Arrival Lecture and Kirtan

Giriraj Swami: [Unintelligible] And I also discussed with Krishnadasa Swami, who was supposed to come here. And he is very fixed on the idea of convincing the Hindus or engaging the Hindus. They feel that in the first visit he has to spend more time because it takes time to actually activate them in the right way. So he said he was ready to stay up to three months and really work on them. Actually, one of the nicest times I had, well there were many nice experiences, but one of the nicest times was, after prasāda one day he just started talking about how he first came to Krishna consciousness, how he met Srila Prabhupada. The whole story was really (break in audio). I hope when he comes he can tell it but it is a wonderful story. And he was also talking about the good old days because he joined when we had Bury Place in downtown London.

He is Indian from Punjab originally, but he had settled in England. And actually his son was the first one to meet the devotees. His son was standing at the bus stop and one devotee also came to the bus stop and he looked, he saw this white Vaishnava chanting Hare Krishna and he was very surprised. He never saw anything like that. So then he asked the devotee, ”Do you believe in Lord Krishna?” So the devotee said: ”Yes. Do you believe in Lord Krishna?” He said, ”Well of course I believe in Lord Krishna. I am born in this. I am Krishna-bhakta from birth. Of course I believe in Lord Krishna.” So the devotee gave the boy an invitation card. So then the boy went home and told his father. And his father was very intrigued, so he sent the boy to the temple to find out more about the devotees. And the boy maybe even spent the night. So then the boy came back and he said, “Oh, they are real devotees. They get up at four in the morning. They have ārati and they chant and they live very simply. And they study Bhagavad-gītā.”

And so then the father was very attracted. So then he told the boy to phone them, and invite them to his house. So then some devotees came to the house and led kirtan. They were very. . . well Krishnadasa Swami, of course he wasn’t Swami then, he was very happy with the devotees. He was very impressed. Then he decided he would spend one night at the temple. So he went to the temple and he slept in the president’s office. It wasn’t actually the president’s office, it was the office of the president, the secretary and the treasurer. And it was about as big as our little public affairs office. And that was their office during the day, and at night they all slept on the floor there, Krishnadasa Swami with the officers. Then he started to spend more and more time and one morning he got up early. And he saw that it wasn’t just that devotees were sleeping in the office on the floor, on the tables, but they were sleeping everywhere. They were sleeping in the stairwells, they were sleeping in the loft which also leaked. And he saw so many bodies everywhere.

So he said those were very beautiful days. Everyone lived very simply and worked very hard from morning to night, trying to spread Krishna consciousness. So then Srila Prabhupada came to London, and that year was the famous Ratha-yatra where Srila Prabhupada danced all the way from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square. So Krishnadasa, he saw Srila Prabhupada dancing. And that was the first time he saw Srila Prabhupada. He was astonished that, “Who is this wonderful personality, that he went to the west and he made the foreigners Krishna-bhakta, had completely changed their dress, changed their diet, changed their thinking, changed their everything.” And he saw, he was dressed as Vaishnava and he was dancing. So he was very impressed. So then, within his heart, he developed the desire that he must meet Srila Prabhupada. So he found out that Srila Prabhupada was staying at the manor. By then we got the manor. So he went with all expectations to offer Sradhanjali. Sradhanjali means homage or respect. So he went to the door of Srila Prabhupada’s room. And the secretaries there, the doorman, they said, ”You can’t go in.” He said, ”No, I want to meet Srila Prabhupada.” But he said, “No. Can’t go in.” So, Krishnadasa tried to convince them in many ways but they wouldn’t listen to anything. They said, ”No. You can’t disturb him. Can’t go in.” So he went home. He was just heartbroken.

So then he decided to write to Srila Prabhupada. So he wrote how he met the devotees, how he was impressed by them. Oh, yes that was the other thing, when Krishnadas saw how the devotees were sleeping, on the stairs and the loft and everywhere and how crowded Bury Place was, then he invited some of the devotees to stay at his place because he had some extra space in his house. So then several devotees would spend the night at his place and then go to the Bury Place for maṅgala-ārati and come back at night. So he wrote everything to Srila Prabhupada. He also wrote about how he tried to meet him and how the guards didn’t allow him to enter. So Srila Prabhupada wrote back that, “I am very glad to receive your letter.” Oh yes. So Krishnadasa wrote that, ”I want to have an appointment with you, so please tell me when I can come to meet you.” Srila Prabhupada wrote back that, “I am very sorry about what happened. But I can understand that you are a devotee of Krishna, and I am here at the manor. So anytime you want to come you just inform me and I will meet you.”

So when Krishnadasa received the letter he was in ecstasy. He fixed the appointment with Srila Prabhupada, and when he got the appointment, he was saying, the whole night he couldn’t sleep. He was just thinking that the next day he will be meeting Srila Prabhupada. And then he made one garland to offer to Srila Prabhupada. So I don’t know if he brought the flowers or his son but he strung the garland. And the whole time he was thinking of meeting Srila Prabhupada. So he would put one flower, then one pound note, then another flower, then a five pound note, then another flower, then ten pound note. And that was how he made a whole big garland to offer to Srila Prabhupada. So then he went to the temple with, I think with the wife and children. And he went to the door and they were the same guards. And they said, ”No! Can’t go in.” So this time Krishnadasa was ready. He pulled out the letter from Srila Prabhupada. He said, “Look at this.” And they read the letter. And Krishnadasa said that, while they were discussing or arguing outside, Srila Prabhupada, his hearing was so acute, he heard that there was some talk going on outside. So he told the servant in the room that, “Just see who is at the door, maybe Krishnadasa has come.”

So then the servant came out. And there was Krishnadasa discussing with the guards. So, the servant brought him in and Krishnadasa offered obeisance, gave the garland. Immediately Srila Prabhupada started preaching. Then after some time of preaching Srila Prabhupada dropped the bombshell. He said to Krishnadasa that, ”I am preaching sanātana-dharma. You are also preaching sanātana-dharma.” Actually, Krishnadas was also preaching. I think he even had a little center. So Srila Prabhupada pointed out to the outside of the window, to one cottage beside the manor, within the grounds of Bhaktivedanta manor. He pointed to the cottage and he said, “Now you should leave your house. And come and stay with me and preach sanātana-dharma.” So Krishnadasa was completely shocked. He was completely shocked. In the first meeting, Srila Prabhupada was asking him to leave his home and everything and come and preach.

I already started yesterday. So it became clear that the subject should be the story of the Juhu land, story of Hare Krishna land. And then there would have to be some introductory portion and then, I don’t know whether it will come as two books or one book with two parts because there were two main struggles. The first was to get the land and the second was to build the temple, to get the permission and build the temple. So they were both separate battles, very big battles. And then I think there would have to be some epilogue about the opening of the temple which actually took place almost exactly two months. Srila Prabhupada left on November 14, 1977 and the temple opened on January 14 1978.

And Hari Sauri told me how he got as much information as he could from the archives; tapes and transcripts and photographs. And he wanted to put in as much as he could, and make it as authoritative as possible. But in the end he found it wasn’t very readable. So then he went back to his diary. And then he used his diary as the main basis. And he supplemented it with things from the archives. So I have a few hundred pages of taped interviews for Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta. So I thought in the same way that would be the main basis of the book. But then I will have to probably interview some devotees also, to fill in some of the spaces when I wasn’t with Prabhupada, especially in the very beginning. Because he met Mr. Nair when I happened to be in Madras. So I have to do some interviews. It will be a big project. It has begun.