CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

October 28, 1968

ON RETURNING TO Los Angeles from Santa Fe, Prabhupāda found his followers in their new location on Hollywood Boulevard, in the tourist section, a block from Grauman’s Chinese Theater. The new temple, a former beauty parlor, occupied the large first floor of an elegant old six-story office building. The space – actually tri-level, with a ground floor, a mezzanine, and a basement, was filled with more than forty devotees. Prabhupāda stayed in the Lucky Seven Hotel across the street. In the early evening, before the devotees would go out again to chant, they would crowd into Prabhupāda’s room and sit with him.

Prabhupāda had ordered that in every center his disciples perform public kīrtana, and that order was sending the devotees in New York, Boston, and San Francisco to the parks. In L.A. the devotees were going out twelve hours a day chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa in Hollywood. Prabhupāda had simply asked that they go out and chant, but enthusiastic new leaders Tamāla Kṛṣṇa and Viṣṇujana were taking that order to the fullest extent.

One night Prabhupāda came out in a car and parked in front of the kīrtana party, watching the chanting and dancing with pleasure. Viṣṇujana, who had become especially expert on the mṛdaṅga, played and led the chanting. The boys wore clean, uniform saffron dhotīs, and the women saffron sārīs. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had organized the devotees almost to the point of choreography, and Prabhupāda watched as devotees raised their hands and danced back and forth in the “Swami Step,” which he himself had taught.

Hundreds of tourists walked along Hollywood and Vine, going to the theaters, the wax museum, the seedy bars, and the nightclubs. And although sometimes they laughed or made fun of the chanters, they were more often astonished and, at least for a moment, as they stopped in their tracks, delighted. But to Prabhupāda, sitting quietly in the car, watching the devotees, the chanting was a benediction on the sleeping souls passing by. He was convinced that everyone on Hollywood Boulevard who heard the chanting was being purified of lifetimes of sinful activity – this was the power of the holy name. And the youthful disciples on the street, energetically singing to Viṣṇujana’s beat, were also aware of this. Seeing Śrīla Prabhupāda’s car and knowing that he was watching renewed their enthusiasm.

To Prabhupāda, this kīrtana party was only happening by Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī’s blessings. Surely he would be pleased to see this revolutionary phenomenon – the holy name resounding from young American Vaiṣṇavas in the late night of this sinful city. And as Prabhupāda was convinced of the blessings of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, so his young followers, knowing their spiritual master was watching them, were similarly convinced by him, and they transcended all fatigue and doubt.

The devotees’ residence on Hollywood Boulevard was short lived. Their public chanting had already made them a sensation, and the arrival of the Jagannātha deities was more than the landlord had bargained for. The other tenants of the building were also disturbed, especially whenever the air-conditioning system would pick up the aroma of the chili-spiced dāl and circulate the fumes throughout the building, causing office workers to gasp and cough. The landlord served an eviction notice; he would return the devotees’ $450 on the condition that they move themselves and all their belongings from the building that same day.

The devotees had no choice. They put everything – stove, furniture, rugs, pots and pans, soap, split peas, even Lord Jagannātha – out on the sidewalk. They had nowhere to go. While the women and children waited for hours amid the paraphernalia on the street, some other devotees managed to rent enough warehouse space for the furniture.

Gradually the devotees relocated in various places. An elderly English lady allowed a few devotees to stay at her house. The brahmacārīs found a small house in the Watts area, and a few women went to another place. Dayānanda, who had a job and his own apartment, took a few married couples at his place and found an apartment for Prabhupāda, Lord Jagannātha, and Kartā Mahāśaya on Hayworth Street. Thus the devotees of the Los Angeles temple became scattered.

Despite the odd circumstances, they still came together every day for chanting, either on Hollywood Boulevard or in some other Los Angeles area. Prabhupāda began visiting the brahmacārīs at their house, where he held regular Monday, Wednesday, and Friday lectures. He would lead kīrtana, often masterfully playing the mṛdaṅga, and his playing would make everyone dance.

Nandarāṇī had arranged for Prabhupāda to lecture at the Hollywood Vegetarian Society. “Do they want to hear about Bhagavad-gītā?” Prabhupāda asked.

“No,” Nandarāṇī replied. “They only want to hear about being vegetarian.”

“You tell them Swamiji doesn’t know anything about being vegetarian. Tell them I don’t know anything. But if they want to learn about Bhagavad-gītā, I know something.”

Nandarāṇī called the Vegetarian Society and asked if they wanted to hear about Bhagavad-gītā. They didn’t.

Prabhupāda said, “And we aren’t interested in lecturing at mundane programs. Even the pigeons are vegetarians. We don’t want to be pigeons. We don’t care for vegetarian or nonvegetarian. We only care if we can offer it to Kṛṣṇa, then we eat it.”

