SB 10.9.19 – Mother Yasoda Binds Lord Krishna—Part 01

Giriraj Swami: So we shall continue to discuss the verse that I quoted last night from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Canto Ten, Chapter Nine, Mother Yaśodā binds Lord Kṛṣṇa.

TEXT 19

evaṁ sandarśitā hy aṅga
hariṇā bhṛtya-vaśyatā
sva-vaśenāpi kṛṣṇena
yasyedaṁ seśvaraṁ vaśe

TRANSLATION

O Mahārāja Parīkṣit, this entire universe, with its great, exalted demigods like Lord Śiva, Lord Brahmā and Lord Indra, is under the control of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Yet the Supreme Lord has one transcendental attribute: He comes under the control of His devotees. This was now exhibited by Kṛṣṇa in this pastime.

PURPORT

his pastime of Kṛṣṇa’s is very difficult to understand, but devotees can understand it. It is therefore said, darśayaṁs tad-vidāṁ loka ātmano bhakta-vaśyatām (Bhāg. 10.11.9): the Lord displays the transcendental attribute of coming under the control of His devotees. As stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.35):

eko ‘py asau racayituṁ jagad-aṇḍa-koṭiṁ
yac-chaktir asti jagad-aṇḍa-cayā yad-antaḥ
aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-sthaṁ
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

By His one plenary portion as Paramātmā, the Lord controls innumerable universes, with all their demigods; yet He agrees to be controlled by a devotee. In the Upaniṣads it is said that the Supreme Personality of Godhead can run with more speed than the mind, but here we see that although Kṛṣṇa wanted to avoid being arrested by His mother, He was finally defeated, and mother Yaśodā captured Him. Lakṣmī-sahasra-śata-sambhrama-sevyamānam: Kṛṣṇa is served by hundreds and thousands of goddesses of fortune. Nonetheless, He steals butter like one who is poverty-stricken. Yamarāja, the controller of all living entities, fears the order of Kṛṣṇa, yet Kṛṣṇa is afraid of His mother’s stick. These contradictions cannot be understood by one who is not a devotee, but a devotee can understand how powerful is unalloyed devotional service to Kṛṣṇa; it is so powerful that Kṛṣṇa can be controlled by an unalloyed devotee. This bhṛtya-vaśyatā does not mean that He is under the control of the servant; rather, He is under the control of the servant’s pure love. In Bhagavad-gītā (1.21) it is said that Kṛṣṇa became the chariot driver of Arjuna. Arjuna ordered Him, senayor ubhayor madhye rathaṁ sthāpaya me ‘cyuta: “My dear Kṛṣṇa, You have agreed to be my charioteer and to execute my orders. Place my chariot between the two armies of soldiers.” Kṛṣṇa immediately executed this order, and therefore one may argue that Kṛṣṇa also is not independent. But this is one’s ajñāna, ignorance. Kṛṣṇa is always fully independent; when He becomes subordinate to His devotees, this is a display of ānanda-cinmaya-rasa, the humor of transcendental qualities that increases His transcendental pleasure. Everyone worships Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and therefore He sometimes desires to be controlled by someone else. Such a controller can be no one else but a pure devotee.

COMMENT

So to review the history of the pastime for those who may not know or remember, one day Mother Yasoda was churning yogurt into butter. She was doing the work herself because all the other servants in the household were otherwise engaged and she also thought that Krishna is going often to the neighbors to steal butter may be because He doesn’t like the butter at home. So she thought if she personally churned the butter, Krishna may like it better and not roam here and there stealing butter from other people’s houses. 

So she was churning the yogurt into butter and Baby Krishna appeared before her to increase her transcendental pleasure and He put His little hand on the churning rod to stop her and He told her that He wanted her to feed Him. So Mother Yasoda is always overwhelmed with maternal affection for Krishna, as we have discussed. One of the eternal relationships that the devotee can have with the Lord is called vātsalya-rasa and in vātsalya-rasa, the devotee is in the mood of being a parent or guardian to Krishna and in order to exhibit the mood of vātsalya-rasa freely the devotee forgets, by the arrangement of yoga-māyā, the internal potency of Krishna, the devotee forgets that Krishna is God and the devotee actually sees the Lord as one’s son or dependent. 

