Vaikunthanatha das Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Prabhupada Memories

Interview 01

Vaikunthanatha: In 1972, when Prabhupada gave a series of lectures on The Nectar of Devotion for one month in Vrindavan, a thought was plaguing me. When I first joined, I’d been taught that the parampara system is like a chain, and if you’re not initiated, if you’re not linked up to this chain, then you can’t go back to Godhead. I thought, “We’re distributing so many books, but if the people who read them are not initiated, then they can’t go back to Godhead.” So, one day I followed Prabhupada from Rupa Goswami’s samadhi, where he lectured, and just before Prabhupada stepped onto his courtyard, I said, “We’re distributing so many books but if people aren’t initiated, then they can’t go back to Godhead.” Prabhupada turned, looked at me right in the eyes and said, “Just by reading my books they are initiated.” I thought, “That is an incredible example of compassion.”

I was fortunate to be in the room with Prabhupada when the Archbishop of the Anglican Church came to see him. Prabhupada melted this archbishop and transformed that room into Vaikuntha. The next day the headline in the paper was, “We have nothing to fear from the Hare Krishnas.”

In the Radha-Damodar Temple in Vrindavan I once had the fortune to go into in Prabhupada’s rooms. Srutakirti, Prabhupada’s servant, was kind to the smaller devotees, and allowed us to visit Prabhupada. I’m eternally grateful to Srutakirti for that. Nara-Narayan had told me that the moon was self-illuminated and I went before Prabhupada and said, “Some devotee had told me that the moon is selfilluminated.” Prabhupada pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for about two minutes. Then he opened his eyes and said, “I don’t find that.”

To view the entire unedited video go to Memories 31 - LA Reunion, Guru Krpa, Nanda Kishore

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

Following Srila Prabhupada

Interview DVD 01

Vaikunthanath: Prabhupada would arrive, I think, by taxi. But in the meantime, the devotees were chanting in the temple there at 95 Glenville Avenue deep in kirtan; and there would be all this frankincense, the whole room was full of smoke. When Prabhupada would come in, we were literally in ecstasy. You cannot conceive of the impact that Prabhupada had on us. Prabhupada’s every move and every gesture, he was just floating in ecstasy, and we could perceive that bliss that Prabhupada was in. I remember he got up on the vyasasana and he said, “The secret is to be praying while we’re chanting the name of Krishna, ‘Please, Krishna, just place me in the society of Your service.’”

The Montreal temple was going very well, but we always had a difficult time paying the monthly rent. There was some danger that they would lose the temple at one point because they just didn’t have the rent money. Prabhupada actually proposed the idea to me and Pradyumna that we should go out and meet people in the Indian community and explain to them that we are trying to establish this Radha-Krishna temple here and maintain this temple and that we would like their support and help. But in any case, Pradyumna and I didn’t actually follow up that instruction. I think that we just didn’t know how to go about doing it. But one thing that I did know how to do, I knew how to go out and raise money at an airport. I was just a young boy, 17, and I remembered being short on my airline fare a couple of times and I didn’t know what to do. So I just started asking people, “Could you spare a buck? I’m five dollars short on my flight,” and miraculously people were kind enough to give me a few dollars. Here I was, I had absolutely no skill, I went out and went to the airport and I just started doing that, and I managed to raise a few hundred dollars. I gave it to the temple for the rent, and I wasn’t even aware that Prabhupada knew about it really. But about four or five years later, just out of the blue Prabhupada said to me, “I remember when you raised the money to save the Montreal temple,” and I was so touched to realize that Prabhupada had this memory of me, that I had done some service to help save the temple. It just really surprised me because I had no idea that Prabhupada was aware of that or that he would remember that. I’ll never forget, in so many ways Prabhupada always expressed such kindness and love for his disciples.

Saradiya and I were married in May of ’69, and shortly thereafter I returned to New York, because I was studying book binding at the time, to help set up the ISKCON Press. And I was very stunned when I was told that Prabhupada wanted us to stay in his quarters. There was an apartment behind 26 2nd Avenue. Those were considered the most holy places by all of us because that was where Prabhupada had his rooms; and although Prabhupada was not there in New York at the time, those were Prabhupada’s rooms. And yet Prabhupada instructed that me and Saradiya, having just recently been married and needing a place to stay, should stay in his rooms. And that deeply impressed me that he was willing to suggest that. And indeed we did stay there. We stayed there for probably a month or two in the summer of ’69.

I remember in the Boston temple taking a walk with Prabhupada. There was a small park nearby and as we were walking through the park, at one point, I’d asked a question. I don’t recall the question but Prabhupada turned, and looked at me straight in the eye, and said, “When you’re reading, understand every word before you go on.” And that’s always stuck with me. Often when I’m reading now I say “Prabhupada wanted me to try to understand every word before I continued.” But it was quite a profound instruction.

Interview DVD 07

Vaikunthanath das: I was accompanying Prabhupada as his typist, and we had flown in from Hawaii and we stopped in Chicago and San Francisco. On one of the flights, I was sitting next to Prabhupada and he said, “Vaikunthanath, may I borrow your Bhagavad-gita?” I gave him my Bhagavad-gita, which, of course, was his Bhagavad-gita, and he opened it up and began to read it. But he took note of the fact that I had had it hardbound in India, and at that time there was a gold embosser who would print the devotee’s name on the cover. So it had a big “Vaikunthanath and Saradiya,” which came out much larger than I had expected. I remember Prabhupada took note of my name and Saradiya’s name on the cover but didn’t say anything and began to read, and I remember I was a little embarrassed. I said, “What is my name doing on there? That’s Prabhupada’s book.” Prabhupada sat there and read his Bhagavad-gita for some time and then went back to chanting japa. Prabhupada would either read or chant or maybe talk a little on the airplane, but mostly he was just absorbed in chanting.