CHAPTER SIXTY

September 21, 1968

THE IMMEDIATE REASON Śrīla Prabhupāda went to Seattle was that two of his disciples, Upendra and Gargamuni, had just begun an ISKCON center there and had invited him. For several years, this had been Prabhupāda’s method of spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness in America: he went to a city, stayed, preached, and directed his disciples. He had done so in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Montreal, Los Angeles – all with good success. As he had written in a letter of March 1968, “We want to open hundreds of centers so that people may take up Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And we need many enthusiastic boys and girls for carrying on this great mission of Caitanya Mahāprabhu.”

Prabhupāda’s Guru Mahārāja, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, had not mentioned Seattle or even the United States when he ordered Prabhupāda to preach in the Western countries. But Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu had said the chanting of the Lord’s holy names, Hare Kṛṣṇa, would go to every town and village of the world. The street chanters and Back to Godhead magazine distributors in Los Angeles and San Francisco wanted to try Seattle to test the chanting in the streets of a conservative city. Seattle, the home of Boeing Aircraft Manufacturers, had a population of 560,000, a university, and several good colleges. On Prabhupāda’s order, the devotees went ahead to join the Seattle temple in time for Prabhupāda’s arrival.

While Gargamuni was still desperately trying to find an apartment he could afford, the devotees received Prabhupāda in a hotel room. From Prabhupāda’s room, the window looked out at the six-hundred-foot-tall Space Needle and the monorail – leftovers from the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. The devotees squeezed into the small room as Prabhupāda sat behind a low desk and pulled his harmonium to him. “Should I play?” he asked, smiling. They pleaded, “Yes!” and he began playing, the fingers of his right hand moving deftly across the keyboard, while his left hand pumped the harmonium’s bellows. He sang, gaurāṅga balite habe pulaka-śarīra / hari hari balite nayane babe nīra. Their meeting with him in the room was happy, but the song was not a light thing. The sound poured forth, both from him and from the little harmonium. They were bhajanas, he had explained to them, songs of devotion, this one by Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura: “When will the time come when, while chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, there will be tears in the eyes?” He played, and the expression of his face in singing seemed like crying. The song, he said, meant, “When the mind is completely purified, freed from material anxieties and desires, then I shall be able to understand Vṛndāvana and the love of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa; and then my spiritual life will be successful.”

The first night in town, Prabhupāda was to drive from the hotel to the ISKCON temple, a house rented by the devotees in a quiet suburban neighborhood. A devotee-carpenter, Nara-Nārāyaṇa, had done excellent work with $50 converting the living room into a temple room. Enclosed behind long red satin curtains was an impressive three-tiered altar. The altar was paneled with the same cedar as the walls. The altar’s bottom shelf had a brass incense holder, brass flower vases, two silver double candle holders, a conchshell, and a picture of Lord Viṣṇu. On the middle shelf were a black-and-white close-up of Prabhupāda, a large color poster of Lord Caitanya, and a simple ink drawing of the Pañca-tattva by Prabhupāda’s disciples Gaurasundara and Govinda dāsī. The top shelf held the twelve-inch deities of Lord Jagannātha, Subhadrā and Lord Baladeva, who were clothed in simple golden satin, without jewels or garlands.

Around the room were nicely framed pictures. To the left of the altar was an Indian print of Gopāla with His arm around a calf. Forming a border near the ceiling were several of Gurudāsa’s captivating black-and-white close-ups of Śrīla Prabhupāda on morning walks in San Francisco. On the left wall was a painting of Kṛṣṇa driving Arjuna’s chariot. To the right of the altar was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s vyāsāsana.

The room was small. The devotees had designed a vyāsāsana, three feet high, wedged into the corner so that the room could accommodate many people. The back of the seat was cushioned with deep blue velvet inset with large and decorative golden upholstery buttons. The seat itself was gold velvet, with a gold bolster pillow. A small gold velvet canopy with a fringe hung above the vyāsāsana.

Śrīla Prabhupāda arrived at the temple accompanied by his servant, Kartikeya, and his secretary, Govinda dāsī. Coming up the steps onto the porch, they were greeted at the front door by the welcoming kīrtana of the devotees in the small temple room. As Śrīla Prabhupāda made his way from the door toward his vyāsāsana, all the devotees in the room except for one bowed down. The exception, standing midway between the front door and the vyāsāsana, was a newcomer, a girl named Joy Fulcher, who had only met the devotees that very day. And as Śrīla Prabhupāda passed by her, she also bowed down.

As Śrīla Prabhupāda was taking his seat on the vyāsāsana, while Kartikeya adjusted the microphone and Govinda dāsī adjusted the tape recorder, the devotees sent Joy forward to offer Prabhupāda a garland of red roses and red carnations. Joy had made the garland, stringing the flowers in a symmetrical pattern. But when she placed it around Prabhupāda’s neck, the garland fell asymmetrically. Feeling undone, she turned to go sit down. “Thank you very much,” said Prabhupāda in a soft but deeply resounding voice.

Joy Fulcher: So I sat down and listened to his lecture. But I could not understand his accent. I was struck with the impression that here was a very elderly person who had taken great difficulty to come and speak to us. I could understand there was nothing motivating in it for him. I felt very much that he didn’t want to cheat me. I also had the conception that this person was inconceivably humble, because of his quoting the scriptures, because of his references to his Guru Mahārāja, and because of his general attitude and his soft-spoken voice. I could understand that he was not trying to impress anyone and that he was very humble and dependent on his Guru Mahārāja.

After the lecture, I raised my hand to ask a question. Answering three or four questions first, he finally took my question. I asked him, “Śrī Bhaktivedanta, how is it that this universal presence which is humanly inconceivable, at least to me, at this time …, how can it have the form of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa?” The devotees had preached to me, prior to his arrival, that the Absolute Truth, which I, from my reading in yoga philosophy, impersonally called “universal presence,” was actually Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and His consort, Rādhārāṇī.

Śrīla Prabhupāda very distinctly answered, “By His mercy.” But then he spoke loudly, “You cannot make the sun rise, and similarly you cannot make God appear before you to answer your doubts!”

I was thunderstruck that he chose this particular example, since only four months earlier I had climbed a mountain by myself and sat there all night waiting for dawn, when I would “make the sun rise.” But when dawn came, it was a cloudy day, and so, of course, I did not make the sun rise. The fact that out of all examples Prabhupāda chose that particular thing to answer me hit me like a thunderbolt.

Then His Divine Grace softened his voice, like a rose, and indicating his disciples with a wave of his arm, he said, “But you just associate with these nice boys and girls here, chant this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, eat kṛṣṇa-prasādam, study my books scrutinizingly, and engage yourself in a little service, and then the Lord will reveal Himself to you from within your heart, in His own time, by His own sweet will, with all His name, fame, form, pastimes, paraphernalia, and entourage.”

Within a few days, Gargamuni found an inexpensive two-room apartment for Prabhupāda. Gargamuni, who was accustomed to the Lower East Side of New York City, thought this Seattle apartment a good bargain. By New York slum standards it wasn’t bad, but there were much better places in Seattle.

