CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Māyāpur
June 1, 1973

ALTHOUGH THE MĀYĀPUR building was not yet completed, Prabhupāda had come there to reside. He took two adjoining rooms, one as his study and one as his bedroom, on the second floor. Meanwhile, construction work continued in the temple room and in other parts of the building. On Prabhupāda’s first day there, a storm struck, with massive black clouds and high winds. The storm was brief, however, and damage was minimal.

In the evening the temple pūjārī, Jananivāsa, would come to Prabhupāda’s room with a clay pot of red coals and frankincense and fan the frankincense until the room was filled with smoke. This was to drive out insects, but Prabhupāda also considered it purifying.

Although he was sometimes disturbed by the workers’ hammering, he found the atmosphere otherwise peaceful. Only a few devotees were staying there, and Prabhupāda gave his attention to translating or to speaking with guests and to the devotees in charge of developing his Māyāpur center. He would express his desires especially to Bhavānanda Mahārāja and Jayapatāka Mahārāja and worked his will through them.

The devotees living in the building with Prabhupāda considered themselves menial servants in Prabhupāda’s personal house. Of course, all the buildings in ISKCON belonged to Prabhupāda, yet in Māyāpur that sense was intensified. Generally the devotees in each particular center would raise money to support their center, but Prabhupāda personally took charge of getting funds for Māyāpur. He had begun a Māyāpur-Vṛndāvana Trust Fund of donations from his disciples and interest from bonds and security deposits. If money was misspent, energy misused, or the building damaged in any way, Prabhupāda would become very concerned. Now that he was personally on the scene, he often walked about, giving detailed instructions and demanding that discrepancies be corrected. The pink and reddish building was like a huge transcendental ship, and Śrīla Prabhupāda, as captain, would walk the wide verandas, giving strict orders to all mates for keeping everything shipshape.

One day Prabhupāda was walking on the veranda near his room. The other rooms were locked, and as Prabhupāda walked alone, he would open the window shutters and look in. Suddenly he turned to Śatadhanya, who waited on call nearby. “The fan is going on inside, and this room is empty and locked,” Prabhupāda said. “Who has done this?” Śatadhanya didn’t know. “Whoever has done this,” Prabhupāda said, “is a rascal! He should know he is a rascal!” For two days after, Prabhupāda continued to refer to the incident with disgust.

One day, after a huge wind and rainstorm, water covered the twelve-foot-wide marble veranda outside Prabhupāda’s room. Bhavānanda Goswami, taking a large squeegee a devotee had made, began cleaning the marble floor, and Śrīla Prabhupāda came to his door to watch. “This is the way to clean marble,” Prabhupāda said. “Don’t polish it with wax, but just keep plenty of fresh water and every day in the morning wipe it off. In this way the marble will become naturally polished and will shine like glass.”

Prabhupāda felt affection and deep gratitude for those devotees dedicating their lives to the Māyāpur project. One night he called Bhavānanda to his room and began asking him about the devotees. Suddenly Prabhupāda began crying. “I know it is difficult for all you Western boys and girls,” he said. “You are so dedicated, serving here in my mission. I know you cannot even get prasādam. When I think that you cannot even get milk and that you have given up your opulent life to come here and you do not complain, I am very much indebted to all of you.”

Bhavānanda: The marble workers lived in some chāṭāi houses right near the construction site. There was a hand pump just outside the building, and that’s where we took our bath and where the workers got the water for the cement. Some distance off were two toilets – one for the men, one for the women. It was just two holes in the ground, and each hole surrounded by a chāṭāi wall. The storms and the rain would come, and we would have to sludge through the mud in the fields to go to the toilets. There were snakes all over the place. It was wild! It was a construction site. No one lives on a construction site, but we did. Śrīla Prabhupāda made us move in there. It was good for us. No bathrooms, nothing – just open floors with concrete.

Although the devotees endured the austerities of living at the Māyāpur center construction site, they sometimes felt it was too difficult. But Śrīla Prabhupāda never considered it difficult, and he would encourage the devotees: “Māyāpur is so wonderful. You can live on the air and water alone.”

Bhavānanda: We were able to face up to so many difficulties because we just took it as our order from Śrīla Prabhupāda. There was no conception of ever leaving. What else would I do? This was my order: “Take Māyāpur. I am giving you Māyāpur. Take it, develop it, and enjoy it.” There was no question in our minds of going somewhere else.

The surrounding grounds were rice fields, and to get to the temple building from the entrance of the property – a distance of more than two hundred yards – devotees would have to walk on paths made by ridges of earth that separated one rice field from another. The kitchen, which was made of tarpaulin and bamboo, was located near the entrance to the property.

The devotees had to live without electricity much of the time, since the power supply was often cut off. They would use kerosene lamps at night, and Prabhupāda said the lamps should be taken apart every day, the wicks trimmed, and the glass washed. “In the future,” he said, “you should grow castor plants and crush the seeds and take the oil for burning.”

Prabhupāda told the devotees how to build simple dwellings. He also wanted them to build a wall with a gate along the front of the property. They should build small rooms – hutments, he called them – against the wall. Devotees could stay in these simple cottages. They should plant coconut and banana trees.

More often, however, Śrīla Prabhupāda displayed a roselike softness, an intimate, informal, and affectionate nature. The holy dhāma of Māyāpur was the spiritual world, Goloka Vṛndāvana; so the devotees there were living with Prabhupāda in the spiritual world. More than most any other place in the world, the devotees living in Māyāpur knew they could walk into Prabhupāda’s room and see him. He sometimes even walked into their rooms. While they were working, reading, or talking, he might suddenly walk in and speak with them, asking how they felt and how they were adjusting to living in India. “It is difficult living here?” he would ask. “I think India is too hot. What do you think?”

“You should always be able to offer water, hot purīs and eggplant bhājī (fried eggplant), and sweets,” Prabhupāda said. Even when guests appeared shy, Prabhupāda would insist they take a full meal. Mrs. Mohatta, even though a member of one of the wealthiest families in India, was satisfied with the simple hospitality Śrīla Prabhupāda and his disciples offered. The room she and her husband stayed in was unfinished – the slate floors hadn’t been polished, and construction work was going on all around – and the devotees could only offer them a mattress on the floor with a pillow, yet they appeared to be quite satisfied and appreciative.

Bhavānanda: Śrīla Prabhupāda introduced us to many of the details of Indian culture at Māyāpur. He had us put down mattresses covered with sheets in his room. In 1970, in Los Angeles, he had asked me to sew sheets together to make a covering for the rug in his room. And then he had gotten down on his hands and knees right next to me, and we had smoothed out the wrinkles in the sheet.

