CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

San Francisco
December 14, 1967

AS SOON AS Śrīla Prabhupāda came into view, many devotees began to cry out or shed tears. He looked much healthier, tanned from the sun, spritely. He waved and smiled. That smile made them still more eager, and they could hardly contain themselves while Prabhupāda patiently waited for a customs official to inspect his bags.

When Prabhupāda had left America, his disciples had been uncertain whether they would ever see him again. He had suffered a paralyzing stroke in New York and had gone back to India to recuperate. If he were going to die, he had said, the best place in the world was Vṛndāvana. But soon in his letters from India came news of his returning strength. Kṛṣṇa had saved him. Now he was back. They needed him; if they were to represent him and spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then they needed more association with Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotee.

Jayānanda drove him from the airport in an old limousine decorated with flowers. Prabhupāda would be staying in an apartment in the brahmacārīs’ house on Willard Street, about two blocks from the storefront temple on Frederick Street. As he approached the door of his apartment, he saw the picture of Lord Viṣṇu, taped to the inside of the glass, facing him. Although the devotees had debated about the picture because Lord Viṣṇu had not been colored blue, Prabhupāda joined his palms together in the praṇāma gesture and, slightly bowing his head, passed Lord Viṣṇu and entered the house.

The devotees gathered excitedly in Prabhupāda’s room. One of them had read about a Vaiṣṇava ceremony of washing the feet of the spiritual master, so they had prepared a pitcher of water and a bowl. Prabhupāda permitted it, and in a few seconds it was done. Then he sat facing a crowded room of intimate devotees. Taking his karatālas and playing them softly and sweetly, he led a Hare Kṛṣṇa kīrtana. It was no ordinary thing how Prabhupāda sang and how they listened and chanted in response with fastened, ecstatic attention. But it was brief.

Afterwards, he began to speak of Kṛṣṇa. He said that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and everyone’s best friend. Even a good friendship in this world is a small indication of Kṛṣṇa’s friendship, because everything is coming from Kṛṣṇa. If you feel good on a nice spring day, that is an indication of Kṛṣṇa. The smell of an aromatic flower – that is Kṛṣṇa. Whatever is good in this world is Kṛṣṇa, and all that is bad comes from forgetfulness of Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda spoke with a kind, gentle, and humble attitude.

He had brought back some gifts. For the ladies he had sārīs. He held up the thin cotton cloths one at a time, called the name of each initiated girl disciple, and handed her a sārī. One sārī was white with a red and black design, others were white with single-color borders. In a small saffron cloth Prabhupāda had three silken garlands. He unwrapped them, saying, “These can be tied around the necks of Lord Jagannātha, Subhadrā, and Balarāma.” Previous to this, the deities had received no dresses or decorations.

Mukunda and Śyāmasundara came forward to show Prabhupāda their first American-made karatālas. Months ago Prabhupāda had suggested that they might make karatālas in America, and the men had analyzed the metals in the Indian karatālas, gathered the ingredients from scrapyards, taken them to a foundry, and had them molded into a finished product. Prabhupāda took the first pair of American karatālas in his hand, hit them together a few times, and pronounced, “Not so great.” Again he took up his own beautifully polished brass karatālas from India. Striking them together once, he let them ring for a long time. “This is great,” he said.

Then, looking around the room, Prabhupāda engaged in friendly little exchanges with his disciples. Seeing Līlāvatī sitting in a corner with her baby daughter, Subhadrā, Prabhupāda said, “Your daughter looks just like Subhadrā.” Līlāvatī sighed gratefully to hear it. “Govinda dāsī,” Prabhupāda said, “I am always thinking of your paintings.”

Prabhupāda asked whether all the devotees were chanting their prescribed sixteen rounds daily. Almost everyone replied, “Yes, Swamiji.” One new devotee, however, an English girl whose face turned bright red, began to stammer in a faltering voice. “I chant …,” she said, “I chant …” and then suddenly blurting out like a little girl about to cry, “Sometimes I chant more than sixteen rounds a day!” Her voice cracked, and she seemed on the brink of tears, but the devotees and Prabhupāda could not help from laughing. In Prabhupāda’s presence it all seemed jovial. Uddhava dāsa came into the room and announced, “We have some prasādam for you, Swamiji. Would you like to take now?”

“What?” asked Prabhupāda. “A little rice?” The devotees began to laugh, thinking of the elaborate feast they had prepared for Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda had one more thing to show them in his bag. It was a coconut grater commonly used in Bengali households. Prabhupāda gave it to Yamunā, who began to grate a coconut while the devotees watched. Surrounded by his devotees, Prabhupāda then went to the kitchen and prepared coconut laḍḍus made from the white coconut pulp, butter, sugar, black pepper, cardamom, and camphor flavor. He rolled them into balls, ate one himself, and distributed a few.