So Krishna came and put His little hand on the churning rod to stop Mother Yasoda from churning and He pulled at her sari so that she would feed Him with her breast milk and Mother Yasoda was always overwhelmed with maternal affection for Krishna. So she picked Him up and began to feed Him. She gazed upon His beautiful face and began to feed Him. But just then the pot of milk that was on the stove began to boil over, so Mother Yasoda set down Baby Krishna before He was satisfied with drinking her milk and went to tend to the overflowing milk on the fire. So Baby Krishna felt very angry and frustrated because Mother Yasoda had set Him aside before He was satisfied. So He, in His mood, broke the pot of yogurt that Mother Yasoda was churning into butter and began to eat the contents. He went away into another room and He began to feed monkeys and other friends. 

After Mother Yasoda had tended to the milk on the fire she returned to the place where she had been churning butter and she saw that the pot had been broken and that Krishna was gone. So she immediately deduced that Krishna was the culprit. And she went to find Him. So Krishna in the meantime was sitting on the top of a wooden grinding mortar, a large one and eating butter and yogurt and distributing it to His friends. Because Krishna knew that He was guilty, He was looking very nervously here and there thinking that Mother Yasoda might catch Him. So Mother Yasoda picked up a stick and she very quietly and (stealthily?) approached Krishna. And as soon as Krishna saw her He immediately jumped off of the wooden grinding mortar and began to flee in fear and therefore in the purport Srila Prabhupada says that although Yamaraja, the controller of all living entities who wheels the rod of chastisement, although all living entities are afraid of him, he is afraid of Krishna and Krishna in turn is afraid of Mother Yasoda. So Krishna began to run away and Mother Yasoda began to pursue Him but because her body was so big and He was so small and agile, she had trouble catching Him. But then Krishna, seeing how hard she was working to catch Him, she was perspiring and the flowers were falling from her hair and she was so sincere in her desire to rectify Him as a mother that He allowed Himself to be caught by her although great jnanis and yogis cannot catch Krishna. He allowed Himself to be caught by her.

But Krishna looked so frightened, Mother Yasoda did not want to traumatize Him. So she threw away the whipping stick and she decided that she would bind Krishna with ropes to the wooden grinding mortar not so much as a punishment but to prevent Him from creating further mischief. So she brought some ropes to tie Him to the wooden grinding mortar, but surprisingly enough when she tried to tie the ropes around Krishna and the mortar, she found the rope was short by the width of two fingers, say about two inches or less. So she was surprised but she went and got some more ropes and added those to the length of ropes she already had but still the ropes were two inches too short. So she got more ropes. You know being in the cowherd community they had yards and yards, probably miles of ropes for binding the cows and so on. So she combined all the lengths of the ropes in the whole household, but still they were two inches too short. So Mother Yasoda became very perplexed because every morning she and Krishna’s servants or her household servants who would help Krishna get dressed in the morning they used to put His belt around His waist and they never had any trouble tying it and here she gathered yards and yards and even miles and miles of rope and she could not make it tie. So again Mother Yasoda was perspiring and laboring very heavily and Krishna wanting to be merciful to her allowed the ropes to be tied around Him and that brings us to the verse before the one we just read. 

So one of Krishna’s features is that within Him all opposing qualities are reconciled. So here you have Krishna, who is fearful even to fear personified, afraid of Mother Yasoda. You have Krishna who is the controller of the universe and the controller of all the great demigods within the universe like Shiva, Brahma, and Indra coming under the control of His devotee. But He does not actually come under the control of the devotee as such. He really comes under the control of the devotee’s love. Now the whole situation seems incomprehensible and it is to an ordinary person. But Srila Prabhupada has given some examples to help us understand how the Supreme Lord takes pleasure in coming under the control of His devotee, becoming the servant of His devotee and he tells the story of the prime minister of England. So one gentleman came to meet the prime minister and the prime minister’s secretary told him that the prime minister is busy and the person would have to wait. So the gentleman was waiting, waiting. There was no news from the secretary, no word from inside the office. So he took the liberty of opening the door and peeking in and inside the chamber was the prime minister of the British Empire on his hands and knees on the floor and his grandson was riding on his back. So he had become like a horse to be controlled by his grandson and he was the prime minister of not just England but the whole empire. So Srila Prabhupada made the point that and of course we know also that the living entities are part and parcel of Krishna. The individual souls are parts and parcel of the Supreme Soul. So they have the same qualities as the Supreme Soul but in minute quantity. So by studying our qualities we can infer what Krishna’s qualities are and just as the living entity sometimes likes to be controlled as seen in the example of prime minister Gladstone. So Krishna also sometimes likes to be controlled by His devotees who are so dear to Him.