Śrīmatī dāsī: Tamāla Kṛṣṇa met a woman on saṅkīrtana who offered her garage for Śrīla Prabhupāda to lecture in. It was in a nice neighborhood with a clean double garage. We cleaned it even more. We put up madrases on the wall, pictures over that, a large altar on one side, and a vyāsāsana for Śrīla Prabhupāda in the back. It was cold out. We kept the large double doors closed so we could heat the place and filled the air with incense, expecting Śrīla Prabhupāda to arrive soon. Many neighbors and devotees filled the garage. Jaya Gopāla waited out front to give a blast on the conchshell as Śrīla Prabhupāda arrived. We heard the conchshell and opened the garage door. As it raised from the bottom and swung slowly up to the ceiling, Śrīla Prabhupāda stood there, small and dignified, waiting to enter. He walked in majestically, took his seat on his vyāsāsana, and began a kīrtana. His lecture struck the curiosity of many neighborhood guests. They all went home with magazines, prasādam, and a new experience to relate to their friends. Thus Śrīla Prabhupāda’s preaching was going on.

One night, while speaking at a garage meeting, Prabhupāda described explicitly Kṛṣṇa’s abode, where houses are made of cintāmaṇi stone and the trees are all desire trees. The inhabitants there as well as the land and trees all have spiritual forms and are full of bliss and knowledge. There everyone serves Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa reciprocates.

On another night Prabhupāda spoke about the song “Hari Hari Viphale” by Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura. In this song, Prabhupāda explained, the author is lamenting his disqualifications and is begging for Kṛṣṇa’s mercy. Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura laments that instead of worshiping Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, he has simply wasted his life in sense gratification. Prabhupāda would often speak about Lord Caitanya’s saṅkīrtana movement of chanting the holy names as the antidote for the ills of Kali-yuga.

The devotees always had questions. Madhudviṣa asked how a brahmacārī can channel his sex desire in serving Kṛṣṇa. Viṣṇujana asked whether the spiritual master’s mercy was the source of the bliss he was feeling. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa asked how Kṛṣṇa could be both the father of everyone and the son of His devotee. And there were questions about what it was like to be a cow or tree in Kṛṣṇaloka and whether the soul’s rasa, or serving relationship, with Kṛṣṇa could ever be changed. And Prabhupāda would answer these questions at length.

But rarely would Prabhupāda complain that there was no temple; rather he would say, “Never mind that we have no place, we have no temple. Kṛṣṇa has provided this garage, so we accept it.” Although homeless in Los Angeles, the devotees’ basic ingredient for devotional life remained intact. It was not uncommon by Indian standards, Prabhupāda explained, for one’s living situation to be unsettled. In India, he said, as many as twenty people might keep their belongings in a single room; they would come and go, taking whatever they needed from the room, while living outside, sleeping next to the road. But in America, of course, such a life was impossible. And garage meetings would attract few people.

On November 28 Prabhupāda wrote in a letter, “So far as it goes in Los Angeles, everything is going very nicely with the sankirtan party, and soon we are expected to have a new temple location.”

When Prabhupāda met the devotees in the evening, he would ask them, “How many magazines did you distribute? How much money did you collect?” By their good results and Prabhupāda’s pleasure, a feeling of high spirits prevailed. But one night, when they came to visit him in his apartment, Prabhupāda’s mood was different. He seemed intolerant. A complacency had set in among the devotees.

“How long do you expect me to sit in this house?” he demanded of Dayānanda. And then he turned indignantly from one devotee to another. “What are you doing? The deities are in my apartment, and you are all here. What are you doing?” He looked at Nara-Nārāyaṇa. “What have you done today to find a temple?”

“Well, Prabhupāda, I was …”

But without fully hearing Nara-Nārāyaṇa’s reply or excuse, Prabhupāda turned to Tamāla Kṛṣṇa. “And you? Did you find a temple?” And one after another, he pinned down each devotee in the room. “And what did you do?” The devotees felt Prabhupāda’s anger. “I want a temple. Los Angeles must have a temple. There must be a place to worship the Deity.” That night he didn’t lecture.

Three days later, the devotees found a new temple – a one-story church with three large rooms – the first really nice piece of property the International Society for Krishna Consciousness had ever acquired. The church had been used by a Japanese Baptist congregation and was located on La Cienega Boulevard in the middle of Los Angeles. In a neighborhood of brick buildings, stores, factories, and businesses, the wooden church stood on a little patch of grass. The rent was high – five hundred dollars a month – more than Prabhupāda had ever paid for a piece of property. Although Prabhupāda had acted noncommittal when the landlord had shown him the place, afterwards he told the devotees he wanted the place and they should get it. Dayānanda questioned the high rent, but Prabhupāda said they had waited long enough. Here was a good place, so they should get it.

For Prabhupāda this new temple marked the beginning of a new era for the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. He wrote Kīrtanānanda Swami on December 8,

The devotees in New York had also acquired a new building, moving from 26 Second Avenue to a larger storefront two blocks up on Second Avenue. “I do not know how is your temple there,” Prabhupāda wrote Brahmānanda in New York. “I have heard that it is very nice, but I think that the temple here is probably nicer.” All devotees in other places, Prabhupāda said, should consider the new standard reached in Los Angeles. To Kṛṣṇadāsa in Germany Prabhupāda wrote,

And he wrote to Jadurāṇī in Boston that for his large meeting hall he would need large paintings to decorate the hall.