Prabhupāda returned to his room, where he sat down again and was silent. Sensing that he should be left alone, the devotees excused themselves from his presence. Everyone was satisfied. Prabhupāda was back, and they would have him for a while.

Jīvānanda: After everybody left, I stayed behind to talk to him, and seeing me just kind of sitting there, he put me to work and made me clean up his room. I began to pick up the paper and stuff and throw away all the boxes. So afterwards Prabhupāda said, “So you have some question?” And I said, “Yes, Swamiji. I would like to get married to Harṣarāṇī.” He said, “Oh. Who are you?” I said, “I am Jīvānanda.” He said, “Oh, you have been initiated?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “By me?” and I said, “Yes.” He said, “That’s very nice. What do you do?” I said, “Well, when I was in Santa Fe, I used to milk the cows.” He said, “That is very nice.” We talked some more, and then I said, “Swamiji, can I get married?” He said, “I will think about it. You can ask me again later.”

Cidānanda: That evening I went to his room to see him, as I felt he might be lonely. I went into his room to try to keep him company, but as soon as I got there he started talking about Kṛṣṇa. There were some Brijabasi posters of Kṛṣṇa on the wall, and he would point to them and explain a little, saying, “Here is Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra.” He talked, and I didn’t have a chance to say anything, but he just talked about the posters on the wall. I got the feeling that we had known each other from some other time, although this was the first time I was seeing him. Yet he seemed like an old friend. He was certainly magnanimous and cordial as he sat there and talked about Kṛṣṇa. I felt that if he was an old friend, then maybe I would know this to be a fact some day. But my attention span was not very long, and I really didn’t know very much about the life of Kṛṣṇa, so I left after a short period of time.

But everyone got a chance to accompany Swamiji on his morning walks. They were open to whoever wanted to go. Usually one or two of the brahmacārīs and one or two householder couples would accompany him. They would drive Prabhupāda to the park in the temple’s car, a 1952 blue Ford coupé. Usually Jayānanda would drive the car. The passenger seat was broken and tilted back at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground, and although Prabhupāda sat up straight, his chin held high, the seat slanted so much that he could only see out of the lowest part of the window. But it was the only car they had, and Prabhupāda never complained.

He began his old routine of daily walking around Stowe Lake in Golden Gate Park. Healthy, free, and spontaneous, always in command, talking and preaching, Prabhupāda seemed very happy to be back in San Francisco. And there were also new devotees who were seeing him for the first time.

For about the first week on his morning walks, Prabhupāda talked frequently about the existence of the soul, explaining Kṛṣṇa’s arguments in the Bhagavad-gītā.

One morning a car was parked near where they walked, and seated in the driver’s seat was a dejected-looking man who sat slumped over, with a long, drawn, unhappy face. Day after day this car appeared there, and the man sat unhappily while the devotees walked past in the company of Śrīla Prabhupāda. Finally, after about a week, Prabhupāda one day broke away from the group of devotees and approached the man’s car. The car window was rolled up, but on seeing Prabhupāda, the man rolled down the window. Prabhupāda greeted him, “Good morning.” The man smiled, happy to see Prabhupāda, as if he had never noticed Prabhupāda and the devotees walking by day after day. Prabhupāda then rejoined his disciples and continued walking. They looked back and saw that the deep unhappiness in the man’s face had vanished and he appeared happier. They did not see him anymore on the morning walks. Among themselves the devotees discussed these things or kept the impressions privately in their hearts. After a little incident like that of the man sitting slumped in his car, they were even more convinced that Swamiji had the power and ability to make people happy, and that he really wanted to do it.

One morning Prabhupāda arrived in the park, stepped out of his car, and waited for the devotees who had come in another car to join him. Līlāvatī had difficulty getting out of the car because she had her baby, Subhadrā, in a carrier on her back. When she finally did get out of the car, Prabhupāda turned and laughed at her, saying, “Ah, burden of affection.” “Yes, Swamiji,” Līlāvatī replied. They all began to walk together along the path.

“So there are two ways to carry a baby,” Prabhupāda said, tapping his cane on the ground in time with his regular stride. “There is the monkey way and the cat way. Do you know this?”

“No, Swamiji,” said Līlāvatī.

“Well, which way do you think is better?” Prabhupāda asked her. “The monkey way or the cat way?” She couldn’t understand or imagine what he meant. Prabhupāda continued, “The monkey baby climbs on the back of the mother and holds on, and this is the way he travels. And the kitten is carried in the teeth of the mother. So which is better?”

Līlāvatī could still not understand which way could be better; they both sounded very difficult to her.

“Well,” Prabhupāda said, “the monkey baby is very small and very weak, and he is holding on to the mother by his own strength. But the kitten is being supported by the strength of the mother. So which way do you think is better?”

And then she understood. “The cat way is better.”