So he had us do that same thing in Māyāpur, where we put mattresses from one end of the room to the other with bolster pillows against the wall. “Now you have white sheet covers,” he said, “and you change these every day.” When Bengali gentlemen visited Śrīla Prabhupāda in his room, they would sit on these mattresses around the edge of the room, their backs against the bolster pillows.

It was very aristocratic. The whole mood was that he was the mahant, the master of the house, the ācārya, but also the aristocratic Bengali gentlemen saw that he was reestablishing the old aristocratic mood from the early 1900’s or 1920’s. It was from Prabhupāda’s old days with the Mullik family and it was rapidly dwindling. At that time you couldn’t find a semblance of the old culture anywhere, because all those families had become degraded, and their wealth gone.

While a few devotees sat on the sheet-covered mattresses in his room, Prabhupāda sat on his slightly raised āsana, leaning back against a white bolster pillow. Both spiritual master and disciple enjoyed bliss in speaking and hearing Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The devotees wanted to hear Prabhupāda’s words and follow his will, and he wanted to instruct them.

“But these insects,” Prabhupāda continued, “are not perfect. They are flying to the light. That also means they are attracted to death. So they are just like the materialists. The materialists are building skyscrapers, yet they don’t know what will happen at death. Henry Ford and other big capitalists had to die. But so many others are trying to become just like them. They do not know it means their death also. They are like these small insects. In the morning we simply find heaps of them, all dead.”

Often while Prabhupāda was talking in his room the lights would suddenly go out, and devotees would bring in kerosene lamps. And each night, while Prabhupāda was speaking, the pūjārī would come, filling the room with frankincense smoke. Ghee lamps faintly illuminated the large teakwood bas-relief carving of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa on the wall opposite Prabhupāda’s desk.

To execute such a project, Prabhupāda wanted to train his disciples in the Vedic arts, now dying in Bengal. Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī had been greatly interested in using dioramas to depict the līlā of Kṛṣṇa and Lord Caitanya, and now Prabhupāda wanted his own disciples to learn the art by studying under local Māyāpur artists.

In June Baradrāja, Ādideva, Mūrti, and Īśāna arrived to begin learning the art of doll-making. Prabhupāda also wanted a disciple to learn to make mṛdaṅgas, and a potter began coming every day to teach Īśāna how to mold and fire the clay shells. The devotees converted Prabhupāda’s original straw cottage into a workshop, and Prabhupāda began inviting other disciples to come to Māyāpur.

The Māyāpur city, Prabhupāda said, would be the fulfillment of the desires of the previous ācāryas. The city would grow to a population of fifty thousand and would become the spiritual capital of the world. With its gigantic temple in the center and separate quarters for brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas, and śūdras, the city would be a model for all other cities. The day would come when the world’s cities would be ruined, and humanity would take refuge in cities modeled after Māyāpur. The development of Māyāpur would mark the beginning of a Kṛṣṇa conscious world. Thus the influence of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu would increase, and His prediction would manifest: “In every town and village My name will be chanted.”

Prabhupāda said that Māyāpur should eventually become more easily accessible – by bridge from Navadvīpa, by motor launch up the Ganges from Calcutta, and from all parts by air. In Bengal millions were by birth followers of Lord Caitanya, and they would recognize and take up Kṛṣṇa consciousness as the pure form of their own culture. There is a saying: What Bengal does, the rest of India follows. So if Bengal became reformed and purified by the Kṛṣṇa conscious example of American Vaiṣṇavas, then all India would follow. And when all India became Kṛṣṇa conscious, the whole world would follow. “I have given you the kingdom of God,” Prabhupāda said to his Māyāpur managers. “Now take it, develop it, and enjoy it.”

Prabhupāda praised the constant pleasurable breezes that passed through the building – he called them “Vaikuṇṭha breezes.” Sometimes, however, a violent storm would suddenly appear. Although severe, these storms were also beautiful, with continuous lightning like neon lights filling the sky. One day a storm arose, and the winds began to howl through the building. Noticing that Prabhupāda’s doors and windows were open, Śatadhanya rushed into the room and began frantically closing them. But Prabhupāda, seated at his desk, said, “Stop, leave all the windows open.”

“Prabhupāda,” Śatadhanya protested, “the storm is here.”

“Just leave them open,” Prabhupāda said, as the wind rushed through his room at more than fifty miles an hour. Prabhupāda smiled. “There is no place in the world like this!” he said, his saffron robes billowing.

While in Calcutta, before coming to Māyāpur, Prabhupāda had called several senior disciples into his room. “I have had many requests,” he had said to them, “to translate Caitanya-bhāgavata. But I am going to translate the entire Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Is that all right?”

“Oh, yes, Prabhupāda,” Bhavānanda Goswami had replied, “that’s wonderful.”

Decades ago Prabhupāda had written essays based on the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and over the years he had translated some of the verses and written purports to them. Then in America in 1968 he had completed Teachings of Lord Caitanya, a summary study based on certain important passages of Caitanya-caritāmṛta. During his stay in Māyāpur, however, he began anew a translation and commentary of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s Caitanya-caritāmṛta, beginning with the Seventh Chapter. As he progressed, he found a wonderful momentum and said he would publish a volume, starting with Chapter Seven, for Lord Caitanya’s appearance day in March. Deciding to complete the entire Caitanya-caritāmṛta, he suspended his work on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

In one of the first verses of the Seventh Chapter, Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja states, “Let me offer my obeisances to Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who has manifested Himself in five, as a devotee, expansion of a devotee, incarnation of a devotee, pure devotee, and devotional energy.” Prabhupāda wrote that the only way for people to be elevated in love of Kṛṣṇa in the Age of Kali is by the mercy of the Pañca-tattva, or Lord Caitanya in His form of five personalities. One should offer obeisances to Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu by chanting the Pañca-tattva mantra, śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda. This mantra should be recited before one chants the mahā-mantra, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. “There are ten offenses in the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra,” Prabhupāda wrote, “but these are not considered in the chanting of the Pañca-tattva mahā-mantra… One must first take shelter of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, learn the Pañca-tattva mahā-mantra, and then chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra.”

Verse after verse of the Seventh Chapter confirmed the essential principles of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mission and attested that he was teaching exactly after the method advised by Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

In commenting on these verses Prabhupāda wrote,

By the phrase “Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement,” Prabhupāda spoke not only of his own disciples and his Kṛṣṇa consciousness society but also of the movement inaugurated by Lord Caitanya. Just as the original Personality of Godhead and the Deity of Kṛṣṇa in the temple were the same, so the movement of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Prabhupāda’s Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement were identical.