On moving into the temple, the devotees called a press conference. They cooked a feast for a hundred people, rented chairs, but only one reporter came. The lone reporter pointed out their mistake in holding a press conference in the evening, after normal working hours. Prabhupāda spoke and then encouraged the assembled devotees to take the feast themselves. “In Kṛṣṇa consciousness there is never any failure. If people come to the program we preach, and if not, we take prasāda.”

When a reporter from the Cosmic Star came, Prabhupāda talked frankly with him about bogus swamis and “avatāras” from India. A reporter from the Los Angeles Times interviewed Prabhupāda on whether he thought man could land on the moon. Prabhupāda told the reporter to note down that the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement has nothing to do with going to the moon. The reporter had his own angle, and he printed an article in the December 28 issue of the L.A. Times, “Swami Says People Are Living on Moon”:

The devotees made plans for big Sunday festivals with puppet shows and theater performances. Bhavānanda, a new devotee and former New York textile designer, decorated and painted the temple with bright colors – pinks, purples, reds, blues, greens, and bright yellows. From their kīrtanas on the street the saṅkīrtana devotees began regularly bringing guests to visit the new temple. The devotees planted 108 rose bushes, on Prabhupāda’s request, throughout the temple grounds. Within a short time an altar was ready, and the devotees brought Lord Jagannātha and Kartā Mahāśaya.

“Now we will begin full-scale Deity worship,” Prabhupāda said to some of the women. He talked of beginning something new in ISKCON – the daily offerings of prasādam to the Deity and daily āratis.

As the Los Angeles devotee community grew and prospered in its new setting, Prabhupāda gradually relinquished the management to his leading disciples. Even for outside speaking engagements, which were often late, disrupting Prabhupāda’s normal schedule, he sent his disciples in his stead. He wanted to spend his time writing books at his apartment. He said he would go to the temple three nights a week and to the festival on Sundays, but otherwise he would be inaccessible. Only his servants and Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, with his daily reports on the saṅkīrtana party, would see him in his apartment.

By December 1968 Prabhupāda was producing his books at double his normal rate. He was writing two books – Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead and The Nectar of Devotion – and both he considered essential to the foundation of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Kṛṣṇa was a translation and commentary of the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam containing the stories of Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes. Wanting colorful illustrations, Prabhupāda turned to the two or three artists among his disciples and challenged them. As fast as they would paint, he would write.

Prabhupāda described each illustration he wanted. For the first picture, pregnant Devakī, the mother of Kṛṣṇa, should be sitting in the palace, and near the ceiling the demigods should be surrounding her, praying for Lord Kṛṣṇa’s appearance. Prabhupāda wanted Devakī in a different part of the palace for the second picture. Lord Viṣṇu in His four-armed form dressed in yellow appears before her while she and her husband, Vasudeva, bow down before Him. The third illustration would show baby Kṛṣṇa lying happily on the lap of Devakī, like an ordinary child. A fourth painting would show Vasudeva carrying baby Kṛṣṇa across the Yamunā River. The fifth would show Vasudeva at the house of Nanda Mahārāja in Vṛndāvana, exchanging Kṛṣṇa for the newborn child of Yaśodā.

Kṛṣṇa would be a summary study. With translations and commentary blended into a single narrative, the style would be freer in this book than in his presentation of the First Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, but essentially it was the same work.

Having set such an ambitious life’s project as translating and commenting on the eighteen thousand verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Prabhupāda was uncertain he would live to complete it. But the most important part of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam was the Tenth Canto, because it contained Kṛṣṇa’s transcendental pastimes on earth. Therefore Prabhupāda wanted to render it into English right away. To finish the first nine cantos before beginning the Tenth would take years, and Prabhupāda didn’t know how many years he would have. But his disciples should at least have all the Tenth Canto pastimes of Kṛṣṇa.

“The purpose of preparing this book,” Prabhupāda wrote in the Introduction to Kṛṣṇa, “is primarily to induce people to understand kṛṣṇa-kathā, because thereby they can become free from material bondage.” Vyāsadeva, the compiler of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and Śukadeva Gosvāmī, the original speaker of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, had recommended kṛṣṇa-kathā, hearing and speaking about Kṛṣṇa, to clear the heart of all illusion. The transcendental pastimes of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead were so powerful that simply by hearing, reading, and remembering them, a devotee would be transferred to the spiritual world.

Prabhupāda’s normal working hours were in the early morning, beginning about one A.M., and he daily used this time for writing Kṛṣṇa. But now he added a second intensive writing period in the afternoon and began another book, The Nectar of Devotion, a summary study of Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. This work contained “the complete science of bhakti-yoga,” as taught by Lord Caitanya to Rūpa Gosvāmī five hundred years ago. Prabhupāda intended The Nectar of Devotion to be “the lawbook” for the members of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. If one wanted to know the philosophical basis of bhakti-yoga, how to practice devotional service, what the stages of devotional service were, or what its goal was, he could find the answers by reading The Nectar of Devotion. Specifically for devotees, The Nectar of Devotion would help solidify the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement in the Western countries, where Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu was virtually unheard of.