“Yes,” Prabhupāda said, “that is the difference between the yogī and the devotee. The yogī is trying to climb on the back of the Absolute Truth by his own strength, but he is very weak, so he will fall. But a devotee, he cries out for Kṛṣṇa” – and as he spoke the word Kṛṣṇa, Prabhupāda held his arms up high and looked up at the clear morning sky – “A devotee cries out for Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa picks him up.”

Another time a devotee picked a pretty bluish-colored flower and handed it to Prabhupāda. Prabhupāda took it, smelled it, then held it far away and looked at it, saying, “Oh, this is like a beautiful man without any qualifications.” He then tossed it away. It had no aroma.

Upendra liked to ask Swamiji questions on the morning walks.

“Swamiji,” Upendra asked, “what does the spiritual master or pure devotee see as he walks through the park?”

“He sees Kṛṣṇa,” Prabhupāda replied. “He thinks that these are Kṛṣṇa’s trees, and this is Kṛṣṇa’s house. He sees everything as belonging to the Supreme Lord.”

“But if Kṛṣṇa is everywhere,” Upendra pursued, “does the pure devotee see Kṛṣṇa on the wall on the right and then the wall on the left or in the corner or in between every atom? Does he see one form of Kṛṣṇa merge into another? Where does one form of Kṛṣṇa begin and take off from the other form?”

“No, it is not like that,” Prabhupāda said. “Do you see my spectacles?”

“Yes,” said Upendra.

“So whose spectacles are they?” Prabhupāda asked.

“They are yours.”

Prabhupāda pointed to his shoes. “And what is that?”

“Those are your shoes,” said Upendra.

“Yes,” Prabhupāda said. “Similarly, a pure devotee sees Kṛṣṇa like that. Everything is Kṛṣṇa’s. This is how he sees Kṛṣṇa everywhere.” Near the end of the walk, when Prabhupāda had answered many questions, Upendra asked again, “Swamiji, you’ve spoken to us so much, but I forget most of it. If a devotee becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious, will he remember everything the spiritual master says?”

“Yes,” Prabhupāda replied. “It is all there. Not only that, but when a person becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious, he will be able to see his relationship with Kṛṣṇa.”

Walking through Golden Gate Park one day, they heard a scratching coming from a garbage can. Prabhupāda went over and looked in, then pulled back in repulsion. A big city rat had somehow become trapped in the garbage can and was scratching, trying to get out. Prabhupāda shook his head and said, “He is doomed.” He walked on. Prabhupāda commented that later the garbagemen would come, see the rat, and kill him. Prabhupāda was always after the philosophical and Kṛṣṇa conscious meaning; even a seemingly ordinary comment about the rat’s doom struck his disciples as deep and philosophical. They could understand that their position was similar: they were trapped in the material world, waiting for the end, but Prabhupāda was saving them.

On his return from India, after taking part in the first evening kīrtana in the San Francisco temple, Prabhupāda said, “You have all advanced.” He saw that the devotees had become more enthusiastic and ecstatic – guests were also rising and dancing – and that pleased his own Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Each night after kīrtana he would lecture. He was discussing the verses in the sixth chapter of Bhagavad-gītā. “I am making here a series of lectures on the Kṛṣṇa conscious yoga system,” Prabhupāda wrote to Brahmānanda in mid-December of 1967, “and they are tape recorded.”

Prabhupāda thought of assembling the lectures into a small book. Indian gurus introducing self-styled techniques were increasingly popular in the U.S. Therefore Prabhupāda wanted to distinguish the standard form of yoga and meditation, as taught by Lord Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā, from the farce taught by gurus who never mention Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead but rather say everyone is equal to God, and whose disciples are allowed to indulge their senses in intoxication and illicit sex. They give a mantra for a fee, Prabhupāda noted, and claim that by meditating twenty minutes in the morning you can become God in six months. He was surprised that American people, who were supposedly intelligent, were being so easily cheated. “We have actually seen such so-called yogīs,” Prabhupāda said, “sleeping and snoring while meditating.”

“Service begins by the tongue,” Prabhupāda said in one of his December ’67 lectures, “by chanting this Hare Kṛṣṇa, and by the taste of kṛṣṇa-prasādam. The beginning process is very nice. If prasādam is offered to you, accept it. If you become submissive and give service, by these two practices, Kṛṣṇa will reveal Himself to you – just like Kṛṣṇa is revealing Himself to Arjuna. Arjuna is a devotee, he is a friend: ‘I am speaking to you that old system of yoga, bhakti-yoga.’ Only one who has developed the service spirit with love and devotion, he can understand Kṛṣṇa.”

After the lecture Prabhupāda would continue the theme, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, in his room. It was the same theme as on his morning walks, in his letters, or in his intimate talks with individual disciples or visitors; it was the theme of his writing, and the very heartbeat of his life. When a devotee asked Prabhupāda how the soul is carried from body to body, Prabhupāda replied, “By desire,” and cited himself as an example. “Just like I have come to America. Why? Because I wanted to preach. So by that desire I was carried here. Otherwise, I have no business to come here.”