Another example that Srila Prabhupada gave which I actually saw in real life is that sometimes a very rich man will want to have a very ordinary snack just for a change. Generally the rich man sits at his banquet table and I actually saw this. In fact, this man I didn’t even know about it until I came to America but apparently there was a television program about rich men of the world, maharajas or whatever and he was actually on it, featured on it. In one episode he had something like twenty-two Rolls Royces and other antique cars and classic models and he had several palaces in different cities of India but his base was in Bombay and he had a very nice house in a hill station called Mahabaleshwar which is in the same state of Bombay, in Maharashtra but may be a four-hour drive but it is a hill station. So when Bombay gets very hot during the summer people go to Mahabaleshwar and many of the rich people had mansions there. So he did too. So once I went there. There was some other service there and at the same time I thought I would visit him, see his beautiful stately mansion, chandeliers and beautiful carved wood furniture with silk upholstery and whenever we went to his house in Bombay he always had the most exquisite cuisine. I mean the family cook was extraordinary. In fact this man, Pranlall Bhogilal told me that his cook—His father was still alive. Bhogilal Patel, he was really pious. I should mention him just to give you a sense of what India was like and what some other people were like then.

The first devotee to meet Bhogilal was Gargamuni Swami who was going to make life members and when he met Bhogilal Patel and started to tell him how Srila Prabhupada had gone to the West and had spread the chanting of Lord Krishna’s holy name all over the world, how Americans and European were becoming devotees of Krishna, Bhogilal Patel started to weep. I mean he was so moved, he started to weep. So he is a very pious man. Later Srila Prabhupada called him his great friend and his son was Pranlall. So the cook actually, Pranlall told me, the cook was so expert that if they went out and had dinner at some other place, they could describe to him the taste of a preparation they had at the other place and the cook could duplicate it without any recipe and if there was an error in the way it had been prepared at the other place then their cook would rectify the error when he made it. So it was like very high culture and Seth Bhogilal’s wife was like a renowned hostess. Even Mahatma Gandhi had said that she was like the great hostess of India and she would have like with the deities we match the outfit with the crowns and ornaments and backdrop and all the details, so she would have different table settings and the table cloth, the napkins, the cutleries, the plates, the goblets, everything was coordinated to fit. So there would be different styles and different colors and every element of the table setting was coordinated to fit together. So we went to Pranlall’s mansion in Mahabaleshwar and mainly we really did come to meet his father who was there with him and who was quite old, but I mean it was also in the back of our mind that we might have a feast like we did at his house in Bombay. 

So it turns out that may be some nieces or some younger people were also visiting and instead of having rice, dal, samosas, kachorīs, and purīs, we had (bel purī?). Bel purīs, it is like an Indian snack food. It is like there are these little hard purīs and they tap a hole on the top and they like feel it up with really ordinary things like chickpeas and then they have spicy juice. Puffed rice! Yeah they had puffed rice in it. It is something like when you go on the street, you go to the beach there are stalls and you pay like fifty cents and you get this as a snack and the most ordinary people in India get it and snack on them. So I could not believe it, I couldn’t believe it that that was their dinner. So anyway I tried to control my mind and senses with my intelligence and accepted all and later I heard a tape where Srila Prabhupada was speaking about the subject of Krishna liking to come under the control of His devotee for variety. All the time He is being worshipped as the Supreme Lord with hymns and prayers and opulent rituals and sacrifices and sometimes for a change He wants to be the servant. He doesn’t want to be the Supreme Lord and then Srila Prabhupada said just like a rich man, sometimes for a change, he will like to have puffed rice although he could have any opulent food that he wanted. So then I thought of Pranlall Bhogilal. But then I thought well even if he didn’t really like it but he was just doing it for the teenagers, it is still the same point that he allowed himself to be subject to their desires, out of love. So that’s the psychology and just like we have the same psychology here Krishna has the same psychology because we are coming from Him. So whatever exists in us exists in Him in its original pure form. So that is the pleasure that Krishna gets and there are many wonderful verses. 