In the Introduction to The Nectar of Devotion, Prabhupāda invoked auspiciousness upon his work: “Let His Lordship’s grace be on us so that there may not be any hindrance in the execution of this duty of writing The Nectar of Devotion, impelled by His Divine Grace Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Prabhupāda.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda worked from the original Sanskrit text and spoke into his dictating machine. Despite his age of seventy-three (Prabhupāda would often speak of himself as an old man, who could not eat like young men or endure a cold climate like his disciples), Prabhupāda now wrote more prolifically than ever before. His literary labors had begun in India as early as 1940, with his Back to Godhead paper. Now he had more facility for working – modern equipment for dictating, translating, and printing; personal assistants to tend to his meals and laundry; and energetic, trained disciples to conduct the missionary affairs of his movement. Material things, Rūpa Gosvāmī had stressed, should never be rejected when they can be used in the service of Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda applied this principle to his own situation and noted in one of the early chapters of The Nectar of Devotion,

Day after day, Prabhupāda went deeply into the Vaiṣṇava literature, rendering the Sanskrit poetry of Vyāsadeva and the realizations of Rūpa Gosvāmī into modern English. Although externally his life may have appeared less eventful, he felt full urgency and satisfaction that he was making his most important contribution to the world. Sitting in a simple room in a small Los Angeles suburban house, he was presenting the foundation for a movement that could grow for thousands of years. He sensed the victory of Vedic enlightenment over the darkness of the age.

Even Prabhupāda’s newest disciples understood they should not disturb their spiritual master’s concentration on his writing. “He’s really putting it out,” they said, and they were thrilled to hear the rate at which he was translating.

Concerned about printing his upcoming books, Prabhupāda wrote Satsvarūpa in Boston.

And to Haṁsadūta Prabhupāda wrote, “I next wish to publish a new book entitled Nectar of Devotion. So if you can help with these funds it would be very appreciated.”

Although Prabhupāda’s book-writing was going well, the book production work by his disciples was not. Unpublished manuscripts piled up. Prabhupāda anticipated he had few years left, and he wanted to publish as many books as possible. Kṛṣṇa was empowering him to write two books simultaneously, but at the difficulty in scheduling the books for publication Prabhupāda became frustrated. Macmillan Company had recently finished printing 1,500 hardbound copies and 35,000 paperback copies of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. Although Macmillan Company had abridged the original Gītā manuscript more than fifty percent, it was nevertheless a victory for the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement – the first authorized, paramparā edition of Bhagavad-gītā in the West. Although Macmillan Company would distribute Bhagavad-gītā As It Is in the bookstores, Prabhupāda asked Brahmānanda to order five thousand copies for the temples to sell. He suggested that Brahmānanda approach as many book reviewers as possible, telling them this book was badly needed in today’s godless civilization. “Try for selling these books,” Prabhupāda wrote to the devotees in London. “It shall be considered of the greatest service.”

With this most basic book now available, Prabhupāda instructed his students to read at least one chapter a day and discuss it in class. “If you can simply cram Bhagavad Gita,” he wrote Haṁsadūta, “then you will surely become a very good preacher.”

An examination on Bhagavad-gītā should be held, Prabhupāda said, and those students who passed would receive the title bhakti-śāstrī. When more books were available, he would hold a further exam based on Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Teachings of Lord Caitanya, and The Nectar of Devotion, and those who passed would receive the title Bhaktivedanta. “I want that all my spiritual sons and daughters will inherit this title of Bhaktivedanta, so that the family transcendental diploma will continue through the generations. Those possessing the title of Bhaktivedanta will be allowed to initiate disciples. Maybe by 1975, all of my disciples will be allowed to initiate and increase the numbers of generations. That is my program. So we should not simply publish these books for reading by outsiders, but our students must be well versed in all of our books so that we can be prepared to defeat all opposing parties in the matter of self-realization.”

Prabhupāda fretted while his manuscript for Teachings of Lord Caitanya – which was to have been printed at the same time as the Gītā – met with delays at Dai Nippon Press in Japan. When the printers reported that the book would not be completed until next year, Prabhupāda again thought of his own press. Discussing his ideas with disciples, asking their opinions, he could see their lack of expertise and lack of money.

Another cause for concern was the backlog of unpublished Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam manuscripts. Prabhupāda considered Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam his primary work, his life’s masterpiece. The lack of definite plans to publish it discouraged him and diminished his enthusiasm. He had vastly ambitious plans to flood the world with Kṛṣṇa conscious books, and he would be satisfied with nothing less.

So in January 1969, while daily experiencing the most productive period of book writing in his life, he nevertheless expressed feelings of anxiety and disappointment over the unpublished Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam manuscripts. In writing to Brahmānanda, Prabhupāda explained that his life was dedicated to publishing the Bhāgavatam and that, despite having hundreds of assistants and being in a wealthy country, he wasn’t able to do what he had accomplished singlehandedly in India.

Prabhupāda decided to restrict his weekly temple visits to Sundays. For the devotees, Sunday became the high point of the week. Sunday was the focal point of the devotees’ preaching because all week they would invite people to the weekly festival, and all week Tamāla Kṛṣṇa would consult with Prabhupāda about the feast menu or the observance of various Vaiṣṇava holidays. Prabhupāda also suggested plays the devotees could perform.