When Prabhupāda entered with the devotees, it became obvious to everyone that the apartment was a disaster. Prabhupāda went to the windows and looked out – at the brick wall of the building six feet away. Because of this building, no sunlight could enter the room. Prabhupāda looked below at the dark, dingy alley littered with garbage. The curtains in the room reached only half way down the wall, the tiles were peeling in the bathroom, nothing was clean, and there was no bed. Anyone staying with Prabhupāda would have to walk through his room to reach the bathroom. Only when Prabhupāda entered, with his bright, transcendental presence, could his disciples fully understand that the apartment was not at all suitable. Prabhupāda, however, didn’t complain. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. And taking his cādara and placing it on the floor, he sat down.

Although the neighborhood was noisy, Prabhupāda was tolerant. But he admitted, “This place is not nice.” And then, looking up at the devotees in the dingy room, he asked, “Why have you put me in this dungeon?” Struck at heart by these words, the devotees knew they had to find a better place, and several of them went out to search.

Why had they put him in a dungeon? Jayānanda, Nara-Nārāyaṇa, and Govinda dāsī got into the van and drove off, vowing not to return until they found a place Prabhupāda would like. They moved toward the Capitol Hill area and finally found a “For Rent” sign on the lawn of a nice house situated near a lake. Although it was a basement apartment, the many ground-level windows made the rooms bright and sunny. Jayānanda and Govinda dāsī talked to the landlord, and Prabhupāda moved in the next day.

He liked the tulips lining his windows and the view down the sloping green lawn to the shore of the lake. He liked walking in the backyard, from where he could see boats passing. “That other place,” he chuckled, “was like being in the womb of the mother, and this place is like coming out into the world and seeing the light.” The apartment was well furnished, and Prabhupāda put his Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities on a dresser before the mirror, which made a nice backdrop.

Early every morning Prabhupāda would go on a walk, usually to Volunteer Park, where he walked by the reservoir. The path around the reservoir’s perimeter was several miles long, and although some of the young men would become exhausted from the walk, Prabhupāda enjoyed it. One morning, while Jayānanda was walking with Prabhupāda, they approached a man who had just pulled a fish out of the water. The fisherman held up his catch, dangling it as if offering it to Prabhupāda. “Anyone for a fish dinner?” the man asked cheerily. Prabhupāda smiled, “No, you enjoy.” Prabhupāda kept walking until he was past the man and then added, “And suffer.”

They also walked in an area filled with many rose bushes and many birds. Peacocks roamed freely. It is written in the śāstras that wherever a saintly person goes becomes a tīrtha, or a place of pilgrimage. In India are many tīrthas, most of which are places where the Supreme Personality of Godhead or His great devotees enacted some līlā. There are no such tīrthas, however, in America. But after Prabhupāda’s preaching – beginning in New York City in places like 26 Second Avenue and Tompkins Square Park, and later in Golden Gate Park, at Stowe Lake, Venice Beach, or Volunteer Park – then even these American places became, for Prabhupāda’s followers, significant, never-to-be-forgotten sites.

Prabhupāda took advantage of the presence of the traveling saṅkīrtana party in Seattle. He told Tamāla Kṛṣṇa he wanted to organize a world saṅkīrtana party, with twelve men, twelve women, and himself going all over the world. But for the present, the devotees went out daily in the downtown city. In Seattle, citizens were astounded to see young Americans with shaven heads, saffron robes, women in sārīs, playing cymbals and singing “Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare.” The devotees would chant Hare Kṛṣṇa for hours, give out cards with the mahā-mantra printed on them, and sometimes bring people back to the temple. As a result, attendance was good at Prabhupāda’s evening lectures. With the devotees chanting on the streets during the day and Prabhupāda speaking at night, the city was quickly becoming spiritualized. Therefore, each evening the small cedarwood-paneled temple room of Lord Jagannātha was filled with considerable transcendental excitement. For Prabhupāda, it was very encouraging to lecture to a hall crowded with both disciples and guests.

After the evening kīrtana, everyone would sit down on the floor, and some people would even stand outside the house, looking in and listening at the windows. Prabhupāda invariably began by chanting, in a strong, simple melody, the refrain govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi. And everyone would repeat in chorus, govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi. He would chant it half a dozen times and then begin his lecture.

Prabhupāda’s Teachings of Lord Caitanya had recently been published, and he often lectured by having a devotee read out loud. Prabhupāda would listen, and whenever he felt moved to, he would interrupt and begin speaking. “This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement,” Prabhupāda explained, “has to be understood through the teachings of Lord Caitanya. He appeared in Bengal, a province in India, five hundred years ago. And He specifically preached the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. To execute that order we have come to your country. My request is that you try to understand this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement with all your knowledge, scrutinizingly. Don’t accept it blindly. We have this book Teachings of Lord Caitanya, and other books also, many books. So try to read them. And we have our magazine Back to Godhead. We are not sentimentalists that we are simply dancing. Dancing has got great value. That, if you dance with us, you will feel. It is not that some crazy fellows are dancing. The most intelligent persons are dancing, and yet it is so nicely made that even a boy like here, he is a boy, he can take part.”

Prabhupāda emphasized that Kṛṣṇa consciousness was universal. It was full of sound philosophy, and yet it was very simple. The simple message was, “God is great, and we are His part and parcel.” And to prove it, he gave simple examples: The hand is part of the body and has great value when working as part of the whole. A small screw in the typewriting machine is very valuable as long as it is working as part of the machine; otherwise it is useless. Similarly, unless the individual spirit soul engages in devotional service to Kṛṣṇa, he is incomplete.

Prabhupāda spoke some basic Kṛṣṇa consciousness for about a half-hour and then asked for questions. Always at least a few hands raised. He recognized the outsiders first. It was not unusual in those days to find young people, college students and hippies, asking cosmic questions, dabbling in yoga and Eastern philosophy. Often, however, they had many different things on their minds, including drugs, and were frequently confused. But Prabhupāda, experienced with over three years of constant preaching to young Americans, had already heard almost anything they could possibly ask.

Young man: “Is there a communication that is not the word itself but beyond words, perhaps a vibration reaching for the oṁ? I mean, does one attain a communication, something understood between you and myself and my brother, an experience like the sound dong or aung? Is there something else beyond the verbal?”

“Yes,” Prabhupāda replied, “this Hare Kṛṣṇa.”

Man: “Hare Kṛṣṇa?”

Prabhupāda: “Yes.”

Man: “But can you tell me how this can be? How to talk that language all the time rather than English or other languages?”

Prabhupāda: “It doesn’t matter that Hare Kṛṣṇa can be sounded in Sanskrit only. You can sound it in English tone also, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Is there any difficulty? These boys are also sounding Hare Kṛṣṇa. Just like the piano. If you touch, there is dung. It doesn’t matter whether an American is striking or an Indian striking or a Hindu striking or a Muslim striking, the sound is sound. Similarly, this piano, Hare Kṛṣṇa, you just touch it and it will sound. That’s all.”

Someone asked about meditation.

Prabhupāda asked, “What do you mean by meditation?”

“Sitting alone quietly.”

“How is it possible?” Prabhupāda asked. “Is there any experience that the mind is not acting when you sit silently? You have to engage your mind in something.”

“What do you engage it in?”

“Yes,” Prabhupāda replied. “That is Kṛṣṇa. We engage our mind in Kṛṣṇa, the beautiful Supreme Personality of Godhead. Not only simply engaging the mind, but engaging the mind in action with the senses. Because mind is acting with our senses. Your mind said, ‘Let us go to that newly started ISKCON society.’ So your legs carried you here. So mind – thinking, feeling, willing – these are the functions of the mind. You have to fix up your mind not only thinking of Kṛṣṇa, but also working for Kṛṣṇa, feeling for Kṛṣṇa. That is complete meditation.”