For Śrīla Prabhupāda, this verse directly confirmed the instruction he had received from his spiritual master, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, that people of all births could become Vaiṣṇavas, brāhmaṇas, and sannyāsīs. Here was direct evidence from the scripture, yet Prabhupāda, like his own spiritual master, had often received criticism from the caste-conscious brāhmaṇas of India. With the proof in hand, Prabhupāda now challenged his envious critics.

Another criticism Śrīla Prabhupāda encountered was that his emphasis on proselytizing was actually alien to Indian spirituality. Even Prabhupāda’s Godbrothers had occasionally made such remarks. More often, however, this sentiment came from the impersonalists, who argued that people should be left to conceive of religion in their own ways; religion, being an internal, spiritual affair, should not be propagated by zealous evangelism. Preaching and conversion, they said, were for the Christians, not for followers of Indian religion. In the Seventh Chapter of Caitanya-caritāmṛta’s Ādi-līlā, however, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, reveals His heart and emotion as the ideal preacher.

This was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s spirit in training young men and women in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and he was offering these words of Lord Caitanya to strengthen all the Lord’s devotees. The members of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement should be confident that by preaching purely they would meet with success. Prabhupāda was confident. Here were the words of śāstra, words spoken by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And Prabhupāda’s personal experience confirmed the same. Thus he could write,

The verses of the Seventh Chapter described a worldwide inundation of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Thus the objections that Europeans and Americans could not become brāhmaṇas or sannyāsīs would be swept away as Lord Caitanya’s mercy flooded the entire world. Nothing could check it.

The words of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja intensified Prabhupāda’s desire to base his worldwide movement in the land where Lord Caitanya appeared and began His saṅkīrtana movement. The Pañca-tattva had begun in Navadvīpa, and from here the waves of love of Godhead were swelling outward.

In this Seventh Chapter of the Ādi-līlā, Prabhupāda found many other evidences authorizing ISKCON under the principles of Lord Caitanya’s teachings and activities. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja says that Lord Caitanya’s taking sannyāsa was a trick for delivering certain classes of society who would otherwise not have shown Him respect. Prabhupāda, in his commentary, explained that he also had devised schemes for offering the benefits of Kṛṣṇa consciousness to as wide a spectrum of society as possible, and he cited his acceptance of women into the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. “Therefore it is a principle,” he wrote, “that a preacher must strictly follow the rules and regulations laid down in the śāstra, yet at the same time devise a means by which the preaching work to reclaim the fallen may go on with full force.”

June 27, 1973
  From Māyāpur Śrīla Prabhupāda went to Calcutta. He wrote to Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami,

While considering his itinerary, Prabhupāda passed some days in the Calcutta temple on Albert Road. He was very free about allowing people to see him, and his room was often filled with local Bengalis as well as his own disciples, seated on the white sheet before him. In the evenings he would go, even when it meant riding for miles through congested parts of the city, to spend an hour in someone’s home, preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s sister, Bhavatāriṇī (known as Pisimā to Prabhupāda’s disciples), would also visit the Calcutta temple to see her beloved brother and, as usual, to cook for him. One day, however, a few hours after eating her kacaurīs, Prabhupāda felt sharp pains in his stomach. He closed his doors and went to bed. His followers became very concerned. When his servant, Śrutakīrti, came into the room, he found him tossing.

“Śrīla Prabhupāda, what’s wrong?”

“My stomach,” Prabhupāda replied. “That coconut kacaurī – it was not cooked.”

The seizure continued all night, and several devotees continually massaged Prabhupāda’s body, especially his stomach. But with every breath he would moan. Pisimā was standing by, but Prabhupāda’s disciples feared her presence, thinking she might want to cook something else for him, even in his illness.

Prabhupāda asked that the picture of Lord Nṛsiṁha be taken from the altar and put beside his bed. Some devotees feared that Prabhupāda might be about to pass away. The next morning, when the illness continued, the devotees called for the local kavirāja (Ayurvedic doctor).

The old kavirāja came and diagnosed Prabhupāda’s illness as severe blood dysentery. He left medicine, but it was ineffectual. Later, when Prabhupāda called Bhavānanda to his room and requested fried purīs with a little paṭala [an Indian vegetable similar to a small squash] and salt, Bhavānanda protested; such fried foods would be the worst thing for him. Prabhupāda said that this was the blood dysentery cure his mother had given during his childhood. He then called for his sister, and speaking to her in Bengali, told her to prepare purīs and paṭala. A few hours after taking the food, Prabhupāda again called Bhavānanda; he was feeling better. “My mother was right,” he remarked.

A lengthy telegram arrived from Śyāmasundara, glorifying the preaching opportunities that awaited Prabhupāda in London, where he would be picked up at the airport in a helicopter and flown to the main event – the greatest Ratha-yātrā ever held. The parade would proceed down Picadilly Lane, climaxing under a large pavilion at Trafalgar Square. The telegram went on to say that millions of Englishmen – including certain very, very important people – were eager to see Śrīla Prabhupāda and that arrangements were underway for Prabhupāda to instruct the Queen’s eldest son, Prince Charles, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Some of the promises were exaggerated, Śrīla Prabhupāda knew, but his desire to preach again in England was strong. George Harrison had given the devotees a large estate forty-five minutes outside of London, and Prabhupāda spoke of going there and installing Deities of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa on Janmāṣṭamī day. Yet even now, over a month before Janmāṣṭamī, he was feeling deeply affected by Śyāmasundara’s invitation. Although still exhausted from dysentery, he considered flying immediately to London.

Calling in those G.B.C. secretaries and sannyāsīs with him in Calcutta, sitting up in bed while they sat before him on the floor, Prabhupāda asked their advice. They concluded that he should go to a healthier climate – Los Angeles or Hawaii – to rest and recuperate. Prabhupāda mildly agreed as his advisors decided Hawaii would be the best place, a place where the climate was ideal and where he would have few interruptions. Suddenly, however, he sat up straighter. He would return to the West, he said, but to London, not to Hawaii. And not to recuperate, but to preach!

“Let me strike while the iron is hot,” he said. “I think that is an English maxim. If you do that, then you can keep the iron in shape. In the West, people are fed up. So we want to give them spiritual enlightenment.”

Prabhupāda had immediately convinced his disciples with his forceful statements. “There are two misleading theories in the West,” he continued. “One is that life comes from matter, and the other is that there is no life after death – you can just enjoy this life. They say everything is matter. So as this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement grows, the Communists will be curbed down. People say they are trying for unity, but they have no brains to see how this will achieve unity. They have formed a big complicated League of Nations and now United Nations, but they all fail. But this simple method of Ratha-yātrā – all over the world it is spreading. Jagannātha means ‘Lord of the universe.’ So Lord Jagannātha is now international God, through our ISKCON. Therefore, I want to go to the West and give them these things.”