When Prabhupāda would arrive on Sunday, everyone would be waiting for him outside the temple, and they would begin singing and dancing as Prabhupāda’s car pulled up. As soon as he stepped out of the car, devotees garlanded him. Beside the temple hall was a little room to hear Prabhupāda talk about Kṛṣṇa or single out devotees and ask how they were doing. He was like a king among adoring subjects, a father of a family of sixty sons and daughters.

The atmosphere of the Sunday program was festive. More guests were coming than ever before in any of Prabhupāda’s other temples. The devotees so enthusiastically invited new people that gradually the Sunday feast attendance rose to two hundred.

Leaving his little room, Prabhupāda would enter the temple hall, where he would lead the singing, accompanied by the devotees and guests. On one such occasion, during the kīrtana, Prabhupāda began to dance in a large circle around the room, moving slowly, majestically, his arms raised, inducing everyone to join. As he walked and danced the devotees and guests lined up and followed behind him. He stopped in front of each picture on the wall and danced with his side-to-side step, his arms upraised, robes swaying. Then he continued circumambulating the room. Among the guests that Sunday sat two old ladies in wooden chairs in the back of the room. When Prabhupāda came before them, they were smiling and nodding, enjoying the show. But Prabhupāda looked at them, raised his hands in the air, and called, “Stand up! Stand up and dance!” And they arose, started dancing, and followed him all around the room.

After the kīrtana Prabhupāda would sit and watch the devotees’ play – “Nārada and the Hunter” or “Prahlāda Mahārāja and Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva” – or he would watch Viṣṇujana’s puppet show. Then he would join the devotees for the Sunday feast.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Śrīla Prabhupāda would eat with the devotees in the temple room at every feast. He would instruct us to first feed all the children. He said, “Children should be fed first.” Then we would all take. Later, after we would finish eating in front of him, he would instruct, “Give him more of this and more of that.” I would always sit toward the front. Then he would distribute his mahā plate.

Śīlavatī: Devotees would line up along the steps and the walkway to Prabhupāda’s car. Prabhupāda would come out, and he would be smiling. All the devotees would bow down and then kneel as he came by, and he would put his hand on everyone’s head as he went by. Everyone was just waiting for Śrīla Prabhupāda to touch their head. And if he would miss someone when he went by, then that person would run around and get at the end of the line – somehow or other, so that Śrīla Prabhupāda would touch your head. I know he knew what was going on. He was just smiling. And sometimes he would just make a point to touch everyone’s head as he went by, and sometimes he would only touch two or three people in the whole line. It was just a game that we all played. Then he would get into the car, and everyone would just converge on the car. Then after he left everyone had something to say like, “Did you see him do this?” and “Did you hear him say this?” Everyone was so happy about Śrīla Prabhupāda. We would always talk about him. He was the center of our lives.

As a representative of the Los Angeles devotee community, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa visited Prabhupāda daily. Prabhupāda was especially interested in the saṅkīrtana party. The traveling chanting party Prabhupāda had requested Tamāla Kṛṣṇa to form had been holding kīrtanas in the streets of San Francisco and Seattle. Upon their arrival in Los Angeles, Prabhupāda asked them to stay as a part of the new Los Angeles center. Now, every day more than thirty devotees were going downtown, distributing Back to Godheads and chanting for eight hours. Besides organizing the daily saṅkīrtana, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa also maintained relations with police and city authorities. It was a success. Los Angeles was leading ISKCON in this new saṅkīrtana practice, and repeatedly Prabhupāda stressed this as the most important function of ISKCON.

Because Tamāla Kṛṣṇa was Prabhupāda’s man for organizing the devotees, Prabhupāda carefully trained him in managing. Sometimes Prabhupāda would show Tamāla Kṛṣṇa a letter he had received, asking for his response. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa would suggest a reply; then Prabhupāda would explain the particular answer this letter required.

Prabhupāda usually ate his lunch alone, but one day he invited Tamāla Kṛṣṇa to have lunch with him. When the prasādam was served, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa asked, “How should we eat, Prabhupāda? Which thing should we eat first?”

“In eating,” Prabhupāda replied, “there is no hard and fast rule.” But Tamāla Kṛṣṇa watched his spiritual master take prasādam, knowing there was an art to it. Whatever Prabhupāda would eat, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa would also eat, bite by bite. Prabhupāda encouraged him to eat to his full satisfaction.

After eating and washing, Prabhupāda said, “Now let us talk a little.” The printers in Japan, he explained, had agreed to take a contract for printing Back to Godhead – on the condition that ISKCON order a minimum of twenty thousand magazines a month. “They are first-class printers,” Prabhupāda said, “so you just give me a guarantee. I want you to take five thousand magazines a month for Los Angeles. If you do, then I will arrange for San Francisco, New York, and London to each take five thousand. You just give me this guarantee.”

Immediately Tamāla Kṛṣṇa promised Prabhupāda to distribute five thousand magazines a month. It was an important moment. “Now,” Prabhupāda said, “I can take the initiative to print such a big order. Otherwise, I could not do it.”