There is one incident where Uddhava—Uddhava is Krishna’s close friend and adviser from Dvaraka and in Dvaraka there is more awe and reverence. It is not like Vraja where there is such freedom of intimacy but still among all of Krishna’s associates in Dvaraka, Uddhava was the dear most or one of the most intimate, closest to Him. So it is described that once Uddhava came to Vrindavan and there was a joking exchange between Krishna and one of these elderly ladies there. Actually Radharani’s mother in law, Jatila and Jatila said something like, “You black snake, don’t You come around here to devour the chastity of innocent young ladies.” And then Krishna said something like—but basically he carried on the thing that he was a black snake and it would be His greatest pleasure to devour a worm like her, something like that (Laughter). So when Uddhava witnessed this exchange he was shocked because in Dvaraka everyone worships Krishna with awe and reverence. He was shocked and Krishna could see that Uddhava was wondering what was going on here. Who is this woman and how could she speak like that and then Krishna said to Uddhava that, “My dear Uddhava you should know that I appreciate the joking words of the elderly gopīs in Vrindavan far more than I appreciate the greatest of the Vedic hymns chanted by the most expert of Vedic brahmans.” So that’s sort of the mystery of Vraja that Krishna enjoys being just like an ordinary human being and being controlled by the residents of Vrindavan. Sometimes the elderly gopīs especially when Krishna was little they would have fun watching Him and sometimes they would want to see Him dance. Sometimes with small children we want them to perform, you know in pious families it is always religious. So many times the people bring their little one up to me and they want them to say some slokas from Bhagavad-gītā or do some namaskār and the children are always afraid and then they never do it and the parents will say, “Say it! Say it! You do it at home. Say it!” So they would like to see—it is like that they would like to see Krishna perform and so Krishna would like dance for them and they would clap and laugh and enjoy and He was like their plaything. So that is the exchange of love between Krishna and the residents of Vrindavan, specially the elderly gopīs and I guess we will read about that more tomorrow morning.

Hare Krishna! Are there any questions or comments?

Question: What is the position of the monkeys?

Giriraj Swami: What is the position of monkeys? Well they are exalted devotees. All creatures in Vrindavan are exalted. They love Krishna and Krishna loves them. I do not know exactly who becomes a monkey in Vrindavan but they are exalted devotees. Once there were some joking words between the younger gopīs and Krishna because sometimes Krishna would say that He is Rama, He is Vishnu. You know, they thought He is exaggerating because of yoga-māyā they thought He is an ordinary human being just like them. So once they were in the area of Kāmyavana and there had been heavy rainfall and part of the trail was flooded and the gopīs wanted to get to the other side. So they said, “You are always saying You are Rama, You are Vishnu, You are this incarnation and that incarnation; well as Rama, You made a bridge of rocks across the ocean to Lanka and now we are stuck here with all this water everywhere, why don’t You float some rocks and make a bridge so we can cross. So immediately Krishna called for all His monkey friends because Rama was also assisted by monkeys. So all the monkeys in the area came and He ordered them to pick up rocks and stones and throw them on the water to make a bridge so His beloved gopīs could cross. And they did it. So Krishna has His relationships with all of His devotees in Vrindavan. And it is said that just like all the incarnations are included in Krishna so all holy places are included in Vraja. So that place is also there. But they still didn’t believe that He was Rama but they were happy to get across the water. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Giriraj Swami:  Once someone wrote Srila Prabhupada and asked that just as there are different relationships with Krishna like servant, friend, mother, father, lover, wife, in the same way can we have different relationships with the spiritual master? And Srila Prabhupada said, “No. The relationship with the spiritual master is always servant.” But what I mentioned last night in relation to Srila Prabhupada’s final pastimes was that when he expressed the desire to go to Govardhana Hill when he was so sick one group of devotees thought he is our guru we have to follow his order, we have to take him to Govardhana Hill by bullock cart, he wanted to go by bullock cart and the other group thought, you know he is so fragile now. He had no flesh on his body really. He was basically just skin and bones and they knew how delicate Srila Prabhupada was. They knew how rough the roads were and on top of it to be riding on a bullock cart. So they thought you know Srila Prabhupada is going to suffer terrible pain on the way if they take him and he could even leave his body on the way. So they appealed to Srila Prabhupada, you know, “Please don’t go. We are too much in anxiety. We want you to travel. We want you to go everywhere but we want you to get a little better first. So please why do you have to go now.” And then Srila Prabhupada in the presence of one of his god brothers, Akiñcana Krishna dasa Babaji Maharaja, he agreed not to go. He said, “I do not want to put you in anxiety.” And then he said to Babaji Maharaja, “Just see how much they love me.” So he took it as an expression of their love. But still the other group, they had their realization; different devotees have their different realizations. We can’t say that one is right and one is wrong. Uddhava would never speak to Krishna in such a familiar way as Jatila but we can’t say that Jatila is right and he is wrong. It is just that devotees please Krishna in different ways according to their mood and realizations.