Although Prabhupāda appeared physically unfit to immediately fly to London to the active preaching that awaited him, his disciples submitted, accepting this as another miracle by Kṛṣṇa.

London
July 7, 1973
  Paravidha: It was Ratha-yātrā day. I saw Prabhupāda coming into the temple, and he didn’t look very strong. I was really amazed, but I could understand that his strength was something spiritual.

Dhruvanātha: At the parade site we were waiting to receive Śrīla Prabhupāda at Marble Arch, where the procession starts. The vyāsāsana was nicely decorated, and everybody was expecting Prabhupāda simply to sit on his vyāsāsana on the cart and just ride through the streets, just as he had done in the other Ratha-yātrās. So it was to our great amazement and joy that when Prabhupāda came, he refused to sit on the vyāsāsana. He indicated that he would dance and lead the procession!

Yogeśvara: They brought stairs up so Prabhupāda could mount the ratha cart and sit down on the vyāsāsana. But he waved them off and just started walking with the chariots, leading the dancing.

Dhīraśānta: I twisted my ankle and couldn’t walk, so I rode on the cart. Therefore I could see Prabhupāda very clearly. Revatīnandana Mahārāja was chanting into the microphone from the cart, but after about fifteen minutes of the procession Prabhupāda told the devotees to tell Revatīnandana Mahārāja and the others to come down and lead the kīrtana in the street with him.

Revatīnandana: When Prabhupāda saw his vyāsāsana on the cart, he said, “No, I am just a devotee. I will go in the procession.” We had a big, great kīrtana. Haṁsadūta led, I led, Śyāmasundara led – different devotees traded off, leading this fantastic kīrtana. And Prabhupāda was right in the middle of the kīrtana with his karatālas the whole time. He was dancing back and forth and jumping up and down and dancing.

Rohiṇī-nandana: The cart was going quite slowly. Prabhupāda walked about twenty or thirty yards ahead of the cart, leading the procession. Meanwhile the kīrtana was coming from the ratha cart through microphones. Prabhupāda called them all down, and he got them all around himself, and they were chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Ever so often he would turn around and raise both his arms very majestically in the air and say, “Jaya Jagannātha!” Sometimes we would get a little further ahead, so then he would turn around and wait for the cart to come on. Sometimes he was dancing, and sometimes he would stand, raising his hands in the air.

Śāradīyā dāsī: Prabhupāda would dance, and then after a few feet he would turn around and look up at the deities with his arms raised. Then he would dance for a few moments, meditating on the deities, and then he would turn around and go on. In this way he danced the entire way. The devotees held hands in a circle around him to protect him from the crowd. It was a wonderful, transcendental affair. Prabhupāda was looking up at the deities, and all the devotees were behind him.

Sudurjaya: Prabhupāda surprised us. We didn’t know if he was sick or not, feeling weak and dizzy or not. Sometimes he looked very ill, and sometimes he looked like an eighteen-year-old boy. He surprised us. He had his cane in his hand but raised it in the air as he danced. After a while, Śyāmasundara came up to me and said, “Listen, he’s not going to make it. Prabhupāda is very ill. I want you to follow in a car. Be within thirty seconds’ reach so we can put Prabhupāda in the car immediately.” Prabhupāda was going down Park Lane, and from time to time he would turn back and raise his hands. He was going so fast that they couldn’t pull the cart fast enough to keep up with him. He would have to wait for the cart to catch up. He would turn back, raise his hands, and say, “Haribol!” Several times he did this. He was going so fast that he had to wait. The devotees were dancing, the weather was beautiful, and the crowd was wonderful.

Dhruvanātha: The passersby were rooted to the spot, looking at Prabhupāda. A man of that age simply dancing and jumping in the air like a young boy was the most amazing sight! And then every five minutes or so Prabhupāda would turn around and look toward Jagannātha. The devotees would clear the way so no one blocked his sight, and he had a perfect view of Jagannātha, Balarāma, and Subhadrā. But after a while the police came and motioned that we couldn’t keep stopping like this. We had to keep the whole thing going, because the traffic jams were becoming critical. Devotees were crying and chanting and dancing, and there was much commotion.

Śrutakīrti: When Prabhupāda was dancing, the bobbies kept on coming up and looking for someone official. Finally they came to me and said, “You’ll have to tell your leader to sit down. He’s causing too much of a disturbance. Everyone is becoming wild, and we can’t control the crowd, you know.” So I said, “All right.” But I didn’t say anything to Prabhupāda.

So then they came again and said, “You must tell him he’ll have to sit down.” So I said, “All right,” and I tapped Prabhupāda. The whole time he had been in ecstasy, dancing before the cart and encouraging everyone else to dance. He would motion with his hands and encourage the devotees to keep dancing. He kept the momentum of the festival. So I said, “Prabhupāda, the policemen want you to sit down. They say you are creating havoc in the parade.” Prabhupāda looked at me, turned, and kept on. He completely ignored it and kept on dancing. And they couldn’t do anything. Prabhupāda wouldn’t stop, and the police wouldn’t say anything to him.

Paravidha: I was distributing Back to Godhead magazines along the whole parade route. I was exhausted, and I was having a lot of trouble keeping up with the procession. But Prabhupāda was just there, and he was dancing like a young boy. I was amazed at his spiritual energy.

Dhruvanātha: When we came to Picadilly Circus, Prabhupāda suddenly stopped the whole procession. Picadilly Circus, of course, was just packed with people. For about three minutes Prabhupāda stopped the procession and just danced and danced with the devotees all around him.

Rohiṇī-nandana: When we got to Picadilly Circus, Prabhupāda really started to dance. He was leaping off the ground. The cart was stopped. It was very similar, actually, to the description in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta of how Lord Caitanya would lead the Ratha-yātrā procession. So the cart was stopped, and then Prabhupāda would wait for it to catch up.

Yogeśvara: When we finally arrived at Trafalgar Square and Prabhupāda saw the big tent and the other arrangements the devotees had made, he held up his hands again. He had been dancing and walking the entire route of the parade. It must have been at least an hour that he had been walking and dancing – all the way from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square.

Rohiṇī-nandana: When Prabhupāda got to Trafalgar Square, he immediately sat down on the plinth of Nelson’s Column on a little vyāsāsana and delivered a lecture about the holy name of Kṛṣṇa. This was directly after his marathon of chanting and dancing.

The next day’s papers carried favorable news coverage of the festival, and Prabhupāda wrote of it to a disciple in Los Angeles.

In another letter Prabhupāda wrote,

Prabhupāda said that if the devotees would clean out the lake and keep up the grounds, then he would stay always at Bhaktivedanta Manor and translate here in peace. They should get some cows, he said, and use some of the extra acreage for farming.