On another of Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s daily visits, he showed Prabhupāda a painting just completed by Muralīdhara, a new devotee. The picture showed the spiritual sky and its spiritual planets, with the material world in one corner. Prabhupāda liked the painting. Referring to the painting, he explained to Tamāla Kṛṣṇa the plan of the total creation. Kṛṣṇa, he began, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is situated in the topmost planet, Kṛṣṇaloka. Around Kṛṣṇaloka are innumerable spiritual planets, residences of the four-handed Nārāyaṇa expansions of the Lord. The planets are all situated in the unlimited effulgence of the Brahman sky, which is actually the effulgence of Kṛṣṇa’s body. And in one tiny corner of this sky exists the entire material world. The material world emanates from Lord Kṛṣṇa’s expansion, Mahā-Viṣṇu, who lives in the Causal Ocean, emanating innumerable material universes from His breathing and from the pores of His body. Within each universe Mahā-Viṣṇu then further expands as Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, who generates the planets within the universe. The earth planet is situated in the middle planetary system and, in comparison to the entire universe, is as insignificant as a speck of dust. And yet on this speck of dust there are seven continents, Prabhupāda continued to explain, directing Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s attention to the painting. “And out of all these different continents,” Prabhupāda said, “there is America, and even within America there are so many cities. And one of those cities is Los Angeles. So here in Los Angeles also there are many places, and then out of them one of them is our temple. And in this temple there is one Tamāla Kṛṣṇa. And he is thinking that he is very, very important.” Tamāla Kṛṣṇa was startled. Prabhupāda looked at him and simply smiled.

In Los Angeles Govinda dāsī continued as Prabhupāda’s secretary, with Upendra, his servant, giving him massage and cooking for him. Govinda dāsī’s husband, Gaurasundara, had reluctantly left to open a center in Hawaii. It had begun with Prabhupāda’s talking about Hawaii as a very likely place for a temple. He then prodded Gaurasundara day after day until finally he agreed to go there and preach.

Now Prabhupāda was suggesting that Govinda dāsī join her husband. She preferred, however, to remain with Prabhupāda as secretary; she had been with him for over a year. But Prabhupāda insisted that she go. From New York Puruṣottama had written asking to come and serve Prabhupāda, and Prabhupāda had consented. When Prabhupāda had written the letter asking Puruṣottama to come, he had given it to Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, saying, “You’d better mail this. Don’t give it to Govinda dāsī. She may refuse to mail it.”

Govinda dāsī wanted to stay, but Prabhupāda ordered her: “You must live with your husband. That will make you happy. You will never be happy staying aloof from one another. You must go there.” So after weeks of procrastinating, Govinda dāsī reluctantly left her cherished service and went to join her husband.

Already inconvenienced by Gaurasundara’s departure, Prabhupāda was now further inconvenienced by the loss of his trained secretary. But he wanted new centers. Rendering personal service as secretary or servant was not a very important function, he said. But to go somewhere in the world and preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness required a divine spirit, and whoever had this opportunity should take it as the greatest blessing from Kṛṣṇa.

Then Upendra received a prison sentence for a previous drug conviction years ago, before he had joined Prabhupāda. At first the sentence was three months, but then it was reduced to one month in the county jail. When the day to leave came, Upendra packed his bag and went in to say goodbye to Prabhupāda.

“Oh?” Prabhupāda smiled. “You are going now?”

“Yes, Prabhupāda,” Upendra said with a broken voice. Then he asked, “Prabhupāda, will you please chant one round with me?”

Prabhupāda looked at him steadily and said, “You should know that I am always chanting with you.”

Upendra began to cry, and Prabhupāda reached over, patting his back and ruffling his hair. “No, don’t be afraid,” Prabhupāda assured him. “It is Kṛṣṇa’s mercy. They will think you are a pious boy and let you go out after a few days. Go on now. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and be happy.” Upendra took heart and left for jail. After ten days he was released and returned to Prabhupāda’s personal service.

At this time Prabhupāda began speaking to Upendra about preaching in Australia. A devotee in New York had written Prabhupāda about starting a center in Australia, mentioning Upendra’s name. At first Upendra was dead set against it, but Prabhupāda smiled gently and said, “Yes, I think you should go.”

“But I am doing your cooking,” Upendra protested.

“Oh, anyone can cook,” Prabhupāda replied. “You were doing better service in Seattle.”

“You’re not joking then?” Upendra asked.

No, Prabhupāda wasn’t joking. And Upendra left for Australia.

Thus Prabhupāda gradually depleted his own personal staff in Los Angeles, but he continued to use the Los Angeles temple as a stage of introducing new, important aspects of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. One such precedent had been the downtown chanting party. Another was full-scale Deity worship in the temple.

It was in Los Angeles at this time that devotees began a full day’s schedule of āratis and offerings of prasādam to the Deities, just as in the great Vaiṣṇava temples of India. Jīva Gosvāmī, a great scholar and follower of Lord Caitanya’s teachings, had written that although chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa was sufficient in itself for going back to Godhead, because people in the present age are restless, they should also worship the Deity, for purification. Since the Deity worship involved sewing dresses for the Deities, decorating and cleaning the Deities’ altar, and cooking for the Deities, Prabhupāda turned to some of his women disciples who seemed particularly inclined.

