three hundred thousand dollars. How much do you have?” I said, “We have about forty thousand.” He said, “Can you get another sixty?” I said, “We can try.” He said, “Brahmananda, how much do we have in the BBT?” He said, “We have two hundred and something.” Prabhupada said, “Give them two hundred thousand.” Brahmananda said, “Prabhupada, we’ve never given that much to anybody.” Prabhupada said, “That’s all right, give it to them and see if they’ll take three hundred thousand cash, and tell them that we’ll worship Lord Jesus next to Lord Krishna on the altar.” In other words, we’d preserve the Christian element. Prabhupada said, “Do you think they’ll do that?” I said, “We can try.” He said, “Can you handle the payments on three hundred thousand?” I said, “Prabhupada that’s an awful lot of money. We don’t want to purchase anxiety.” Prabhupada slammed his fist on the table and said, “No, there must be anxiety! Otherwise we’ll just be sitting around, eating prasadam and getting fat. There must be anxiety!” (laughs). I thought, “Okay.” He completely reversed what he had said before, “Well, we don’t want to purchase anxiety,” to, “There must be anxiety!” Everybody was shocked.
On a morning walk in Toronto, perhaps in 1976, Vishvakarma, the temple president, said, “Prabhupada, lately the brahmacharis are agitated and are having difficulty maintaining their brahmachari mood. How should we deal with this?” Prabhupada said, “If they’re agitated, tell them to get married. What’s the problem?” Vishvakarma said, “But Prabhupada all of the big devotees, the sannyasis, tell them that it’s a fall-down to get married.” Prabhupada said, “Fall down from where? How can you fall, when you’re already fallen?” In other words, what do they think they’re falling from, that they’re so exalted? He said, “Besides, the sannyasis are not the big devotees. A big devotee is someone who is humbly and sincerely serving Krishna. That’s a big devotee. Not necessarily a sannyasi.” He said, “I give some devotees sannyas because they’re so anxious for it that they keep bothering me about it. I give them sannyas so that they’ll leave me alone.”
Prabhupada asked me, “Are you distributing books? Is that going well?” I said, “Yes, Prabhupada. We’re distributing a lot of books.” I gave him the figures, which were impressive. He said, “You’re distributing books, but are you reading them too?” I said, “Oh yes, Prabhupada. Every day we have four classes.” I explained that we daily alternated Nectar of Devotion and Nectar of Instruction classes. We also had Srimad-Bhagavatam classes, and at night Krishna Book, Caitanya-caritamrta, and Bhagavad-gita. He was very happy to hear that. A big smile came over his face, and, almost surprised, he said, “Oh, thank you very much.” I had pleased him, and I was washed with an incredible feeling of satisfaction. He said, “The devotees, they’re coming?” I said, “Well, not really. Maybe every six months a few people join.” He said, “That’s all right. Manushyanam sahasreshu kaschid yatati siddhaye. Out of many thousands among men, maybe one is interested. And out of thousands of those, maybe one becomes a devotee. So that’s all right.”
Prabhupada, along with devotees and people from the Indian community, attended a function at an Indian family’s home. During the kirtan, Prabhupada sat on the couch and chanted while I played the mridanga. My four year-old son was there with his little wooden drum, but he was standing, gawking at Prabhupada. Prabhupada indicated that he should play his drum, and so Radha Gopinath started playing. The kirtan ended, and everybody thought that Prabhupada would speak, but he said to Brahmananda, “You speak.” Brahmananda was shocked. After all, who wants to speak in front of the spiritual master? It’s unnerving. Brahmananda stood up, stuttered, fumbled, and said something philosophical. I was thinking, “Ha ha. It’s a good thing I’m not a sannyasi, because if I were, I’d be in trouble. He’d probably ask me to speak.” Brahmananda sat down, and Prabhupada looked at me and said, “Now you speak.” I almost froze to death. I was in shock. I sat there and thought, “Oh, my God,” and he said, “Stand up.” I stood up. I was in some kind of vacuum. I spoke and hoped it was transcendental. Nobody laughed, which might not have been good because usually people laugh when I speak. Later on we were having prasadam, and I said, “Prabhupada, do you mind if we chant bhajans while you eat?” He said, “No, not at all.” I said, “Prabhupada, do you have any favorite melodies for Hare Krishna?” He said, “Oh, yes.” I said, “Which one?” He said, “All of them.”