So the one group wanted to please Srila Prabhupada by obediently executing his order and the other group expressed their love for Srila Prabhupada by asking him not to go because they didn’t want him to suffer on the way and they wanted to keep him with them, with us longer and in the end Srila Prabhupada allowed himself, in this context, in the context of this verse or this pastime, he allowed himself to come under the control of their love and he didn’t go on the bullock cart to Govardhana for Govardhana-puja. And after the incident and after Srila Prabhupada left, soon thereafter in any case but I myself wasn’t quite sure how to see the whole controversy and then I came across this pastime in this verse, just reading through the book in Prabhupada’s room after Prabhupada left because the book was new. It had just been published and it was the last volume of the Bhāgavatam that was published during Srila Prabhupada’s manifest presence and then I read the verse and then I thought that’s what happened. Prabhupada allowed himself to be bound by his devotees’ love, to be controlled by his devotees’ love and I wouldn’t say that the other devotees were wrong because they also wanted to serve Prabhupada and please Prabhupada but I would say that the love of the devotees who wanted to keep him and protect him, I would say, it was in any case that love prevailed, that was the love that prevailed in the sense that Srila Prabhupada did agree to stay back and so we can sort of come to the conclusion although it is different with the spiritual master than with Krishna but still because the spiritual master is also the transparent via medium for Krishna or to Krishna, we can say that Srila Prabhupada allowed himself to be controlled by that more spontaneous love and that’s why the devotees who were more concerned with following the regulative principle of always executing the order of the spiritual master but of course, they presented their request with all humility and respect. They didn’t transgress the etiquette but they did express their feelings and Srila Prabhupada responded.

So there are different degrees of awe and reverence as opposed to spontaneous affection and intimacy with the Lord in different places. Like in Vrindavan there is complete intimacy and in Mathura and Dvaraka there is less. So with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu although sometimes there was intimacy and spontaneous affection but still they were always conscious that Lord Chaitanya was their master and they His servants. They never forgot that and there He was playing as the acharya and even though His associates were liberated souls but because He was playing the acharya and also because they were in Puruṣottama-kṣetra, in Jagannatha Puri which is comparable to Dvaraka, they were always conscious of His position, but still they would express their desires. Like before Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would leave Puri like when He wanted to go to Vrindavan, so the first time He just went and Gadadhara Pandita, in particular, didn’t want Him to go because he was so attached to Him. So when He left, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu left, Gadadhara Pandita began to follow Him and Gadadhara Pandita had taken a vow of kṣetra-sannyāsa. Kṣetra-sannyāsa means that he never spends the night outside of the holy place that he has taken the vow to reside in and at the same time he was worshipping the deity of Tota-gopinatha. So he had his service to the deity to perform. So Lord Chaitanya told him you have to go back. You have your vow of kṣetra-sannyāsa. I don’t want you to break your vow. Gadadhara Pandita said, “Let my so called kṣetra-sannyāsa go to hell. And then Lord Chaitanya said, “Well what about your service to the deity of Gopinatha?” and Gadadhara Pandita said, “You know by serving you I am serving Gopinatha millions of times.” And then Lord Chaitanya said, “Well, you know if you follow Me and break your vows and neglect your service people will blame Me. Then Gadadhara Pandita said, “Well, you go ahead, and I will go separately. No one can blame you. I am just going on my own.”