One of them was Śīlavatī. She was older than most of the other women and had joined the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement with her two sons. When Prabhupāda saw her eagerness to help him establish the Deity worship, he asked her to come to his apartment, where he explained to her the system of worshiping the Deity with six daily āratis.

The first ārati, maṅgala-ārati, should be held one and a half hours before sunrise. But the Deities must first be awakened, then offered milk sweets and fruit, and then, at ārati, consecutively offered burning incense, burning camphor, water in a conchshell, a clean handkerchief, a fragrant flower, a yak-tail whisk, and a peacock feather fan. The devotee offering the articles was the pūjārī. The pūjārī would ring a bell in his left hand while offering each object with his right hand, moving the article in clockwise circles before the Deities.

Breakfast is offered to the Deities a few hours after maṅgala-ārati; afterward, all the devotees can take the remnants of that offering as the Deities’ prasādam. Then another ārati is performed at noon, after which the devotees take the remnants for lunch. And there are three other āratis – at four in the afternoon, at seven P.M., and another at nine P.M. Then the Deities take rest. Understanding that the Deity is actually the Lord and the proprietor of the temple, the devotees should serve Him just as a king is served in his palace. By doing this, the devotees would naturally increase their Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But it had to be done with enthusiasm. Prabhupāda cautioned that if enthusiasm waned, it could turn into drudgery and become like idol worship. The disciples would be sorry they had ever begun it.

After being instructed by Śrīla Prabhupāda, Śīlavatī returned to the temple to prepare for the new worship procedure. Next Sunday, when Prabhupāda visited the temple, he stood and watched Śīlavatī offering ārati. Afterwards, when Śīlavatī joined the other devotees in Prabhupāda’s room adjacent the temple, Prabhupāda greeted her by saying, “Now we will have ārati.”

Śīlavatī looked surprised. “Oh,” she said, “but I just had ārati.”

“No you didn’t,” Prabhupāda said.

“It wasn’t good?” she asked.

“No, it wasn’t good.” Prabhupāda then went into the temple and asked the devotees to bring him the various articles for offering ārati. Standing before the altar, Prabhupāda called out, “I want camphor.”

“What’s camphor?” the devotees asked. “Where do we get camphor?” Someone immediately ran out to buy some. Then Prabhupāda asked for flowers. Item by item, the ārati paraphernalia came together, as Prabhupāda, standing before the altar, directed the devotees to bring him each item. When everything was finally assembled, Prabhupāda demonstrated how ārati should be done. Then again he turned it over to Śīlavatī. He had shown them, and now they should continue with enthusiasm.

When Prabhupāda first introduced festivals and spiritual observances for the holidays on the Vaiṣṇava calendar, the devotees in Los Angeles were delighted. They would plan many of the Sunday festivals around a particular event. A butter-churning festival commemorated Kṛṣṇa’s activities as a cowherd boy; the celebration of Govardhana-pūjā observed Kṛṣṇa’s pastime of lifting Govardhana Hill; and festivals observed the appearance of Lord Rāma and Lord Nṛsiṁha, etc. These were not new ideas for Prabhupāda, but now for the first time he had facility and enthusiastic helpers to implement them.

In February, on the appearance day of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, Prabhupāda came to the temple and cooked potatoes and cauliflower, sweet rice, halavā, and purīs. While the devotees crowded in the doorway, watching, Prabhupāda cooked with silent concentration, cleaning the stove and sink after each step.

One day Śīlavatī discovered a bud on one of the 108 rose bushes. She excitedly called some devotees to see. Soon the other bushes would bloom with flowers to offer to the Deity, and the devotees knew Prabhupāda would be pleased.

Śīlavatī: Jayānanda planted 108 rose bushes, and we were all very anxious for the bushes to bloom. One day I found a little rosebud, and I was really excited. It was a yellow rose. I knew from the bud that the bush was going to be yellow and would have a particular fragrance like that flower. I felt that way about our temple. Maybe there were other temples that were bigger and grander, but the essence of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s vision was expressed in that temple. Just like with the rose bush you could tell the color and aroma of all the flowers on the bush, so from that temple we could derive the essence of this movement, what went on there.

The devotees were aware that their activities were successful model beginnings of what Prabhupāda would institute throughout America and the rest of the world. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had organized Back to Godhead magazine distribution so that the devotees, while out chanting in the streets, regularly sold an unprecedented one hundred magazines a day. Viṣṇujana was wonderful, singing and playing mṛdaṅga all day long. Prabhupāda said he could lead kīrtana like a Gandharva. And Viṣṇujana’s puppet shows and dramatic skits for the Sunday festivals were something new to ISKCON and well appreciated by the guests; they made the Sunday program not just a feast but a festival. And now Prabhupāda had introduced a higher standard of Deity worship.