Someone asked if a Christian, by reading the Bible and following Jesus’s words, required a spiritual master. As soon as you read the Bible, Prabhupāda replied, that means you are following the instructions of Lord Jesus Christ, so where is the opportunity of being without a spiritual master?

“I was referring to a living spiritual master.”

Prabhupāda: “You may accept this spiritual master or that spiritual master. That is a different thing. But you have to accept. When you read the Bible, that means you are following the spiritual master represented by some priest or clergyman in the line of Lord Jesus Christ. So, in any case, you have to follow a spiritual master. There is no question of being without a spiritual master. Is that clear?”

“Many different sects of Christianity interpret the Bible in different ways.”

Prabhupāda: “There cannot be any interpretation in the Bible; then there is no authority. Just like this is a watch. Everyone has called it a watch, and if I call it a spectacle, then what is the value of my being spiritual master? I’m misleading. It is a watch, and that I must say. This intelligence you must have – who is a pseudo spiritual master and a real spiritual master. Otherwise, you’ll be cheated, and that is being done. Everyone is interpreting in his own way.

“There are thousands of editions of the Bhagavad-gītā, and they have tried to interpret it in their own way – all nonsense. They should all be thrown away. Simply you have to read the Bhagavad-gītā as it is, then you’ll understand. If anyone can understand the clear passage, just like the Bible, ‘God said, “Let there be creation,” and there was creation.’ What is the question of interpretation? Yes, God created. You cannot create. Where is opportunity of interpretation?

“Am I right, in the beginning of the Bible it is said like that: ‘God said, “Let there be creation,” and there was creation.’ So what is your interpretation? Tell me what is your interpretation. Can any one of you suggest? One can explain; that is a different thing. But the fact that God created, that will remain; that we cannot change.

“Now how the creative process took place, that is explained in the Bhāgavatam. First of all there was sky, then there was sound, then there was this, that. But the primary fact that God created, that will remain in any circumstance. Not the rascal scientist who says, ‘Oh, there was a chunk, and it split up, and there was this planet. Perhaps this and likely this,’ all this nonsense. Why ‘perhaps’? Here is clear statement: God created. That’s all. Finished.”

Another guest said he didn’t feel subordinate to anyone, therefore he didn’t feel he had to bow down to anyone. Indirectly, he was criticizing the devotees’ offering of obeisances to Prabhupāda. It is a material disease, Prabhupāda replied, to think that we don’t have to bow down. He demonstrated logically that nature forces each of us to be subordinate, “to bow down” to old age, disease, death, and many other things.

Guest: “O.K. But who or what should I bow down to?”

Prabhupāda: “Since you are being forced to bow down, now you have to find where you shall be happy even by bowing down. And that is Kṛṣṇa. Your bowing down will not be stopped, because you are meant for that; but if you bow down to Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa’s representative, then you become happy.”

The disciples were submissive, and therefore only to them could the spiritual master impart knowledge of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But some of them were also doubtful, and Prabhupāda had to convince them with the same logical arguments he used with the outsiders.

Devotee: “Prabhupāda? How do you logically explain to impersonalists the existence of the Personality of Godhead?”

Prabhupāda began to explain the three features of the Absolute and compared them to the three features of the sun, namely the sunshine, the sun disk, and the sun-god. Using the well-known example, he thoroughly explained the existence of the Supreme Person as the source of all expansions, including the impersonal Brahman.

“But [the devotee was not yet satisfied] how does one explain to such an impersonalist the Absolute Truth logically. I was told Śrīla Bhaktivinoda had such a proof.”

Prabhupāda: “Apart from Bhaktivinoda, try to understand in your common sense.” Painstakingly, Prabhupāda explained again, this time at greater length. He quoted the Vedānta-sūtra verse janmādy asya yataḥ, explaining how everything in existence comes from the Supreme Absolute. Therefore, as we are persons, there must be a Supreme Person, the reservoir of all personality, from whom everything comes. As we experience that our father is a person, therefore we are persons.

Often Prabhupāda was simply saying there is God and one should love God. But one student protested why love of God should come in the form of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Student: “If our first concern should be to serve God, or Kṛṣṇa, then why should there be a movement? You might get so caught up in the movement that you’re forgetting about serving God.”

Prabhupāda: “Why am I serving God? This movement means I am serving God. What do you mean by ‘serving’? If Kṛṣṇa says, ‘You obey Me,’ and if I say, ‘You obey Kṛṣṇa,’ is this not service?”

Student: “Yes.”

Prabhupāda: “So we are doing the same business. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Surrender to Me and give up all other engagement, and I shall give you protection.’ And we are saying the same thing, that you surrender to Kṛṣṇa and you’ll be happy. So we are voluntarily giving service to Kṛṣṇa. Preaching work is the best service, if you preach rightly. If you preach wrongly, that is disservice. You have to simply say the same thing as Kṛṣṇa.”

Student: “But the movement might get in the way of serving Kṛṣṇa.”

Prabhupāda: “It is service to Kṛṣṇa. Because we have understood what Kṛṣṇa wants, we are preaching the same thing.”

Student: “Was there always a kind of movement?”

Prabhupāda: “Yes, the movement is always there. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, ‘My dear Arjuna, whenever people are misguided and there is too much irreligiosity, at that time I appear Myself.’ The material world is such that, if something is set right, still some time it will be distorted. Therefore a movement is required whenever there is deterioration of the real truth. But it is the same movement, not a new movement. The movement means God is there, He is great, and we are all subordinate. Our duty is to abide by the order of God, then we are happy. The movement is simple. The same movement was preached by Lord Kṛṣṇa. The same movement was preached by Lord Jesus Christ. The same movement we are also preaching. Simply accepting the authority or the greatness of the Supreme Lord and engaging oneself, that’s all. There is nothing new. Don’t try to see something new. It is the oldest because God is the oldest, you are also the oldest, and your relationship is also the oldest. Therefore the movement is also the oldest. But the process adopted is suitable for this time. That is also not new, not manufactured. It is recommended for this age. Just like during the winter season, the process is to protect your body from being affected by cold. Similarly in this age, Kali-yuga, it is recommended that God realization is only possible by this chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa.”

Many of the youngsters would try to catch Prabhupāda in contradictions. One boy noted Prabhupāda’s statement that it was natural for a child to drink milk and not eat the meat of an animal. The boy argued that if Prabhupāda’s emphasis was on being natural, then is it natural for a child to grow up, shave his head, and serve God, or was that just another form of socialization? Another challenger asked why the International Society for Krishna Consciousness was “incorporated.” Another asked if the sādhus in India who wore long hair and wandered in the woods needed spiritual masters.

The questions revealed the guests’ uneasiness. Prabhupāda was demanding a full commitment to the truth. They could understand that if they accepted that he was presenting the truth, then they, too, like the bright-faced disciples sitting beside them in the crowded temple room, should bow down to Prabhupāda and Lord Jagannātha, join “the movement,” shave their heads, and go out chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. At least that was the implication. So those who deeply wanted to avoid the austerity, the surrender, the uprooting of a whole lifetime of illusion, sought out the flaws, the possible contradictions. But kind and lenient though he was, Prabhupāda – never demanding that they shave their heads or live in the temple – continued to defeat their doubting arguments, expose the weakness of their atheistic reasoning, and smash the folly of their material desires. He ruled forth as Kṛṣṇa’s representative, speaking from the blue and gold velvet vyāsāsana in the front room of the Seattle house.