Cidānanda: There would be three, four, or five devotees in his room, and he would just start talking. They would somehow gather in his room, and he would start talking about what he was trying to do. His talk was not directed specifically to anyone, but he was saying that this is what he was doing. He made everything very clear. He wanted to publish his books. He was trying to get a press for this back in New York. And if he had a letter from Rāya Rāma in New York, he would read the letter right there. In this way it was allaying any doubts in people’s minds about what he was really going to try to do. He had his books and the temple. He was concerned about the temple and the new lunch program, where we were giving out free prasādam. His concern kept everybody going. Before he came, there wasn’t that much activity. But when Prabhupāda came, things started bustling very fast.

One night in his room on Willard Street, Prabhupāda was talking about seeing Kṛṣṇa. “Don’t try to see Him,” Prabhupāda said, “but act in such a way that He will come and see you … Sūradāsa was a blind man, yet due to his sincere chanting – ‘O Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa’ – Kṛṣṇa came to see him. So Kṛṣṇa is there whether we see Him or not. All we must do is become sincere, and He will present Himself whether we see Him or not. Kṛṣṇa hugs the cow. What does a cow know? He is a dumb animal. Is the cow as great as Arjuna? No. Yet due to the cow’s sincerity to come and lick Kṛṣṇa’s body, Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Oh, yes, My dear cow, come, and I shall take care of you.’ And Kṛṣṇa gives him some sweet nectar. So we should want Kṛṣṇa to come and see us, not that you should want to see Kṛṣṇa.”

At that time, few devotees were very well read in Prabhupāda’s books. They didn’t know the vastness of the philosophy. Only a few books were published, and so Prabhupāda in person was the real source of Kṛṣṇa conscious knowledge.

Eighteen-year-old Kim used to have philosophical arguments with his atheistic father and then invariably have questions for Prabhupāda at the end of the lectures. He would ask so consistently that Prabhupāda would turn to him and say, “Are there any questions?” Given a good question, Prabhupāda might launch into another impromptu lecture.

Kim’s sister, who was only sixteen, also wanted to get initiated. “Are there offenses in the spiritual world?” she asked Prabhupāda at one evening lecture. Prabhupāda turned to the audience. “See?” he said. “This little girl, she wants to go back to Godhead.” And in the course of the answer, he said, “Kṛṣṇa may kiss you.” When he said that, Kim’s sister blushed, and everyone laughed.

Upendra asked, “Swamiji, how should we feel humble? I feel sometimes that when I try to be humble I first think about it, and then I try to be humble. But it seems artificial.”

“This is humbleness,” Prabhupāda said. “When we think, ‘Oh, I should have done it this way’ – that is good. Because then there is always room for improvement. If you go on thinking, ‘Oh, I did not perform this duty so nicely. I should have done it this way,’ then you will improve. Our love for Kṛṣṇa keeps growing as long as we think that we are not doing the most for Kṛṣṇa and that we must do more. This is humbleness. If you think, ‘Oh, I did this so wonderfully. I am such a nice and sincere devotee,’ then this is not good. There will be no improvement.”

If, in questioning, anyone brought up the names and philosophies of famous contemporary Māyāvādīs, Prabhupāda would become angry. He was adamantly against the mission of the Māyāvādīs, who deny the absolute reality of Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda expressed that they had greatly damaged the original Vedic culture by spreading misleading doctrines. One time Mālatī brought up the subject of certain Māyāvādī teachings, and Prabhupāda, as usual, argued strongly. Afterwards Upendra chastised Mālatī, saying that she shouldn’t have brought it up because Prabhupāda was still recuperating in his health. In his excitement his blood pressure might rise too much. Mālatī was silent, but later gave Upendra a letter to be delivered to Prabhupāda. “What have you said to Mālatī,” Prabhupāda asked after reading her letter, “that now she no longer feels she can come before me?” Upendra explained how he had corrected her for inciting Prabhupāda too much. It was nonsense, Prabhupāda said, and he told Upendra to apologize to her.

Uddhava confided to Kim that he felt left out because he never had any questions to ask Prabhupāda. Kim encouraged him. One night Uddhava finally asked, but it was a strange question. “Swamiji,” said Uddhava, “what is Rādhārāṇī’s relationship with Kṛṣṇa’s brother, Balarāma?”

Prabhupāda was annoyed: “Why are you asking that? You don’t even understand the basic principle of the Bhagavad-gītā. You don’t understand the nature of the soul and the Supersoul or Kṛṣṇa and devotional service, and yet you are asking questions like this?” For a long while Uddhava didn’t ask again.

“Are you following the four rules?” Prabhupāda asked.

“Yes,” she replied. And then he said it was all right.