I introduced Ayodhyapati to Prabhupada. I said, “Prabhupada, this is our cook. Every morning we have Basmati rice, dahl, chapatis, and a nice subji.” I described the whole meal to him and said, “We eat one main meal a day, and in the evening we have a light snack, because we find that that’s practical.” Prabhupada said, “That’s perfect.” He had told us that we should have one main meal a day, either in the morning, afternoon, or evening. We chose the morning. The next day we were sitting in the airport, waiting for Prabhupada’s plane to Montreal, when Shivaram said, “Prabhupada, is there an ideal diet for sankirtan devotees?” Prabhupada said, “Oh, yes.” Shivaram said, “What is it?” Prabhupada looked at me and said, “You tell him.” So I described our prasadam program. Prabhupada said, “This is ideal.” Before that we had been in the garden, and Prabhupada had said, “Let’s read from the Gita.” Jagadish read some verses from Chapter Eight about quitting the body at a certain time. Prabhupada said to him, “Say something.” I thought, “Here we go again.” Jagadish spoke, and then Prabhupada said, “Now you read and speak,” gave me the book, and had me read and speak again. After that Prabhupada left. When the next festival came in the summer of 1976, many devotees were there and everybody was looking at Prabhupada, waiting for some small acknowledgement. Prabhupada was walking through the devotees, down the stairs, and down the pathway. I was at the end of the pathway. Prabhupada looked at me and smiled. Then he walked over to me and stopped. Everybody was shocked. He said, “Everything’s going all right in Toronto and Chicago?” I said, “Yes, Prabhupada, everything is going wonderfully.” “Good, that’s good.” Then he looked at Amarendra and he said, “And is everything going well in Detroit?” Amarendra said, “Oh, Prabhupada, I’m Amarendra, I’m not Govardhan.” Prabhupada said, “Oh, okay, I’m sorry.”
Professor Joseph O’Connell had done his Ph.D. dissertation on Chaitanya Vaishnavism and was teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Toronto. Professor O’Connell was favorably disposed to us, and I became friends with him. One time Professor O’Connell sponsored Prabhupada’s God-brother, Bon Maharaj, to come to Canada, and we met Bon Maharaj at the professor’s house. We invited Bon Maharaj to the temple and he came for a kirtan and gave an erudite and articulate lecture. Then Professor O’Connell arranged for Bon Maharaj to meet with the Toronto ecumenical council, including leaders from the Jewish community, the Baptists, the Christians, and the Catholics. Bon Maharaj had written a translation and commentary on Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, The Nectar of Devotion and he gave an elevated talk about Radha and Krishna and how Radharani is the pleasure potency of Krishna. But he spoke in a language similar to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. It was difficult to understand his points, and if one didn’t know the basic principles, one wouldn’t really get it. After he spoke, each council member took a turn to say something, trying to be nice. Then it came to me. I said, “We’ve heard Bon Maharaj speak about God, but I don’t hear anyone else speaking about God. If that’s what we have in common, why is it that we can’t talk about that? Why can’t we explore one another’s realizations or concepts or understandings of what and who God is?” I agitated everybody. Later on Prabhupada heard about this and asked me, “What did Bon Maharaj say?” I told him what I remembered. One of the things that Bon Maharaj said after I spoke was, “Lord Chaitanya never preached. He chanted and loved God, but He didn’t really preach any philosophy.” I had told Bon Maharaj, “That’s not what my spiritual master says,” but out of respect I didn’t want to get too uppity with him, because he was Prabhupada’s God-brother. When I related this exchange to Prabhupada, he gave many references from the Caitanya-caritamrta proving that Lord Chaitanya did preach the philosophy of Krishna consciousness and did explain who Krishna is, how we should understand Him, and how that fits into our devotional realization and progress. Prabhupada was happy that I had created a disturbance with the ecumenical council and had challenged Bon Maharaj.