Woman: “I wish to see proofs of afterlife, in writing, so that I can read it and study it and examine it carefully. Is it available in writing?”

Prabhupāda: “Read Bhagavad-gītā. You’ll understand everything.”

Woman: “That’s sixty-eight volumes?”

Prabhupāda: “No, Bhagavad-gītā is one volume only. Eighteen chapters, seven hundred verses. You can read it in three days. It is not very difficult. We have published Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, and I think if you read it, you will get so many nice informations. After reading Bhagavad-gītā, you read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Then you get further enlightenment. Then you read Teachings of Lord Caitanya, and you get further enlightenment. And for general information, we have this Back to Godhead you can read. It is not that simply we are talking. We are backed by sufficient knowledge and literature.”

And so it went into the evening, nine o’clock turned to ten o’clock and ten o’clock to ten-thirty.

Is bhakti-yoga for everyone? What about kuṇḍalinī-yoga? Why did Kṛṣṇa ask Arjuna to fight? What about Christ consciousness? What about the Trinity? Prabhupāda was completely absorbed in defeating arguments and answering questions about Kṛṣṇa – a samādhi of debate on behalf of his Lord Kṛṣṇa. Yes, he did expect them, if they were gentlemen, to accept his presentation as correct and to make a real commitment to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. “So here is the offering,” Prabhupāda said. “Take Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Now it is your choice. If you can take it, it is good. If you don’t take it, that is your misfortune. Is there any difficulty to accept our formula? I ask all of you, is there any difficulty? I am asking this. You have asked so many questions of me. Is there any difficulty to accept this formula?”

The assembled guests and devotees murmured in reply, “No.”

“So why don’t you take it?” Prabhupāda laughed. “It is so simple, nice. Try to understand by your knowledge. We are not pushing forcibly. You have got your intelligence, argument, logic, everything. But you’ll find it sublime. The author of Caitanya-caritāmṛta says that we are placing it for your judgment, not that we are pushing it by force. Sometimes it is said that the Mohammedans propagated their religion by holding a sword in one hand and the Koran in another hand: Either you accept Koran, or there is sword for you. Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not like that. It is placed for your judgment. And if you like, you can accept. Otherwise, I came here empty-handed, I shall go back empty-handed. There is no loss, no gain.”

Prabhupāda laughed with the satisfaction of the completely surrendered servant. Then he asked them all to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: At that point, I could recognize that Prabhupāda was my complete lord and master. Whenever he would get up from the vyāsāsana I would just grip his feet and hold them and hold them. I would hold his feet at my head, and I wouldn’t let him walk at all. I was so eager to be at Prabhupāda’s lotus feet. I wanted to be with him as much as I could. I would feel very torn apart when he would go to another temple. I remember sometimes after the program, he would finish eating a piece of fruit and would throw the peel on the floor. We would all jump for it and fight with each other in front of the altar and Prabhupāda. We would be scrapping around like little puppies. Prabhupāda would lean back and laugh. He thought we were making very nice advancement by this.

After the TV showing, there was a brief fame. When Prabhupāda came to the lecture the next night, the temple room was filled with about fifty extra guests, young men and women. Prabhupāda seemed pleased, but actually they were all one group, a fun-seeking fraternity house with their dates. They managed to stay through the kīrtana, but as soon as Prabhupāda began to speak, they all got up and left, leaving the devotees and the usual number of about a dozen interested guests.

The devotees were also going to the university, and among the students was considerable interest, at least casually. A representative of a student newspaper came and talked at length with Prabhupāda.

When two men came to Prabhupāda’s apartment and presented themselves as reporters, Prabhupāda’s secretary allowed them in, thinking they also wanted an interview. But their interview became an interrogation. They challenged Prabhupāda as to why he was not teaching that Jesus Christ was the only way to God. They were angry that Prabhupāda was preaching on the campuses. When Prabhupāda informed them that he accepted Jesus Christ as the son of God, they demanded, “But do you believe or not that Jesus is the only way?”

Prabhupāda replied, “Do you believe that God is limited or unlimited?”

“Unlimited,” they admitted.

“Then why are you limiting Him,” said Prabhupāda, “by saying that there is only one way to get to Him? Even an ordinary man can have twenty sons. Do you mean to say that God can have only one son? Why are you limiting Him?”

Within a few minutes, the men were speaking to Prabhupāda in loud voices. It became obvious they were not reporters, and they told him they were, in fact, local ministers. When they became blasphemous, the devotees asked them to leave the house. Prabhupāda wrote in a letter to a disciple in New York,

Before Prabhupāda’s arrival in Seattle, Upendra had written the head of the Asian department at the University of Washington, requesting a speaking engagement. The professor wrote back entirely in Sanskrit, knowing well that the boys would not be able to read his letter. Upendra gave the letter to Prabhupāda, who immediately translated it and answered the professor with a letter written in English, but quoting many Sanskrit verses. Prabhupāda concluded his letter, “I am sorry that we cannot reply in Sanskrit. Our process is not academic, but purely spiritual.” Prabhupāda had Upendra sign the letter as if he had written it himself.

Prabhupāda went out himself to speak in several colleges. At the University of Washington, he had Tamāla Kṛṣṇa give an introductory talk. Speaking directly what he had heard from Prabhupāda, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa spoke boldly about “so-called holy men or swamis who are cheating the public.” He took considerable care to demonstrate that “our spiritual master” is in complete agreement with Lord Jesus and the Bible. The Bible is bona fide, he said, but like a pocket dictionary compared to the unabridged.

“There is a need to hear a person like our spiritual master, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, speak,” said Tamāla Kṛṣṇa. He then read an article from the New York Daily News, headlined “Retreat for Priests Who Drink,” featuring a sanatorium that had been opened for some of the five thousand alcoholic priests in the United States. “I’m not saying that all priests are like this,” he said. “That’s not at all what I’m trying to get at. But the article goes on to say that alcoholism is not treated as a moral failure, but as a disease. But that’s absurd. It is a moral failure. These priests have the choice to drink or not to drink. They chose to drink and get drunk. These are men who are leading us back to God.

“The point is, you must have someone who is pure. To teach about God requires a moral qualification. Our spiritual master spends a hundred percent of his time in praise of the Supreme Lord. We ask you today, please listen closely and just try to understand his teachings. Just listen and test with your reasoning ability and your intellect to see whether this is not the bona fide way to the Absolute Truth. Now let His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda speak.”

Prabhupāda listened from the orange cloth-covered dais where he sat in the auditorium. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had stood and spoken, and now he joined the other saffron-robed men and the women in sārīs who sat at Prabhupāda’s feet. His voice echoing with amplification in the large hall, Prabhupāda spoke to an audience of over a hundred. He quoted the verse oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya, explaining that everyone in the material world is in darkness, and the spiritual master is he who opens our eyes with the torch of knowledge. If human society does not have the urge to come to the light by searching after God, then mankind is no better than the animals.

To illustrate the point that human society is in a precarious condition for lack of God consciousness, Prabhupāda told “a very nice story.”

“One rat,” he said, “was troubled with a cat, so he came to a saintly person.

“ ‘My dear sir, I am very much troubled.’