The devotees were inspired to serve together in Prabhupāda’s presence, and they worked long hours together, not with an attitude of pride in their own achievement, but with an ésprit de corps. They worked hard, but it was all recreation; they saw their engagements as eternal devotional service, even though performed in the temporary setting of the one-story wooden church in the metropolis of Southern California.

But crucial to the success of the Los Angeles temple was Prabhupāda’s personal presence there. Only because he was there was everything so successful. Although the devotees only saw him once a week, they knew he was at his apartment on Hayworth Street, and they would soon see him again.

Prabhupāda had been living in Los Angeles four months now, and almost since his arrival he had been considering leaving. He regularly received invitations from sincere disciples inspired with the “divine spirit” – the impetus to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That spirit had led disciples to different parts of the world as missionaries of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And Śrīla Prabhupāda, as the source of that spirit for his disciples, wanted to go be with them, to help them, and to strengthen whatever they had begun. He couldn’t remain in one place very long. He had to keep moving and, like a flying, dancing spark, ignite the fire of Kṛṣṇa consciousness wherever it would catch and in as many hearts as possible.

This spirit had especially manifested in Prabhupāda since his return to America in December 1967, after recuperating in India from his illness. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement only really began, he said, after he had returned to the United States. When he had come for the first time, he had been successful in beginning centers in New York and San Francisco; he had seen that young people would take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But then a heart attack had almost cost his life. He had at that time seemed a retired person returning home to India. But Kṛṣṇa had somewhat restored his health and allowed him to return to America. So now, with a new aggressiveness and with much more deliberate, active planning, he would open as many centers as possible.

At La Cienega Prabhupāda had finally received permanent residency status in the United States, recognized by the U.S. Immigration Department as an “Ordained Minister of Religion,” and he was now free to come and go. So Prabhupāda was eager and prepared to travel not only in the United States, but abroad. On Gaurasundara’s invitation he had been ready to go to Hawaii as early as December. But Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had pleaded with him to stay in Los Angeles and continue to inspire the saṅkīrtana party. In January Prabhupāda wrote to the devotees in London.

Śyāmasundara had written that Prabhupāda’s visit to London would be “the biggest event in London since the time of the Roman invasion.” Prabhupāda replied,

But Prabhupāda’s London preachers had not even managed to establish a center. They had been forced by circumstances to live separately, in different parts of the city. They had no place for Prabhupāda to stay. So Prabhupāda planned to visit other places, but he was most eager to go to London and declared himself fit in health and prepared for any climatic condition in England.

From correspondence with Hayagrīva, now teaching English at Ohio State University, Prabhupāda learned of their newly formed Kṛṣṇa Yoga Society. Hayagrīva wanted to arrange a program for Prabhupāda to chant with Allen Ginsberg before a large group of students. Prabhupāda told Hayagrīva to set a date. He would go anywhere to preach.

On February 13 Prabhupāda wrote to Kṛṣṇadāsa in Germany: “I can immediately go to Germany. What is the temperature there now? The only problem is it should not be too cold for me. I am an old man.”

During February Prabhupāda also suggested that his French-speaking disciple, Janārdana, go to Paris and start something there among his scholarly associates.

In Buffalo Rūpanūga had written Prabhupāda of his successful student center and the seventy-five students regularly attending his classes in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Prabhupāda wrote to Rūpanūga, “Regarding your desire to take me there for some time, it is long overdue, and if the climate is suitable, I can go even now if you think it is necessary.”

Gradually, Prabhupāda formed a full spring itinerary. “Considering the local climate as presented by you,” he wrote to Kīrtanānanda in New Vrindaban, “I think I shall postpone it until the end of April.” Similarly he promised Brahmānanda and Satsvarūpa to visit New York and Boston in the spring. From Hawaii Govinda dāsī promised the end of the rainy season, the beginning of the mango season, and local interest in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So by late February, Prabhupāda had a scheduled tour of about a dozen places, starting in early March with Hawaii.

During Prabhupāda’s five months in Los Angeles, many devotees had joined. All of them had learned firsthand how, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, everything centered around Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotee, the spiritual master. Having had their spiritual master with them for so long, the thought of his absence was painful. He had taught them everything except how to continue without him. But Prabhupāda assured them that their service to him in separation was even higher service. Just as they wanted him to stay, so he also wanted to stay. But this traveling and preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness throughout the world was his duty to Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī – even at the risk of slackening his writing pace and leaving the ideal Kṛṣṇa conscious setting, where his 108 rose bushes were just beginning to bloom.

Bhavānanda: We all went to the airport to see Prabhupāda off. Prabhupāda was waiting for the plane, and then it was time to leave. He was with his new servants, Puruṣottama and Kartikeya, and we were all chanting and crying. Prabhupāda looked so bright as he walked down that little tunnel. He turned and waved, and then he just turned onto the plane. I was crying. I was thinking, “I’ve been looking for my spiritual master for so long, and now that I’ve finally found him, he’s leaving me. I will never see him again.”

Then the plane was taxiing down the runway. It took off, and we were all looking out the windows of the terminal building until the last speck. Just like when Kṛṣṇa left the gopīs and went to Mathurā, we kept looking until the last speck of the airplane was gone.