Although the devotees had not long been living in the Manor and had done little to improve the buildings and grounds, Prabhupāda pointed out a place where they could one day build a thirty-story temple, the grandest building in all of London. He proposed that he stay for at least two months and install Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities on Janmāṣṭamī day; he would also oversee the construction of the temple room and altar.

Every morning at about six Prabhupāda would leave the Manor for an hour’s walk. There was no restriction as to who could join him, and sometimes as many as twenty devotees would trail behind, trying to hear anything he might say. Looking off toward the horizon, he commented that Letchmore Heath reminded him of Vṛndāvana.

Prabhupāda would walk down the lane to a place called Round Bush, stroll past a wheat field, and finally return to Letchmore Heath and the Manor. A local policeman had become friends with the devotees and would regularly exchange greetings with Prabhupāda. Particularly Prabhupāda liked the cleanliness of the little village, and he would often point out even the smallest pieces of trash on the Manor grounds. The village, he said, was much neater than American towns.

Prabhupāda was always eager to glorify Kṛṣṇa and repeat Kṛṣṇa’s message, and with complete, enthusiastic freshness he would present again the same points he had presented many, many times before. He said he was like a cow that gives milk in any field. Put him in India or America or England – he would always give the same nectarean milk of Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda’s entire day – his early-morning dictation of Caitanya-caritāmṛta, morning walk, Bhagavad-gītā lecture, talks with guests – revolved around philosophy. In Scotland, when a man had challenged that God needn’t be presented through philosophy, Prabhupāda had replied, “What do you expect me to talk, some fairy tales?” Philosophy was necessary, especially for the so-called intelligent persons, whose minds raised so many intellectual doubts. And besides, to always be telling others about Kṛṣṇa, Prabhupāda said, was a symptom of love.

Moved by compassion for others’ suffering, Prabhupāda always spoke the message of Kṛṣṇa and never tired of repeating it. He was genuinely angered by the atheistic speculators who mislead the people, because materialistic and impersonalistic philosophies ruined a person’s chances of finding the solution to life’s suffering. Whenever Prabhupāda heard anyone arguing the Māyāvāda doctrine, he would become like fire. He could not tolerate it. He had to correct it. When, after one of Prabhupāda’s lectures at the Manor, a boy had said he had heard someone call the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa “a little bit of a bluff,” Prabhupāda had replied, “Who says bluff? Who is that fool? Who is that rascal?” He had been ready to fight the atheist to glorify Kṛṣṇa.

These were Prabhupāda’s natural drives; therefore he could go on and on, without stopping. He wanted to give people Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He had no other life. Even while relaxing in the privacy of his room he always spoke of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

The devotees had invited many prominent British citizens to meet Śrīla Prabhupāda, and the responses were good. Economist Ernst Schumacher promised to visit, as did philosopher Sir Alfred J. Ayer. When Śyāmasundara informed Prabhupāda that Mr. Ayer was well known, Prabhupāda replied, “What is his philosophy?”

“Well,” Śyāmasundara replied, “he doesn’t believe in the existence of God.”

“I will give him evidence,” Prabhupāda replied. “I will ask him what he means by ‘the existence of God.’ I will ask him to make a list of the deficiencies of God’s existence.” Prabhupāda liked to meet with philosophical men and “corner them and defeat them.”

Historian Arnold Doyenne was old and invalid; therefore, Prabhupāda agreed to visit him at his residence. Interested in discussing life after death, Dr. Doyenne asked Prabhupāda about karma. Most people, he said, were afraid of death. Prabhupāda agreed and added that according to a certain astrologer, one of India’s recent leaders had taken birth as a dog. “So they are afraid they will go down,” he said. When Doyenne asked if karma could be changed, Prabhupāda replied yes, but only by bhakti, devotion to God.

Arnold Doyenne: “Not many people in the West are thinking of this.”

Prabhupāda: “They are less intelligent. It is not good. If they take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they can continue to work and live in the city, but they can change their consciousness. Then automatically everything will come.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda asked Dr. Toynbee about the book he was writing, and the professor replied that it concerned ancient Greece’s influence on the Greece of today. “The Greeks came from India,” Prabhupāda said. “Vedic culture was once all over the world. Gradually, a new type of culture – just like this recent partition of India and Pakistan – took place.”

Prabhupāda explained how in the future the governments would fall to rascals and thieves, whose only business would be to exploit the citizens. Food would be scarce. And the governments would levy so many taxes that the people would be harassed and go to the forests for shelter. Only the God conscious people would be free. The future would be an ocean of faults, with but one saving factor: simply by chanting Kṛṣṇa’s names one could be freed. Even now, Prabhupāda said, the hippies were going to the forest, and the men were separated from their wives and money and were going to the hills and forests in disappointment. “You can predict the future in this way,” Prabhupāda said.

Arnold Toynbee: “In India did the politicians keep the Vedas?”

Prabhupāda: “No, they threw them away. Present Indian politicians are not very satisfied with the Vedas. They threw them in the water. I have started, among the Indians and Americans, and for the next ten thousand years Kṛṣṇa consciousness will increase. Then there will be a gloomy picture of Kali-yuga. Ten thousand years is not a short time. It is our duty on behalf of Kṛṣṇa.”

Arnold Toynbee: “Do you travel much?”

Prabhupāda: “All over the world.”

The next morning on his walk Prabhupāda continued discussing his talk with the priest. “In the name of religion,” Prabhupāda said, “they are killing. The Bhāgavatam says this cheating religion is kicked out and simply worship of God is instated.”

Devotee: “The priest last night said that Jesus ate meat.”

Prabhupāda: “Then Jesus contradicted himself. He also said, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ One shouldn’t imitate the īśvaras. A hippie-type mendicant in India takes gāñjā and claims to be a devotee of Śiva. No, we should not imitate the powerful controllers. That priest said also that the Bible does not say, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ but ‘Thou shalt not murder.’ So I told him that if the word is actually ‘Thou shalt not murder’ in the original Hebrew, then Jesus must have been preaching to the fourth-class, tenth-class men – murderers. And the proof is that they murdered him. So such people, what can they understand about God? When I told him, the priest was silent. He could not answer.”

Another priest came to see Prabhupāda, and again the question came up. Prabhupāda asked him, “Then you are in favor of killing?”

The priest replied, “Well, it is a fallen world.”

“It is a fallen world,” said Prabhupāda, “but we do not have to be among the fallen.” The priest cited the covenant with Noah.