“ ‘What is the difficulty?’

“The rat said, ‘The cat always chases, so I am not in peace of mind.’

“ ‘Then what do you want?’

“ ‘Please make me a cat.’

“ ‘All right, you become a cat.’ But after a few days, the cat returned to the saintly person and complained that he was being chased by the dogs. The saintly person gave him the benediction, ‘All right, become a dog.’ Then the foxes chased the dog. The saintly person blessed him again, ‘All right, become a fox.’ Then the tigers chased him. The saintly person turned him into a tiger.

“And when he became a tiger,” Prabhupāda continued, “he began to stare his eyes on the saintly person, ‘I shall eat you.’

“ ‘Oh! You shall eat me? I have made you tiger, and you want to eat me?’

“ ‘Yes, I am a tiger and I shall eat you.’

“ ‘Oh,’ then the saintly person cursed him, ‘again you become a rat. Again you become a rat.’ So he became a rat.

“So our human civilization is going to be like that. The other day I was reading in your world almanac. In the next hundred years, people will live underground like rats. So our scientific advancement has created this atomic bomb to kill man, and it will be used. And we have to go underground to become again rat. From tiger again rat. That is going to be. That is nature’s law: daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā. If you defy the laws of your state, then you are put into difficulty. Similarly, if you continue to defy the authority, the supremacy of the Supreme Lord, Personality of Godhead, then the same result – again you become rat. As soon as there is atomic bomb, everything, all civilization on the surface of the globe, will be finished. So people may not like it. It may be very unpalatable, but the fact is like that.”

Prabhupāda explained that the God consciousness he was advocating was not a particular rigid religion like Christian or Hindu or Muslim, but it was universal. He explained the word dharma as one’s characteristic, that which cannot be taken away. The unalterable characteristic of the living entity, he said, is the tendency to love and do service, and that is our eternal religion.

“So I do not wish to take much of your time,” Prabhupāda concluded after no more than ten minutes, “but simply I want to impress upon you that this chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa is so nice that if you give an experimental way, you can see. You chant for at least one week, and you see how much you have changed. So these boys, they are chanting in the street. We have got many branches in your country, one in London, one in Germany, and everyone is taking part. It is increasing. So we don’t charge anything, neither you have got any loss. If there is any profit, you can try it, but there is not loss. That is guaranteed. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Thank you very much.”

“Excuse me,” she began, “I have to speak to you.”

“Please wait,” said Prabhupāda.

“Why are you sitting on a raised seat?” she exclaimed. “You are sitting up there, and all these people are sitting here, and you’re like you’re on a throne.” Devotees tried politely to check her, but she wanted to be heard. Prabhupāda was silent.

“Why does everyone bow to you?” she demanded. “Don’t you know God is everywhere? Everyone is God.”

“That’s all right,” said Prabhupāda. “Let us chant.” Her argument was drowned out by a rousing kīrtana celebrating the completion of the initiation ceremony. When the kīrtana ended, Prabhupāda was still thinking of the disruptive guest.

Prabhupāda: “Where is that girl? She is gone?”

Viṣṇujana: “I think Madhudviṣa explained to her. She didn’t know about the bowing down and everything.”

Prabhupāda: “What was her question?”

Viṣṇujana: “She was thinking that we were bowing to you as if you were God. She resents this because in the Christian religion it says, ‘Bow down to no man.’ ”

“What did you explain?” Prabhupāda laughed. “Did you not explain that we are bowing down not as God but as God’s representative? Could you not explain like this?”

“She’s over there, I think,” said Madhudviṣa, “if you’d like to talk to her.” But the yoginī had left the room and was now out front talking with the new girl, Joy, who had been living with Prabhupāda’s disciples since his first night in Seattle. The yoginī was trying to revive Joy’s old interest in impersonal yoga and was criticizing Prabhupāda. Although Joy had cried when Prabhupāda was blasphemed, she became confused hearing the yoginī speak impersonal, antidevotional philosophy.

Then as Prabhupāda was leaving the temple to get into his car, the yoginī obstructed his path and continued her blasphemy.

“No one should bow down,” she railed, “because everyone is God.”

Prabhupāda became angry, a fiery look in his wide eyes. Suddenly Joy Fulcher came forward and threw herself on the ground before Prabhupāda, placing her hand on his foot. She had been confused about whom to accept, but now felt compelled to surrender to Prabhupāda. He allowed her to keep her hand on his foot while the yoginī gradually subsided before Prabhupāda’s angry silence and let him pass. Getting into the van, Prabhupāda bumped his head on the inside of the roof. The devotees were furious and blamed the blasphemous girl for what happened. As the van drove away, Prabhupāda turned to Nara-Nārāyaṇa, who was driving. “That girl said everyone is God. But she objected that they were bowing down to me. But if everyone is God, am I not also God?”

Jāhnavā dāsī (Joy Fulcher): Prabhupāda asked, “What kind of girl is it who sees every man as God?” He was referring to the troublesome girl who had blasphemed at the initiation. I didn’t understand him, so he repeated the question, then a third time, and added, “She’s a prostitute, isn’t she?!” Fortunately, Govinda dāsī walked in at that moment and was able to tell me later what his question had been. At the time, all I knew was that I accepted His Divine Grace as spiritual master and that the answer to his question (no matter what it was) was “Yes.” So I answered, “Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda.” And he was pleased. Then he warned, “Don’t associate with nondevotees.”

I wanted him to know that I accepted him without doubt as my spiritual master. Very sentimentally, I said, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, I have always had trouble with my material father and mother, but now I can understand that you are my real father.” His Divine Grace mercifully matched my tone and gently said, “Everyone has a material father and mother, but you have a spiritual father. You are very fortunate.”

I was crazy and had trouble seeing him because he appeared very effulgent, so I was wiping my eyes with my hands. Also I couldn’t understand his accent, so I kept wiping my ears with my hands. His Divine Grace took compassion on my struggle to be Kṛṣṇa conscious. He then penetrated my impersonalism with a beautiful description of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s form. As I sat facing him, he was looking past me, over my shoulder. His Divine Grace said, “Just see how beautifully Lord Kṛṣṇa’s hair is resting on His shoulders. Just see how His eyes are beautiful, like two lotus petals. Just see how nicely Lord Kṛṣṇa has wrapped His shawl about His thighs. Just see how nicely He has put on His dhotī.” He also mentioned the Lord’s lotus feet. I don’t know whether he was looking at a Deity or a picture of Kṛṣṇa or whether Lord Kṛṣṇa was standing there, as he looked up and down, describing His form. All I knew was that if I turned around I would see a painting or brass or air. So I decided just to look at His Divine Grace and hear him describe Lord Kṛṣṇa as he saw Him.

After I left the room, Govinda dāsī asked what His Divine Grace had said about painting. She couldn’t believe it when I told her we didn’t discuss painting for the whole hour. (Knowing that the spiritual master knows everything, I had waited for him to bring up the subject and give me that service.) She brought me back and explained to him the purpose for which I had come. He asked my artistic background and was unimpressed when I rattled it off, because I was proud. Then he ordered me to paint the Pañca-tattva.

Not only new recruits but older devotees were being drawn closer to Prabhupāda by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa. In the Sanskrit scriptures, the word upanīti means “coming closer to the spiritual master for the purpose of receiving more confidential instructions in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” Prabhupāda also took the opportunity of any meeting with his disciples to try to bring them closer to the Lord.