“I just wanted to say something else,” she continued, “that is, I heard that you had taken birth because in your last life you had been a physician and had killed a snake for some medical purpose.”

Prabhupāda laughed. “Oh, your brother has told you that?”

“Yeah,” she replied. No more was said about it. Kim was given the name Kṛṣṇadāsa, and Prabhupāda also initiated a few disciples who had written from New York. He performed the initiation ceremony in the temple and chanted on everyone’s beads, including the New York disciples’. That night he also spoke for a few moments on the telephone with Brahmānanda in New York and told him, “I have returned by the grace of Kṛṣṇa, and I am now fit to serve you.”

Prabhupāda said he was fit to serve the devotees, and he certainly looked and acted wonderfully. But he was still feeling the effects of his stroke of half a year ago. There was a persistent ringing sound, like a bell, in his head, and he couldn’t sleep more than three hours at night and one in the day. But he pushed on as always. He even wrote a letter to a disciple pointing out that although he had disturbance in his head, he was continuing to work on the transcendental plane; and he advised his disciples to do likewise.

Prabhupāda again took up his translating of the Third Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which he had put aside for half a year. Living in the same house with the brahmacārīs, he would wake before any of them and work at his translating. Then after they rose around five, they would hear him ringing a bell in his room, and they would smell incense. Because of their proximity, the boys would often drop by his room. They would watch Prabhupāda sitting at his desk, fresh from his morning shower. He would meticulously place several tiny spoonfuls of water in his left palm and then rub a ball of Vṛndāvana clay into his palm, making the mixture for Vaiṣṇava tilaka. Using a hand mirror, he would artistically make the markings of tilaka – first on his forehead and then on eleven other parts of the body – as directed by the Vaiṣṇava smṛti. Prabhupāda would then hold his brāhmaṇa thread and silently say the Gāyatrī mantras, while facing the pictures of Kṛṣṇa he had on a little altar.

One day, while sitting with Prabhupāda in the morning, Upendra mentioned that the brahmacārīs put their tilaka on while in the bathroom.

“No,” said Prabhupāda, “tilaka should be put on in front of Kṛṣṇa, like this.”

“Well,” Upendra said, “here I’ve seen them putting it on in the bathroom.”

“Do not worry too much about the rules and regulations. Just get everyone to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.”

One thing Prabhupāda liked about California was that it was easy for him to obtain eucalyptus twigs there. Prabhupāda used them for brushing his teeth in the morning. He liked them cut the thickness of the little finger and about six inches long, and they were soaked in water overnight before he used them. At this time Kṛṣṇadāsa was going out in the morning to pick them. He would keep a good supply wrapped up in tin foil in the refrigerator. Hearing that eucalyptus trees were uncommon in America, Prabhupāda had asked Kṛṣṇadāsa to send him a supply wherever he traveled.

These sometimes small and domestic dealings of Prabhupāda with his disciples may be seen by someone outside of devotional service as of little consequence, but to the devotee they are always important, because the devotee holds the pleasure of his spiritual master as the supreme value in life. If the spiritual master, Kṛṣṇa’s representative, is pleased by even a little service, then that means that Kṛṣṇa is pleased. For the most part, Prabhupāda’s disciples simply knew that they loved him, loved serving him, and felt great satisfaction and bliss when he showed his pleasure with them.

Govinda dāsī: He needed some house slippers. I saw that. So I went and bought him some house slippers. He told me he wore size eight. I got him some all–man-made slippers in San Francisco. They were black with red fluffy, furry lining, so that they were easy to slip on the feet. Whenever he would walk around the house you could hear this nice little shuffling sound. He would have his hands behind his back and his head held high.

Although some of the devotees had their own idea that Prabhupāda should go on a special diet, he didn’t think much of it. He wanted his regular prasādam – dāl, rice, capātīs, and sabjī. Upendra was regularly cooking these staples. But one day Yamunā came into the kitchen and asked Upendra if she could cook a special lunch for Prabhupāda. He stepped back and allowed her. Yamunā was learning the art of Indian cooking. She made extra preparations, sour, spicy, and sweet. Upendra brought in the tray as usual, without any comment. A few moments later Prabhupāda rang his bell, calling for Upendra.

“Who has made this prasādam?” Prabhupāda asked, looking up as he sat on a cushion before a small table which held his lunch.

“Yamunā-devī cooked it, Swamiji,” said Upendra.

“I do not want such fancy things,” said Prabhupāda. “I want to eat simply. A little rice, a little dāl, like that.” He wasn’t very pleased with the special feast; he was used to eating the same simple thing every day. Upendra continued to cook like that, occasionally creating variety by cooking kicharī and fried eggplant in kaḍī sauce once a week. But Upendra was also extravagant. Prabhupāda confided to Gaurasundara, “That Upendra is using too much ghee, so that I cannot taste the prasādam before it slips down my throat. It is too slippery.”