Prabhupāda replied, “Maybe Noah allowed it at that time, the time of devastation, but that doesn’t mean you always have to do it. To live in such a time, one can eat anything to stay alive, but now so many things are in abundance to keep healthy without maintaining a slaughterhouse. In the Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Protect the cows; it is the duty of the vaiśyas.’ ”

Although Prabhupāda willingly discussed with Christians, he admitted privately that to argue with them was a waste of time. “They will never agree,” he said, “even if they are defeated.” The best way to preach to people in general was through the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, as at the Ratha-yātrā festival. Chant, dance, take prasādam, and invite everyone to join. “Anyway,” he said, “they don’t even follow their teachings. One boy came to me and said he wanted to talk. He said, ‘I am a Christian,’ but I told him, ‘You are not a Christian. Thou shalt not kill.’ ”

“But the Christians say there is no future life,” the man said. “At the end of this one you either go to heaven or hell.”

“But if they talk about going to heaven,” said Prabhupāda, “then that is the next life. But knowledge of Kṛṣṇa is only for the most perfect out of thousands among men.”

Prabhupāda disagreed. “All we need is dedication,” he said. “I am not a great Sanskrit scholar, but I am pulling on. And even the scholars say it is good. My Guru Mahārāja’s Guru Mahārāja [Gaurakiśora dāsa Bābājī Mahārāja] was illiterate. Still, his disciple, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda, was the greatest scholar of the day. But when Gaurakiśora spoke, it was exactly from the śāstra. Our principle is not to take time to learn something and become expert and then preach. But whatever you know, preach. Class in the morning, class in the evening, and if they read my books, that is sufficient.”

“No,” George protested, preferring the mood of a humble disciple, “it is Kṛṣṇa’s house and your room.”

When George confided to Prabhupāda that by taking to Kṛṣṇa consciousness he was losing friends, Prabhupāda told him not to worry. He read to George from the Gītā, where Kṛṣṇa explains that He can be known only by devotional service.

“In the future,” said George, “ISKCON will be so large it will require executive management.”

Prabhupāda: “I have divided the world into twelve zones with twelve representatives. As long as they keep to the spiritual principles, Kṛṣṇa will help them.”

Before leaving, George assured Prabhupāda that he would help him increase his temples. Later Prabhupāda commented, “George is getting inward hope from Kṛṣṇa.”

“Yes,” Allen replied, “I still chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, but I also chant other things.”

Allen asked if Prabhupāda would like to hear his chanting and playing. Prabhupāda nodded. Allen began playing his harmonium and chanting oṁ. With each recitation of the word oṁ, his voice went deeper – “Oooom.”

When the chant was over, Prabhupāda began to laugh. “You can chant whatever you want to chant,” he said. “But just keep chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. As long as you are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, then everything else is all right.” Prabhupāda then allowed many devotees to join them for a big, blissful kīrtana.

“But money is material,” Donovan’s girlfriend interrupted.

“What do you know what is material and spiritual?” Prabhupāda said. He turned to Donovan, “Do you understand?” Donovan humbly replied that he was thickheaded but trying. Donovan’s girlfriend then leaned over and whispered something into his ear, whereupon Donovan stood up and said, “Well, we have to go now.” Prabhupāda insisted that at least they first take some prasādam.

As soon as the guests left, Prabhupāda and his disciples began to laugh. Prabhupāda said, “She was thinking…” and he encouraged his disciples to finish the sentence.

“Yes,” said Yogeśvara, “she was thinking that if Kṛṣṇa gets him, then she will lose him.”

A month passed at the Manor, and still several weeks remained before Janmāṣṭamī and the Deity installation. So when Bhagavān requested Prabhupāda to come for a visit to Paris and install Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities, Prabhupāda agreed.

Paris
August 9, 1973
  The devotees had arranged an official City Hall reception for Śrīla Prabhupāda. In the presence of the mayor of Paris and his government entourage, Śrīla Prabhupāda said that if the government leaders do not teach the citizens genuine God consciousness, then they are not responsible leaders. Reporting this talk in the next day’s paper, a news writer stated that the swami even criticized Napoleon Bonaparte.

Bhagavān: We had just moved into our new temple at 4 Rue le Sueur, Paris, and we had received forty-eight-inch Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa Deities. Prabhupāda had Pradyumna chanting the mantras and pouring the substances on the Deities while Prabhupāda himself looked on from his vyāsāsana, giving directions. I was assisting, and at one point I turned around and saw Śrīla Prabhupāda standing right next to me, taking the substances in his own hands and smearing them over the lotuslike face of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. After the Deities were installed on the altar, Śrīla Prabhupāda came up and offered the ārati and I assisted him by handing him the articles.

After the installation we went up to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s room and very anxiously requested him to please give a name for the Deities. He sat back in his chair and said that the Deities will be known as Rādhā-Paris-īśvara. He then went on to say that in India people look to England for education and to Paris for sense gratification. He began to laugh and said that Kṛṣṇa has come to Paris in order to get some gopīs, some French girls, because the faces of the women in Paris are considered the most beautiful. “Rādhārāṇī is so beautiful,” Prabhupāda said, “just like a Paris girl. And Kṛṣṇa has come here to find out this most beautiful of all the gopīs. So He is Paris-īśvara.”

August 15
  Prabhupāda returned to London and the latest mail from India. A legal complication had arisen regarding the deed for ISKCON’s land in Hyderabad. Prabhupāda wrote his disciple Mahāṁsa, cautioning him to avoid becoming entangled in another Bombay affair. When Prabhupāda also received word that the temple construction was progressing in Vṛndāvana, he replied,

In a letter to a disciple in Hawaii, Prabhupāda apologized for not replying to a letter.

Writing to Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami in Bombay, Prabhupāda was as attentive as ever to the ongoing troubles there. Although the devotees remained in possession of the land and had rebuilt their temporary temple, no purchase settlement was in sight.

And Prabhupāda wrote to his disciples in Māyāpur,

Prabhupāda also answered dozens of letters from America, where the devotees were becoming more and more keen to distribute his books. Their letters contained very crucial questions that only Prabhupāda could solve: How important was book distribution? Could the devotees abandon their robes and wear regular Western clothes to better distribute books in public? Was chanting on the streets more important than book distribution? What about taking buses and vans around the country? Could they travel with Deities in the vans? The devotees generally mentioned their own viewpoint in their letters to Prabhupāda, and yet they respectfully awaited his definitive reply.

The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement was now big, with potential for growing much bigger. And within ISKCON, Prabhupāda’s will was so powerful that a single letter from him would establish a policy for years to come. Prabhupāda appeared to be sitting quietly in his room at the Manor, following his daily routine of bathing, eating, and meeting evening guests, yet at the same time he was directing thousands of young men and women all over the world and sending them into action in the war against māyā.