The next year we were in Toronto when Prabhupada came again. By this time we had the new temple building, and Prabhupada came there. I was president of Chicago, and Madhavananda had taken over from Govardhan in Detroit. At one point there was some discussion about how the Indian community wasn’t happy in Detroit, and Prabhupada said, “Can’t Govardhan—” I said, “Govardhan isn’t president there anymore, Prabhupada.” He said, “Who is?” I said, “Madhavananda’s president.” He said, “Why is he president?” I said, “Well, Govardhan was having trouble, he wasn’t chanting his rounds.” He said, “How do you know he wasn’t chanting his rounds?” I said, “Well, Prabhupada, he said he wasn’t.” Prabhupada said, “At least he is honest enough to admit it. You say you are. How do I know you are? Maybe you’re lying.” I said, “But Prabhupada, he wasn’t coming to the morning program.” He said, “You have to encourage him. Put him back as president. He did such good work there. He should be temple president.” So Govardhan got reinstated as temple president. As it happens, I had taken over Sri Govinda’s position as temple president of Chicago. Sri Govinda met Prabhupada in New York hoping that, like Govardhan, he would be reinstated. But Prabhupada said, “Sometimes change is good. Let’s leave things the way they are.”
On a morning walk in Mayapur, Satsvarupa Maharaj asked Prabhupada, “How can we accelerate our advancement in Krishna consciousness?” Prabhupada said, “Just think that, ‘I’m going to die in one minute.’ If you knew that you were going to die in one minute, your consciousness would be focused on Krishna.” That kind of mind set will give us the intensity of focus that we need.
One time I asked, “Prabhupada, if somebody’s having trouble with sex desire, what should he do?” He said, “Chant Hare Krishna more, that’s all.”
Once, before I was initiated in Los Angeles, Srila Prabhupada was speaking about the verse in the Gita where Krishna says, “I am the taste in water” (Bg.7.8). Prabhupada said, “Even if a wino, a drunkard, drinks wine and thinks that, ‘Krishna is the taste in this,’ he can make some advancement. That consciousness will purify him.” Of course, wine drinking is not purifying, but that consciousness is progressive. The drunkard should think like that.
Prabhupada went to Portland, Oregon for a few days, and while he was there he spoke at a “New Age” meeting. A lady in the audience was with a child who was crying. Prabhupada said to her, “Can you please take the child out?” The lady said, “Is the child disturbing you?” Prabhupada said, “No, the child’s not disturbing me. He’s disturbing you and everyone else.” In Portland, I asked Prabhupada’s servant, “What do you do with Prabhupada’s old bead bags?” He said, “I give them away.” I said, “Can I have one?” He said, “Sure,” and he later sent one to Montreal for me.
Prabhupada was on a morning walk in New York when he stopped and looked up at some birds that were singing in a tree. He said, “Oh, they’re chanting Hare Krishna.” The devotees looked at each other stunned, thinking, “Wow, Prabhupada understands the language of the birds.” They said, “Prabhupada, are they really chanting Hare Krishna?” He said, “It sounds like it to me.”
At the Mayapur festival in 1977 Prabhupada was so sick that he wasn’t speaking or participating in any functions. Everybody was disturbed. We didn’t know what to make of it all. At one point the devotees from all the different temples had a kirtan contest. I was the president of Chicago, and we were really into kirtan. I had imbibed the Bengali style and introduced it in Chicago. (Later on it became popular all over the movement.) We chanted at a preliminary round, won, and were one of the few groups that went to the finals. But unfortunately, people started criticizing us. I told the men in my group to ignore it because it wasn’t the mood that we were in. But it got out of hand and started to bother me too. At one point, Tamal Krishna Maharaj said, “Uttama, it looks like your group may win.” I said, “No, I don’t think so.” He said, “Why not?” I said, “I’m not even going to chant, because people think that we’re into it for non-devotional reasons, which is completely wrong. Nobody appreciates it.” He said, “That’s not true. Prabhupada appreciates it.” I said, “How do you know?” He said, “Because when you first chanted, we were sitting with Prabhupada. We had been with him for days. Prabhupada wasn’t looking at us, he wasn’t speaking or moving. But when your kirtan group chanted, Prabhupada tapped his hand in time. When your kirtan reached a crescendo and the Bengali women responded with their yodeling, Prabhupada said, ‘Just see, this is ecstasy.’” Tamal Krishna Maharaj said, “We were taken aback because before that Prabhupada hadn’t said anything. Prabhupada appreciated your kirtan.” I said, “OK, I’ll stay.”