One of the devotees who had been with Prabhupāda in India wrote that Swamiji should not be given sweets. Prabhupāda didn’t think much of that either, as he had introduced coconut laḍḍus on the first evening of his return.

Upendra: He gave us the recipe that you grate the coconut and cook it in a pot, along with some sugar and camphor, and cook it and cook it until it comes to a certain thickness, and then it can be squeezed into balls and offered in this way. So he was giving this instruction to me, and I was following. The stove was an old-fashioned type that allowed for one half of the stove to be covered with a safety cover. While I cooked, Prabhupāda leaned against the corner of the stove with his elbows, his chin resting in his hands, and he leaned and watched me stir. He got up and walked away and then came back, just like a restless young boy. He walked around the kitchen and then returned to look into the pot, stirring it to see if it was done. He asked, “Is it done? I think it’s done. It must be done. Let us try.” I took the substance out, and although it was still hot, we began squeezing it into balls. As soon as one ball was squeezed, Prabhupāda took it and popped it into his mouth. He turned away from the stove and, shaking his head pleasingly, said, “Yes, it is done. Very nice.”

Prabhupāda spontaneously showed his displeasure also. That was the risk of serving him closely as his personal servant or cook. One day Govinda dāsī was cooking a cereal for Prabhupāda’s breakfast when he walked past the kitchen, looked in, and asked, “What are you cooking?”

“I am making cereal, Swamiji,” she replied.

“But today is Ekādaśī,” said Prabhupāda.

“Oh, thank you, Swamiji. I didn’t know.” She thought that by his reminder she had not actually done anything wrong. After all, neither he nor anyone else had eaten the grains. But Prabhupāda began to criticize her with a severity that surprised her. It was a great disqualification on her part, he said, to cook grains on Ekādaśī, the day when devotees fast from all grains. He kept repeating that she had cooked grains on Ekādaśī and described her mistake as very serious; her one mistake seemed to indicate a whole wrong mentality. Govinda dāsī finally felt it was as bad as if she had actually eaten grains, so she fasted entirely for the rest of the day.

Many things had to be done exactly right. When Upendra placed a small amount of salt on Prabhupāda’s plate in front of the rice, it made it difficult for Prabhupāda to eat the rice without mixing it in the salt. Prabhupāda mentioned it. But when Upendra did it again the next day, Prabhupāda said, “I told you to put the salt in back of the rice, not in front!” And foregoing his own pleasure, due to his servant’s foolishness, Prabhupāda added, “Now give me no more salt.” The next day, however, Upendra put salt and pepper in separate containers and placed them beside the plate so Prabhupāda could move them as he liked. Prabhupāda accepted them silently. Whenever a mistake was rectified, he seemed to immediately forget the wrong.

Mukunda: It was in this period that Prabhupāda went to visit Mr. B. K. Nehru, who was a big Indian government official. I drove Prabhupāda to the St. Francis Hotel in a beat-up old Ford with the name Kṛṣṇa stenciled in multicolors in three different places on the car. The St. Francis Hotel, of course, is a very elite hotel. We arrived at the front door and there was a doorman. I got out and asked him if we could leave the car in front of the hotel for about fifteen minutes. Somehow, I don’t know why, he immediately agreed to look after the car. We went up to one of the top floors of the building to a very beautiful suite. Mr. Nehru greeted us. He was wearing Western clothes. I was also wearing Western clothes, and my head wasn’t shaved. Mr. Nehru’s wife was also there. I sat on the same couch as Prabhupāda, with Mr. Nehru in the middle and Prabhupāda on the other end.

In the beginning they spoke English. Prabhupāda reiterated some of his past life history and mentioned that he had had a pharmacy called Prayag Pharmacy. He had met Mr. Nehru in India, and Mr. Nehru acknowledged that he knew about the pharmacy. Prabhupāda then explained how he had taken sannyāsa. I noted that Prabhupāda was very warm and friendly. It was a side of him that I had never seen before. Not that he hadn’t been warm and friendly, but to a nondevotee person, I had never seen him quite in such a friendly attitude. I was totally intrigued to see how open and almost intimate Prabhupāda was becoming with this man. I noticed that Prabhupāda was presenting himself as a mendicant, a sannyāsī.