The devotees continued to request clarification as to how far the ends justified the means in fulfilling Prabhupāda’s order to distribute books profusely. Śrīla Prabhupāda, being free of any material motivation, could clearly see the Kṛṣṇa conscious thing to do.

Prabhupāda’s instructions were so important to his disciples that a letter from him was as effective as a personal visit. By such letters he maintained the lives and affairs of his disciples all over the world. Each day in the late morning he would have his secretary read aloud each incoming letter, and usually he would dictate the answer without delay. He had often said that the vāṇī, or order, of the guru was more important than the vapuḥ, or personal presence. Thus by his letters he established and illuminated the path of Kṛṣṇa consciousness for his sincere followers.

In America now Prabhupāda’s preaching was primarily through the distribution of his books, whereas in India it was through establishing temples. Yet both methods were one and the same to him. And although his vision encompassed the whole world, he felt and described himself as only the humble servant of his spiritual master. Whether sitting peacefully on the lawn of the Manor and teasing one of the little children or directing one of his lieutenants to “drop thousands and millions of books into the laps of the conditioned souls,” whether meditating with great energy on the next phrase in his Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam purports or worrying about what Mrs. N. was conspiring in Bombay – he always tried to serve his Guru Mahārāja.

August 21
  M. Rasgotra, the Indian ambassador to England, attended the Janmāṣṭamī day celebration and introduced Śrīla Prabhupāda, expressing his appreciation of Prabhupāda’s great work. Prabhupāda spoke, describing the advent of Kṛṣṇa as the key to peace for the troubled material world. “Especially in India,” he said, “we have got so much asset for understanding God. Everything is there, ready-made. But we won’t accept. So what is the remedy for such disease? We are searching after peace, but we won’t accept anything which is actually giving us peace. This is our disease. So the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to awaken the dormant Kṛṣṇa consciousness in everyone’s heart. Otherwise, how could these Europeans and Americans and other countrymen who had never even heard of Kṛṣṇa four or five years ago be taking to Kṛṣṇa consciousness so seriously? Therefore Kṛṣṇa consciousness is there in everyone’s heart.”

Prabhupāda recited prayers from Brahma-saṁhitā describing the sublime, eternal existence of Kṛṣṇa on His eternal planet, Kṛṣṇaloka. “But Kṛṣṇa is also everywhere,” he explained, “and if you are a devotee, then you can catch Him. If you want to catch Him, He comes forward ten times more than your desire. Therefore we simply have to receive Him. This Deity worship in the temple means worshiping Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He has very kindly accepted to assume a form which you can handle. Therefore do not think that we have installed a marble statue. The rascals will say, ‘They are heathens.’ No, we are worshiping Kṛṣṇa personally. Kṛṣṇa has kindly assumed this form because we cannot see the gigantic Kṛṣṇa or how Kṛṣṇa is everywhere. Remain twenty-four hours a day in Kṛṣṇa’s service. This is the purpose of installing the Deity.”

Bombay
September 15, 1973
  The day after his arrival, Śrīla Prabhupāda met with Mrs. N.’s solicitors and heard their offers. The situation had begun to look hopeful, and yet the conclusion eluded them. Mrs. N. had become changed by the public reaction to her attempt to demolish the temple. If Prabhupāda would pay the full balance of twelve lakhs of rupees for the land in one payment, she told her lawyer, she would agree. Prabhupāda was agreeable but did not want to arrange to collect his money until he was certain that Mrs. N. was actually serious.

Mr. Asnani, a Bombay lawyer and ISKCON life member, regularly met with Mrs. N., persuading her to cooperate with Prabhupāda. Her lawyers concurred. Yet after Prabhupāda had been in Bombay for several weeks, no meeting with Mrs. N. had taken place. Once Mr. Asnani went to bring Mrs. N. to meet with Prabhupāda, but she was not feeling well. Day after day Mr. Asnani would tell Prabhupāda, “Mrs. N. will come tomorrow.” Prabhupāda became disappointed at the procrastination, and seeing this, his secretaries told Mr. Asnani that although they knew he meant well, they were inclined to have their other lawyers handle the case. Mr. Asnani asked for another forty-eight hours to close the deal and execute the conveyance.

Mrs. N. was at her other home, where she had just recovered from her illness, when Mr. Asnani visited. “Mātājī,” he begged, “my Guru Mahārāja is leaving tomorrow. If you don’t come tonight, the problem with the land will go on another year.” Mrs. N. agreed, and around nine P.M. she and Mr. Asnani arrived at the home of Mr. Bogilal Patel, where Śrīla Prabhupāda was holding a program of kīrtana and Bhāgavata discourses. Prabhupāda was on the roof preparing to lecture, but hearing that Mrs. N. had arrived, he interrupted the meeting and came down to his room to talk with her. They talked briefly, and Prabhupāda excused himself and returned to the roof to lecture.

Around midnight, he returned to his room again. Mrs. N. was still waiting. She burst into tears and bowed at Prabhupāda’s feet. “I am sorry for everything I’ve done,” she sobbed. “Please forgive me.” She promised to do whatever Prabhupāda wanted.

Prabhupāda looked at her compassionately and understood her heart. “You are just like my daughter,” he said. “Don’t worry. I will take care of you. I will see to all of your needs for the rest of your life.” And Prabhupāda said he still accepted the very terms she had proposed: that he pay the remaining balance of twelve lakhs plus fifty thousand rupees compensation for the delay.

Prabhupāda and Mrs. N. had set November 1 as the tentative deadline for the final signing of the conveyance. Shortly after their meeting, Prabhupāda moved from Bogilal Patel’s to the home of Mr. Sethi, where working intensely he tackled the remaining problems – such as getting C. Company to withdraw their claim.

Next he moved to the home of Mr. C. M. Khatau, just two blocks from Hare Krishna Land, where he lived in a summer cottage, a simple structure with a bamboo frame and chāṭāi walls. Usually, conveyances had to be signed in the presence of the city registrar at his office downtown, but Mr. Asnani had arranged for the registrar to come to Prabhupāda’s place.

At six-thirty in the evening Śrīla Prabhupāda was seated at his low desk between two windows, his back against the wall. Mrs. N. and her lawyers, the registrar, Mr. Asnani, Mr. and Mrs. Sethi, and about eight devotees were present, and the full room grew warm and stuffy. Mrs. N. sat at Prabhupāda’s right as the registrar prepared the papers for signing. Śrīla Prabhupāda sat gravely. The room was silent except for the sound of papers rustling and a pen’s scratching. Preparing and signing the conveyance papers took more than twenty minutes. Prabhupāda paid Mrs. N., who then signed the conveyance. The land was legally ISKCON’s.