Nara-Nārāyaṇa: One of the most deeply impressive things that happened to me was the very first time I sat alone with Śrīla Prabhupāda. I had been with Śrīla Prabhupāda in San Francisco before in his room, but there were other people there, and I was a newcomer. But then I sat alone with Śrīla Prabhupāda, and I was terribly fearful because I didn’t know what to do, what to say. I was a little spaced out from all my karmic activities and was totally tense, like I was going to explode like a jack-in-the-box, because I didn’t know what to do. I watched Śrīla Prabhupāda opening letters. He opened the envelope all the way out and saved it and used it later to write on in order to save paper. He showed me some letter from somewhere and asked my opinion. Then he asked me to get something from his cabinet, and I did.

His room was surrounded by windows, with light shining in from a very nice angle because of the way it was a little subterranean. The table was very low, just like a coffee table, and he was sitting behind it. I happened to be in the back against the wall, and he asked me to get something from one of his cabinets which was also behind there. So he and I both ended up behind his low table. He was standing and I was crouching. When I stood up, Śrīla Prabhupāda, out of the blue, began to talk to me. I was just so flabbergasted. Anytime he spoke to me, I became so disconcerted that I could hardly hear what he was saying. He pointed to the table.

He said, “You see this little ant?” I looked at the table and no ant was there. Prabhupāda was pointing his finger. He said, “Do you see that little ant?” I said, “Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda.” He said, “We should think that our goal should be how to make this ant Kṛṣṇa conscious.” I was just sort of blown away by what he said. He said, “We should go to this ant and we should lean down,” and Prabhupāda leaned down to the invisible ant on the table where he propped his forefinger and thumb together, poking toward the ant. “You should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.” And he said, “We should give a little prasādam. If we do that,” he said, “our whole movement will be a success.” I was completely impressed by the statement because I understood even though Śrīla Prabhupāda always had big schemes for a big world ISKCON, yet his heart was always lined with these small items, and this was so wonderful. If one person hears Hare Kṛṣṇa, then it is worth the whole effort.

Love for Śrīla Prabhupāda was also brought out by the prospect of separation from him. Govinda dāsī and her husband had been Prabhupāda’s secretaries for a year. They had been with him wherever he went – from the West Coast, to Boston, to Montreal, to Santa Fe. They were always with him, like a part of his intimate family, and they had become very attached to being with him. But in his desire to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, Prabhupāda sent Govinda dāsī’s husband, Gaurasundara, to Hawaii before coming to Seattle, to open an ISKCON center there. In Seattle Prabhupāda asked Govinda dāsī to join her husband.

Govinda dāsī: If Prabhupāda said, “Very nice,” your life was perfect – whether he said it for your cooking capātīs or peanuts, or doing a drawing, or a kīrtana, or anything. If he said, “Very nice,” and smiled and nodded his head, then your life’s ambition was achieved, for that moment anyway. Getting him to smile, seeing him happy, was the goal of life, and you didn’t really remember things like liberation. It was almost as if the idea of going to a heavenly planet or even Kṛṣṇaloka became distant.

But at this time I knew that I was going to have to leave Śrīla Prabhupāda soon. I was so very, very attached to him that I would wake up in the middle of the night crying. Almost every night I would invariably be crying in my dreams or in my sleep because of having to leave him soon, and I didn’t want to. It was a very painful time.

Afterwards, Prabhupāda said, “I have just received one telegram from India. The person who gave me sannyāsa has left his body.” Prabhupāda continued to explain.

“One has to accept the renounced order of life from another person who is in the renounced order,” he said. “I never thought that I shall accept the renounced order of life. In my family life, when I was in the midst of my wife and children, sometimes I was dreaming that my spiritual master was calling me and I was following him. When my dream was over, I was thinking I was a little horrified. ‘Oh, Guru Mahārāja wants me to become sannyāsī. How can I accept sannyāsa?’ At that time I was feeling not very much satisfaction that I have to give up my family and become a mendicant. At that time it was a horrible thing. Sometimes I was thinking, ‘No, I cannot take sannyāsa.’ But again I saw the same dream. So in this way, I was fortunate. My Guru Mahārāja” – here Prabhupāda’s voice choked, and he became overwhelmed with emotion, “he pulled me out from this material life.” For moments Prabhupāda could not speak. Everyone present saw tears pour from his eyes, and then he spoke further. Although the occasion was the passing away of the person who awarded him sannyāsa, Prabhupāda was now speaking more of how his own spiritual master, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, had called him and saved him and made him take sannyāsa through his sannyāsa-guru.

“I have not lost anything,” Prabhupāda said. “He was so kind upon me. I have gained. I left three children; I have now got three hundred children, so I am not loser. This is material conception. We think that we shall be loser by accepting Kṛṣṇa. Nobody is loser. I say from my practical experience. I was thinking that, How can I accept this renounced order of life? I cannot accept so much trouble. But I retired from my family life. I was sitting alone in Vṛndāvana, writing books. So this, my Godbrother, he insisted me, ‘Bhaktivedanta Prabhu.’ This title was given in my family life. It was offered to me by the Vaiṣṇava society. So he insisted. Not he insisted – practically my spiritual master insisted me through him, that you accept. Because without accepting the renounced order of life, nobody can become a preacher. So he wanted me to become a preacher. So he forced me through this Godbrother – ‘You accept.’ So unwillingly I accepted. And then I remembered that he wanted me to go to the Western country.

“So I am feeling now very obliged to my, this Godbrother, that he carried out the wish of my spiritual master and forced me to accept this sannyāsa order. So this Godbrother, His Holiness Keśava Mahārāja, is no more. He has entered Kṛṣṇa’s abode. So I wish to pass a resolution of bereavement and send that. And I have composed one verse also in this connection in Sanskrit. So you all present, you sign this. I shall send it tomorrow.

“The verse I have composed, it is in Sanskrit. Vairāgya-vidyā-nija-bhakti-yoga. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness is vairāgya-vidyā. Vairāgya-vidyā means to become detestful to this material world. That is called vairāgya-vidyā. And that is possible simply by this bhakti-yoga. Vairāgya-vidyā nija-bhakti-yogam apāyayāṁ mām. This is just like medicine. The child is afraid of taking medicine. That also I have experience. In my childhood, when I became ill I was very stubborn: ‘I won’t accept any medicine.’ So my mother used to force medicine within my mouth with a spoon, I was so obstinate. So anyway, similarly I did not want to accept the sannyāsa order, but this Godbrother forced me, ‘You must.’ Apāyayām – he forcefully made me to drink this medicine. Anaviṣyum andham. Why I was unwilling? Anaviṣyum means unwilling. Andham means one who is blind, who cannot see his future. This spiritual life is the brightest future, but the materialist cannot see to it. But the Vaiṣṇavas, the spiritual master, they forcefully, ‘You drink this medicine.’ You see – apāyayāṁ mām anaviṣyum andhaṁ śrī-keśava-bhakti-prajñānam.

“So this my Godbrother, his name is Keśava, Bhaktiprajña Keśava. Kṛpāmbudhi. So he did this favor upon me because he was an ocean of mercy. So we offer our obeisances to Vaiṣṇava kṛpāmbudhi. Vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca. The Vaiṣṇavas, the representatives of the Lord, they are so kind. They bring the ocean of mercy for distributing to the suffering humanity. Kṛpāmbudhir yas tam ahaṁ prapadye.