And then the rest of the conversation took place in Hindi. It was a wonderful time for me to observe the facial expressions and gestures and the great depth of feeling with which Prabhupāda communicated, because I had to try to guess what he was talking about. In fact, I was always speculating on what he might be saying. Then of course Mr. Nehru and sometimes his wife would interject remarks – all in Hindi. I was spinning enormous fantasies about what they all might be talking about. Prabhupāda had introduced me as Michael Grant, secretary, and I was sitting on top of the world from the beginning of the conversation. I felt that I had a stake in the conversation, that maybe Mr. Nehru is not aware that I am not understanding. I was very tuned in to the mood of the conversation even though I was not understanding it, but thinking that maybe I was understanding part of it, and trying to act as if I might know something about what they were saying. At some point in the conversation I was getting very involved in my fantasies of what it was about, and I heard the words missionary work come from Prabhupāda. He stopped and looked at me momentarily – there was a beat, and then the conversation resumed. I then realized that I had really been tuned in by that. Prabhupāda was asking something. Then, later in the conversation, he said in English, “But one word from you,” to Mr. Nehru. Then Śrīla Prabhupāda’s eyes opened wide and he paused, and I believe he looked around at me at that time. Then after a somewhat awkward silence, the conversation resumed again. Then I knew that Śrīla Prabhupāda was really asking for a favor and that he was letting me in on this by saying it in English. I felt that all I could do was try to look very serious and important somehow, such that this man would think that by my presence, as an American disciple, he could see that Śrīla Prabhupāda was doing great things by converting us Westerners to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Somehow I wanted to help. But I didn’t know what it was, so I couldn’t say; and I just tried to play the part that Śrīla Prabhupāda seemed to want me to play in this transcendental game. Then the conversation became very convivial and the subject had changed.

Later, the wife of B. K. Nehru came forward and called Prabhupāda “Swamiji” and said something in Hindi and gave him something wrapped in tin foil. It was about the size of a small apple. Then they exchanged words, and Śrīla Prabhupāda was very warm and cordial with Mrs. Nehru. On the way out I asked Prabhupāda first of all what the conversation was about. He was very vague but said it was about some land that he had been trying to get in India, I think in Vṛndāvana. It may have been in litigation, I don’t know, but he was asking Mr. Nehru’s help. I asked whether he was going to help, and Śrīla Prabhupāda was again rather vague about it, but he indicated that he felt the meeting was successful, or at least a step in the right direction. Then I asked about Mr. Nehru’s wife, whether she was European or what, and Prabhupāda said, “No, she is a Parsi.” Then on the ride back Prabhupāda opened the tin foil, and in it was a huge date, the biggest one I have ever seen in my life. And he took it out and took a big bite out of it and then offered me the rest, which I took, of course!

Mukunda was also present with Prabhupāda in his room, along with a small group of devotees, when an earthquake took place. The telephone poles and wires began moving outside the window. The building trembled. No one said anything until Prabhupāda said, “What is this?” A devotee replied, “It’s an earthquake, Swamiji.” Prabhupāda said, “Oh.” And then the earthquake suddenly stopped. Everyone present was very intent on Prabhupāda’s reaction. He said, “We can just sit down and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.”

He recounted the bombing of Calcutta during the war. “I was in the bomb shelter, and the bombs were falling; and I was thinking as I was chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa that if I had to die now, it would be wonderful to die while chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.” Mukunda and the other devotees felt secure being in Prabhupāda’s presence, even during the earthquake. They felt that no matter what catastrophe might happen, they could simply sit with him and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and be happy.

When Prabhupāda had first returned from India, he had criticized Mukunda for failing to obtain the permanent residency status for him. Mukunda had only been able to obtain a temporary visitor’s visa. “Why did you do this?” Prabhupāda had asked him sharply. Mukunda made a few excuses, and Prabhupāda replied, “You do not understand.” Later Prabhupāda and Mukunda visited a local immigration office to seek the permanent residency status. The official who met with them was a woman. In the course of the routine conversation, Prabhupāda briefly mentioned the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The woman remarked, “It must be very difficult to follow such a discipline in your life.”

Prabhupāda replied, “No, it is not. It’s just a question of remembering God.” Then he gave her an example. Just as a woman goes to work and has to think of many different things, yet she never forgets to dress properly, so one has to think of God despite worldly duties. The woman immigration official could understand.

During the conversation, the recent earthquake was mentioned, and the woman said that the building they were in was “earthquake-proof.” After the meeting, when Prabhupāda was leaving, he said to Mukunda, “There is no such thing as ‘earthquake-proof,’ ” and he laughed.