Girirāja: The room was hushed during the signing, and everyone felt as if a momentous event was taking place – just as if two great world powers were signing a treaty. After Mrs. N. signed the document, everyone silently watched the papers being passed. She started to cry. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami quietly asked her why she was crying, and Mrs. N. replied that just that day Mr. Matar had come and told her he had found a buyer for the land for many more lakhs than we were paying. Actually, as we were watching Mrs. N., we were thinking that she must be remembering all the events that had taken place, the wrongs that she had done, the death of her husband. It was very intense, like a combination of months of struggling. So for Prabhupāda, the devotees, and Prabhupāda’s well-wishers, their dreams and desires and efforts over the past many years were being fulfilled.

Śrīla Prabhupāda asked that the devotees inform the newspapers, and he invited everyone into the hall outside his room for a feast. Mats were rolled out in two lines, and devotees brought leaf plates and placed them in front of everyone. The devotees began serving the various dishes to the two rows of seated guests.

Prabhupāda was standing. “Now let us start,” he said, as he supervised the serving. The devotees had prepared several courses: rice, dāl, many varieties of pakorās (such as potato, cauliflower, and eggplant), potato sabjī, wet cauliflower sabjī, papars, barfī, laḍḍus, camcam (a milk sweet), vermicelli khīr, halavā, and a lime drink. It was a festive and happy occasion.

Mrs. Warrier (a tenant on Hare Krishna Land): The devotees were all saying “Jaya!” after the signing, and all of them were very happy. Then Prabhupāda gave a lecture about the Bombay project. He gave an idea to all the people of how it would be all marble. There wouldn’t be a single thing that wasn’t built from marble. Some were asking how it would be possible for everything to be marble, and Prabhupāda explained that it was possible and could be done. He was visualizing the project, and everyone was thrilled to hear the way he was describing it. It would be like one of the seven wonders of the world. People would be attracted from all over to come and see it. It would be a landmark in Bombay. Prabhupāda explained the whole project as if he saw it in his mind’s eye, and he said that after it was constructed it will be more than what we could visualize. It would be fantastic!

After the late feast, when everyone had departed, Prabhupāda returned to his room. Leaning back at his desk, he exclaimed, “It was a good fight!”

Surely the land was full of potential, but how could he say there had been no problems? “No problems” meant that Śrīla Prabhupāda saw how Kṛṣṇa personally arranged things for His devotees. When he had needed money, it had come, in an amount that ordinarily would have been impossible to collect. And the formidable opposition Kṛṣṇa had removed. Prabhupāda had no organized means of income and little political influence to fight persons like Mr. and Mrs. N., but because he was surrendered to Kṛṣṇa there was no problem. All the problems of the world were created by the nondevotees, who defied the injunctions of the Supreme. “Anyone who is in bhakti-yoga,” Prabhupāda said, “he can understand that all problems are solved. We can practically see.”

And yet he had had to tolerate the problems created by the nondevotees. For almost two years he had struggled to secure the land for Kṛṣṇa’s service. Whether in Bombay or elsewhere, he had had to worry over how to help his inexperienced disciples, who were ill-equipped to handle the ploys of the opposing party. It had been an ordeal, a test of patience, a challenge of courage. But because he had not been bewildered by māyā, illusion, there had been “no problem.”

Prabhupāda showed by his example that if one strictly follows bhakti-yoga, one is not touched by the modes of nature, by māyā. The same transcendental science he constantly taught in his lectures and informal discussions, he also personally demonstrated. He was faithful in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and all his problems had been adjusted. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that if one surrenders to Him, one easily overcomes all problems. The devotee understands that the problems of māyā can be overcome by surrendering to Kṛṣṇa, by surrendering to the orders of Kṛṣṇa’s representative, the spiritual master.

Now that the land was ISKCON’s, Prabhupāda could proceed to enact his vision. In attempting to construct buildings and propagate Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he would meet more māyā-created problems, no doubt, but the greatest struggle had been won. The gorgeous temple of Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Rāsavihārī would manifest. In the future, devotees and guests could come to India’s gateway and stay in a first-class hotel at Hare Krishna Land and conveniently imbibe the spiritual atmosphere of the temple. And the devotees, as long as they did not forget Prabhupāda’s example and instruction, could successfully utilize the facility in the spirit of service to Kṛṣṇa. The price Prabhupāda had paid in tolerance and dependence on Kṛṣṇa would never go in vain.

What Śrīla Prabhupāda produced by his tolerance was not only the facilities and the ongoing mission at Hare Krishna Land but a monumental living example of the behavior of a sādhu. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Lord Kapiladeva describes the sādhu:

“The symptoms of a sādhu are that he is tolerant, merciful, and friendly to all living entities. He has no enemies, he is peaceful, he abides by the scriptures, and all his characteristics are sublime.”

Because the sādhu is tolerant (titikṣavaḥ), he is undisturbed by the difficulties imposed by material nature. In Prabhupāda’s attempts to secure the Juhu property, he had met with enemies and difficulties, and he had been tolerant. Prabhupāda had sometimes said, “You have to tolerate.”

And a sādhu is not only tolerant but merciful (kāruṇikāḥ). When ISKCON’s provisional temple had been attacked by the police, Prabhupāda could have considered it a signal to leave the place and give up trying to help such ingrates by bringing them Kṛṣṇa consciousness – “Why go to such botheration? What’s the use of trying?” He had already nearly a hundred temples outside of India. If the people of Bombay didn’t like Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then why not go away and leave them to their fate?

But no. As a genuine sādhu, Prabhupāda was merciful. Because he had come to deliver the compassionate message of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he had to tolerantly give that message to everyone. People were misguided and were living like animals, only for sense gratification, and by the laws of karma they would suffer in their next life. Seeing this unhappy predicament, Prabhupāda had felt moved to help these fallen souls, even if they were unappreciative.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also describes a sādhu as suhṛdaḥ sarva-dehinām: the only desire in his heart is the welfare of all others. Being unbounded by nationalism, he thinks of himself not as Indian or American or even as human being, but as eternal spiritual soul, meant to benefit all living entities.

A sādhu, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describes, is ajāta-śatru, because he never creates enemies. Although envious persons may declare themselves a sādhu’s enemy, a sādhu behaves as the best friend of everyone, trying to bring everyone to Kṛṣṇa. Because Prabhupāda was trying to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, envious persons would continue to oppose him. But as he sublimely showed in Bombay, “What can be done? We have to tolerate.” Thus, even before any foundations were laid for buildings, Prabhupāda had already fully demonstrated all the ornaments of the sādhu. Remaining peaceful (śānta) and dependent on Kṛṣṇa, he had become victorious. And for whoever serves such a great personality, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam states, the door to liberation is open.