“So I am offering my respectful obeisances unto this, His Holiness, because he forcibly made me adopt the sannyāsa order. So he is no more in this world, he has entered Kṛṣṇa’s abode. So I am offering my respectful obeisances along with my disciples. On the first day of my sannyāsa I never thought … But I remembered that I’ll have to speak in English. I remember on that sannyāsa day when there was a reception. So I first of all spoke in English. So it is all arrangement of Kṛṣṇa, higher authority.

“We are writing like this: ‘Resolved that we the undersigned members and devotees of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness Incorporated, in a meeting under the Presidency of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, today the 2lst of October, 1968, at our Seattle branch, express our profound bereavement on hearing the passing away of His Divine Grace Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktiprajñāna Keśava Goswami Mahārāja, the sannyāsa guru, preceptor, of our spiritual master. And on October 6th, 1968, at his headquarter residence in Navadvīpa, West Bengal. We offer our respectful obeisances at the lotus feet of Śrī Śrīmad B. P. Keśava Goswami Mahārāja with the following verse composed on this occasion by our spiritual master.’ This verse I have already explained to you. So I wish that you all sign this, and I’ll send it tomorrow by airmail. You have got pencil?”

Prabhupāda first signed his own name and then gave the letter to Kartikeya to take to each devotee in the room. One by one, they placed the paper on the floor and signed it. The devotee carrying the paper was about to pass by several guests, but Prabhupāda said, “No, no. Everyone here is present, and so they are all a witness.” The last one to sign was Prabhupāda’s servant, Kartikeya. Kartikeya put the paper on the floor and slowly signed his name, while Śrīla Prabhupāda leaned forward on the vyāsāsana, watching very intently.

Govinda dāsī made Prabhupāda his favorite food, kacaurīs, to take on the plane. Prabhupāda had taught her how to cook them. One of the secrets was to put the kacaurīs into hot ghee once so that they puffed up, but then cool them and recook them in the ghee. “Cook them twice,” he said, “until it becomes reddish.” As she cooked them, and while they were still hot, Prabhupāda wanted to try one. When he began asking for one after another, Govinda dāsī said, “Prabhupāda, you are going to eat them all, and you won’t have any for your journey.”

“Never mind,” he replied. “Bring me more. Never mind my journey.” According to Govinda dāsī, he ate eight kacaurīs, and she made more for his journey.

Jāhnavā dāsī: The next day His Divine Grace was leaving for Montreal, so I was told to make the garland for him. I took too long and made it on thin thread. We were already late, but I made us even later in picking up His Divine Grace to take him to the airport. When we arrived at his apartment about one half-hour from the temple, Harṣarāṇī ran out of the apartment and told us that she had never seen him so furious. She warned us that we were “really going to get it” for being late. Then Govinda dāsī came out and confirmed what Harṣarāṇī said. Then Kartikeya came out, visibly shaken, followed by His Divine Grace. Instead of garlanding him, Upendra bowed down and with shaking hands held the garland above his bowed head. His Divine Grace simply put on the garland and, without a word of remonstration, got into the van.

Nara-Nārāyaṇa: Bilvamaṅgalā didn’t know how to drive; he was swaying this way and that way. And as we were going toward the downtown area, Prabhupāda said, “Who knows how to get to the airport?” We all looked at each other. Not one of us had ever been to the Seattle airport, and it was late for his plane. I said, “I think it is this way.” Prabhupāda looked at me as sharply as a razor blade and said, “Think? ‘Think’ means you do not know.” Finally there was an entrance onto the freeway, and I stopped there. Prabhupāda said, “I want to take a taxi. You do not know.” He said heavier things than that, which my mind has blocked out. I stopped and said, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, let’s wait a moment. Surely we will find a way.” I quickly called out the window to a hitchhiker on the side of the freeway, “Where is the airport?” And he told us how to get there. Prabhupāda was angry, because he not only liked to be at the airport on time, but ahead of time by at least an hour. So we got on the freeway, and this boy obviously did not know how to drive. The car was swaying and rocking back and forth like a boat in a heavy storm, and Prabhupāda was looking disturbed. I was sitting in the back, and to make matters worse, every time the car swayed like that, the girls put their hands together and started chanting tava kara-kamala-vare. We drove on, and by the grace of Lord Kṛṣṇa, we got to the airport a half hour ahead of the flight.

Jāhnavā dāsī: When we got into the airport, His Divine Grace stepped through the front doors, and immediately his knee-length garland on the thin thread broke, but he simply cradled the two fallen ends in his arms and walked on with great dignity, his head held high and tilted back. Then the devotees gave me petals to throw at his feet. I thought that we would disturb the airlines by leaving petals everywhere. I threw the petals clumsily because I was distracted by my doubt, until His Divine Grace said, “That’s all right, no more petals.” Then when we sat waiting for his flight, I was pretty morose at his feet. He looked down and spoke that familiar blessing, “Is everything all right?” Then the devotees gave me a particularly exquisite and fragrant red rose to give to him. As he boarded the plane, he kept the rose and gave his garland to Upendra to distribute. Although I had only been a devotee for a month, still I, too, was faced with that unbearable separation from reciprocating with him in his physical form. His Divine Grace sat by the window, and he waved the long-stemmed rose slowly, and then he ducked out of view while we were dancing and having ecstatic kīrtana. Then he came back to the window and waved the rose and then ducked out of sight again. He did this several times, and we responded each time with more forceful chanting and dancing. Then he left.

October 27, 1968
  Prabhupāda was traveling alone when he arrived in Chicago on a morning flight from Montreal. Inside the busy terminal building of O’Hare Airport, people rushed down the corridors or looked anxiously at the airport television screens overhead to find the right gate. Prabhupāda was to immediately catch a connecting flight to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Prabhupāda checked the overhead television screens for his flight’s gate number and made his way down the crowded corridor. The rush and congestion made stopping even for a moment hazardous. As Prabhupāda headed down the long corridor, passersby eyed him curiously. He came to a flight of stairs and started quickly down them, moving with the crowd. Suddenly he tripped and lost his balance. He dropped his bag and fell down several stairs. He didn’t get up. His hand was cut, and he felt pain in several places. Then a gentleman came, helped him stand, and handed him his bag. The stream of passengers continued to rush past while the gentleman waited, asking Prabhupāda if he was all right. Prabhupāda thanked the man and said that he would be able to proceed by himself.

On the plane for Santa Fe, Prabhupāda looked at his hand. The cut had bled a little but had now stopped, and he saw a bruise appearing.

When Prabhupāda arrived at the Montreal airport, a reporter had asked him, “Swami, in the course of your travels, what difficulties do you encounter?” And Prabhupāda had replied, “I have no difficulties. You have difficulties.”

And it was a fact. Prabhupāda was simply depending on Kṛṣṇa, and so he had no problems. That had also been Prahlāda Mahārāja’s prayer: “O best of the great personalities, I am not at all afraid of material existence, for wherever I stay I am fully absorbed in thoughts of Your glories and activities. My concern is only for the fools and rascals who are making elaborate plans for material happiness and maintaining their families, societies and countries. I am simply concerned with love for them.”