Līlāvatī’s main occupation was taking care of her baby daughter, Subhadrā. She would treasure different incidents in which Prabhupāda showed attention to her daughter. The first time he saw Subhadrā on returning from India, he said, “She is very fortunate.” And he quoted a verse from the Bhagavad-gītā to the effect that the yogī who does not complete his practice has a chance to be born in a family of pious brāhmaṇas. Another time, noticing that Subhadrā was sleepy in his presence, Prabhupāda remarked laughingly, “Yes, young children and old men must take a lot of rest.” He also held the child several times and played with her. One time, when speaking to a roomful of people, Prabhupāda suddenly told Līlāvatī that her daughter was very warm and that she should take off her sweater. He had been speaking on a philosophical topic and had interrupted himself. Others in the room were taken aback to see that Prabhupāda was concerned about such a small child. When Prabhupāda was leaving in a car to go to a speaking engagement, Līlāvatī handed him a garland of narcissus flowers through the window of the car. He lowered his head in a humble way and said, “Thank you very much.” She then handed him three narcissus flowers that had not been used in the garland. He took them and said, “Oh? And this is from your daughter?” Līlāvatī laughed and said, “Yes, Swamiji,” and he said, “Oh, very nice.” Such thoughtful and clever remarks from Prabhupāda about her daughter totally encouraged Līlāvatī’s Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Kṛṣṇadāsa also got a chance to shave Prabhupāda’s head. Not many of the devotees in those days wore the Vaiṣṇava śikhā, the tuft of hair at the back of the head. Prabhupāda had very little hair, but he did have a śikhā about three inches in diameter at the back of his head. Thinking that only the disciples wore the śikhā, Kṛṣṇadāsa shaved off Prabhupāda’s śikhā. But Prabhupāda only mentioned it mildly: “Oh, you have cut off my śikhā.” On another occasion while shaving Prabhupāda’s head, Kṛṣṇadāsa cut him, but Prabhupāda didn’t notice it. He was chanting the whole while. But when Upendra came in and saw a bit of blood on Prabhupāda’s head, he exclaimed. Prabhupāda said, “What? What?” and put his hand to his head. “Oh, you’ve cut me,” said Prabhupāda. But that was all he said. Upendra later told Kṛṣṇadāsa that he had committed a great offense. That evening Kṛṣṇadāsa went to Prabhupāda and mentioned the cut. “There is no difficulty,” said Prabhupāda. “You are just a little young yet. Young don’t have a steady hand.”

With Upendra, Prabhupāda’s instructions were often in response to Upendra’s mistakes. Upendra followed Prabhupāda everywhere. Once they were walking downstairs on the way to the temple, and Upendra, walking behind, called out to Prabhupāda to get his attention. Prabhupāda turned around on the stairs, raised his cane, and said, “I told you never to call from behind.” On the way back from the temple, Upendra was supposed to carry Prabhupāda’s Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, eyeglasses, and karatālas. One evening Upendra got sidetracked talking with a guest, and when he returned to the house, Prabhupāda was waiting for him. Govinda dāsī warned Upendra that Prabhupāda was angry at having to walk back to the house alone. Uttering apologies, Upendra entered his room. Prabhupāda said, “Whenever you are to do something, do it nicely. Do not be irresponsible.” One day Upendra was looking for Prabhupāda within the apartment, and he went into Govinda dāsī’s room to ask her where Prabhupāda was. As Upendra left Govinda dāsī’s room, he met Prabhupāda coming down the hall. Later Prabhupāda called him and told, “You are a brahmacārī. You should not be in the same room alone with Govinda dāsī or any girl. Do not do like that in the future.”

When Govinda dāsī had to go to the doctor, Upendra, although having no experience, whimsically volunteered to take dictation from Prabhupāda as Prabhupāda answered his letters. Prabhupāda began to dictate quickly, and Upendra immediately ran into trouble trying to write down his words. At the end of the letter, Prabhupāda asked him to reread it, but Upendra couldn’t read his own handwriting because it had been scribbled with such speed. Prabhupāda looked at him incredulously, saying, “Why do you do things like that? You cannot read your own handwriting?” Upendra attempted to read but could not, and Prabhupāda had to fill in the whole letter again, while Upendra wrote in the words that he had missed or could not read.

One of Upendra’s regular duties was to crush up rock sugar candy, which Prabhupāda took in water as medicine. One evening, while Prabhupāda watched him, Upendra put the crushed sugar candy in water and mixed it by pouring the water from one glass to another. Somehow a glass slipped from his hand, and in trying to catch it, he splashed it all over his head, face, and the front of his body. Prabhupāda looked at him and simply said, “Go wash.”

“No, no,” Upendra protested. “Let me finish making your medicine for you.” As he continued his work, the sugar water thickened, leaving his hands, face, and arms sticky as the sugar hardened and crystalized. Prabhupāda said nothing, but watched and accepted the service of his foolish but sincere disciple.

Perhaps certain activities cannot be called instructions; they are simply līlā.

Upendra: At the Willard Street apartment, Prabhupāda would sometimes go out on the back porch. It was very small and wasn’t meant for walking, just for going down the back stairs two levels. But the people in the apartment below us had a little Pekingese dog that would bark at anyone who would come out above. The dog would run up the stairs to the next platform below and yap away with a shrill bark. Prabhupāda would go out and stand on the little porch, inciting the dog’s barking, and then ignore the dog. Then all of a sudden he would turn to the dog, raise his hands, and make a scary face. The Pekingese would become very frightened and would whimper and run down the stairs, while Prabhupāda would laugh. He did this a number of times, like a young boy.