The reporter, however, had only written something foolish: “Hush-Puppied High Priest.” A television news team, with cameras and lights, had come to the Seattle temple to interview Prabhupāda, and that night part of the interview had been televised. It had been favorable coverage. A Christian minister, however, a Mr. Miller from the University of Washington, had written in protest of Prabhupāda’s preaching at the University. But Prabhupāda had replied that the Church had failed to satisfy so many boys and girls. So if some of them were following him and giving up sinful life, why should the Christians protest? They should be glad.

At the Albuquerque airport, Harināma, president of the Santa Fe temple, and Govinda dāsī met Prabhupāda. But they greeted him with strange news. “Prabhupāda,” Govinda dāsī said, “the temple here has no money. You can’t stay. You will have to go on to Los Angeles.”

Prabhupāda turned to Harināma. “Why did you ask me to come here?” Harināma glanced at Govinda dāsī and then shifted his foot, which seemed to be causing him pain. He apologized and explained that the night before, he had been bitten by a black widow spider. But Prabhupāda’s question was unanswered.

“So what are you going to do?” Prabhupāda demanded. “I can’t go to Los Angeles tonight.” He looked from Harināma to Govinda dāsī. “I must stay here in Albuquerque at least for the night in a hotel.”

Govinda dāsī assigned herself to calling motels to find a suitable, reasonably priced room. While she was gone, Harināma found Prabhupāda a seat. “Govinda dāsī said you are not feeling well,” Harināma said.

“Don’t worry about my health,” Prabhupāda said. “I am not a sick man. Govinda dāsī is sick. I am not sick. So what are you going to do?” Govinda dāsī returned and said she couldn’t find any reasonable motels. Then she began to cry.

“You know Kṛṣṇa, Prabhupāda,” she pleaded. “What does Kṛṣṇa want us to do?”

“That is not the point,” Prabhupāda said angrily. “Kṛṣṇa wants to know what you want to do!”

Harināma, disgusted with Govinda dāsī’s attitude, suddenly became decisive. “I think we should go to Santa Fe,” he said. Prabhupāda agreed; it seemed the only thing to do. Getting into the temple Volkswagen at four in the afternoon, they started the sixty-mile drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. The clouds overhead formed unusual symmetrical patterns on either side of the road. “I have never seen the clouds so beautiful as today,” Harināma said.

An hour and a half later, as they pulled into the driveway of the little storefront building, Prabhupāda noticed a handmade sign: “SWAMIJI IS COMING.” “Yes,” he said. And he smiled – his first expression of pleasure since arriving in New Mexico. “You were expecting me.”

Coming in through the back door, Prabhupāda, escorted by Harināma, entered a newly painted room. A rug partially covered the linoleum floor, a wooden table was an altar, and a madras-covered crate with a pillow was Prabhupāda’s seat. Prabhupāda, however, chose to sit on the rug instead of the crate, and the devotees and guests sat around him.

“This is a nice room,” Prabhupāda said, looking around. “I will stay here.”

Govinda dāsī brought Prabhupāda a plate of cut fruit, and Prabhupāda opened a lunch bag containing laḍḍu and kacaurīs. About eight guests (hippies) were present, and Prabhupāda distributed prasādam to everyone. One of the guests, never having tasted laḍḍu before, remarked, “This is the best peanut butter I’ve ever eaten.”

“This is the preparation,” Prabhupāda explained, “that the mothers make for Kṛṣṇa and the friends of Kṛṣṇa to take with them in their lunch bags. They put this in their lunch bags when they go and play.” One of the guests asked Prabhupāda, “Who is Kṛṣṇa?”

“Kṛṣṇa,” Prabhupāda replied, “is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is playing with the cowherd boys.”

Prabhupāda asked to spend the night in the Santa Fe storefront, but the devotees told him that, as the heater was too loud, he would be more comfortable staying in an apartment nearby. He complied. Harināma assigned a recently initiated boy, Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa, to be Prabhupāda’s servant.

When Prabhupāda got to his room and found it dark, Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa had to replace the burned-out bulb in the ceiling socket. When the light came on Prabhupāda looked around the room and found it practically bare. There was a mattress on the floor but no pillow. There was no desk, so Prabhupāda made his own desk by setting his books on his suitcase, a wooden chest a devotee in Seattle had built.

“So,” Prabhupāda said, “do you know how to type?”

“No.”

Prabhupāda was unable to sleep that night because of the glare from the streetlamp, so he sat at his desk writing purports for the verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. As he wrote, his pen scratched with a hollow sound across the wooden suitcase. Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa took rest in another room, while Prabhupāda went on writing all night, his pen scratching on the hollow wooden desk. Then, at four in the morning, Prabhupāda rang the little bell Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa had left with him and called, “Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa.”

Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa came running. “Yes, Prabhupāda?”

“It is four o’clock,” Prabhupāda said. “You should get up.” Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa had run to the door without his glasses, so he hurried back to get them. He then ran back again to Prabhupāda’s room and sat down before him.

“The first thing,” Prabhupāda said, “is you haven’t paid your obeisances.” Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa slapped his hand to his head, and Prabhupāda began to chuckle. As the boy put his head to the floor in honor of his spiritual master, Prabhupāda said, “That’s all right. It is just for practice.”

Then Prabhupāda spoke sternly. “Why have you brought me to Santa Fe and then told me to leave? Hmmm?” Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa, a devotee for only two months, didn’t know what to say.

Prabhupāda persisted. “Why is this? Why have you done this?”

“Well … Govinda dāsī … ”

“Govinda dāsī! Never listen to a woman!” Prabhupāda smiled as he spoke, but then again he sternly cautioned Toṣaṇa, “Don’t laugh! So what did she say?”

“Well, she was concerned about your health – because of the altitude. She had talked with some doctors and friends of hers, and she became concerned that the altitude might affect you. As a matter of fact, she was sick herself. As soon as she got here, she became sick. So she convinced Harināma that they should tell you that you shouldn’t stay here.”

“Govinda dāsī will always be sick. She will be sick in heaven.” Prabhupāda began laughing, but Toṣaṇa only looked back nervously. “So they think Swamiji will come here and die.” Prabhupāda gestured towards the window. “There are so many people living here.”

Toṣaṇa Kṛṣṇa: It became cold in the morning, so he told me to turn on all the burners on the stove. He rubbed his head and started singing the prayers to the spiritual master. He half-sang, half-said them, and when he was done, we both chanted japa together. I knew I was very fortunate. Then he had me do little things like turn off the burners on the stove – “Now you can turn one off. Now you can turn another one off.” It was getting warmer. Later we went for an early-morning walk. I had nothing to ask Prabhupāda, since I knew so little of the philosophy. He was telling me that one’s fortunate life begins when he meets a devotee.

That night about forty guests came to the temple – a big increase over the usual attendance. The audience was almost entirely young couples, and Prabhupāda talked about Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in a way that seemed most fitting.

“Rādhārāṇī is the most beautiful girl,” he said, “and Kṛṣṇa is the most beautiful boy.” He explained that Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are the perfection of the conjugal relationship, and when that same conjugal relationship is exhibited by the conditioned souls in the material world, it is only a perverted reflection.

After the lecture, as Prabhupāda spoke casually with the guests, an elderly woman introduced herself as the head of the Albuquerque Yoga Club and invited Prabhupāda to come there to speak.

Prabhupāda said he would be happy to come and, turning to Harināma, said, “We should go. They have invited me.”

“But they already have another engagement for you in Los Angeles,” Harināma replied. So Prabhupāda ended his short stay in Santa Fe after only one day.