So Lord Chaitanya acquiesced and then they went for some time more and then when they came to the next place Gadadhara Pandita caught up to Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Lord Chaitanya took him by the hand and said,” Please go back. If you really want to please Me, please go back and then Gadadhara Pandita understood he had to go back and he fainted in separation. So Lord Chaitanya continued. Then He went to Rāmakeli, the place where Rupa Gosvami and Sanatana Gosvami were serving as ministers in the government of Nawab Hussain Shah. So they met Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the middle of the night incognito and there were some talks and then Lord Chaitanya He was like being followed by thousands of admirers, devotees along the way, everywhere He went, more and more people would start to follow Him. So Sanatana Gosvami who was the prime minster of Nawab Hussain Shah, he was very astute in political matters. He said that it is not appropriate for You to go to Vrindavan accompanied by large crowds of people and even though right now the Nawab is tolerating you. You never know he could change his mind and take some action. So it is better you go alone with one or two servants, not with a big crowd. So Lord Chaitanya heard it but He was still planning to go. So from Rāmakeli He went to a place called Kanai Natasala and there He considered what Sanatana Gosvami had said and He concluded, “Yes what he said is right. I shouldn’t go with bugles and drums, thousands of people. So He decided to return to Jagannatha Puri. So of course, when He got to Puri all the devotees were very jubilant and then Chaitanya Mahaprabhu specially wanted to encourage Gadadhara Pandita and He said, “I will come and I will take prasāda at your place today and He said because of the way we parted I wasn’t able to go to Vrindavan. Then Lord Chaitanya said that He will not go. He will not attempt to go again without the devotees’ permission. So then the devotees said, “All right, well please stay here during the rainy season and then You can go.

So Lord Chaitanya spent the four months of the rainy season there and then the time came, so He asked for their permission and then the devotees said, ‘Well the Ram Vijay Dashami Festival is coming soon so why don’t You stay for that and then we will let You go. So He agreed to stay longer. So then finally eventually they gave their permission and then He went to Vrindavan. So we can learn a lot about how the disciples who are very advanced and pure can be with the acharya in the pastimes of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. They expressed their love; they expressed their desires but always with great humility and respect. The only exception was Jagadananda Pandita. He was in the mood of Satyabhama in Dvaraka. He was sort of petulant. He didn’t like Lord Chaitanya to perform such austerities because Lord Chaitanya performed severe austerities. He would just sleep on the bare floor. He wouldn’t accept any comforts because the rules and regulations for sannyasa were very strict then. And Jagadananda Pandita he didn’t like to see Lord Chaitanya performing such austerities, like he bought Him a mattress and Lord Chaitanya rejected it. You know whatever he tried to do to make Lord Chaitanya’s life more comfortable, Lord Chaitanya rejected his efforts on the grounds that He was a sannyasi. So once Jagadananda Pandita brought some very costly oil, sandalwood oil for Lord Chaitanya to take massage. Lord Chaitanya said, “I am sorry but I cannot accept this oil for Myself. I cannot take this costly oil. I cannot have oil massage. Better you offer it to the deity of Jagannatha. So Jagadananda Pandita became very upset and he took the vessel of oil and he threw it on the floor and left. He was so upset, he was so upset and then he stopped eating. He was so upset. So Lord Chaitanya, I mean He had great love for Jagadananda Pandita but He was just trying to set the example for the renounced order at the time but He didn’t want this tension between Him and Jagadananda Pandita. He didn’t want Jagadananda Pandita to keep fasting.

So finally Lord Chaitanya asked Jagadananda Pandita to come and cook for Him. Jagadananda Pandita said I can’t come and cook. I am too angry and Lord Chaitanya said that your cooking taste better when you are angry. So then Jagadananda Pandita came and he cooked. Like they made up and so on. So he is like the only exception. There wasn’t much awe and reverence. I guess in a way there was a little but not much but all the others they were very humble and very respectful but at the same time they were full of pure love for Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and they expressed their love and Lord Chaitanya reciprocated and just like with Srila Prabhupada sometimes he agreed to be controlled by their love. He wouldn’t just act independently. I mean, yes, He can. He is the Supreme Lord. He can do whatever He likes but voluntarily out of love He would take their permission before He left Puri. Srila Prabhupada sort of did the same thing.

Question: [Inaudible]

Giriraj Swami:  Well you are asking how do you deal intimately with more advanced devotee considering we are in the material body. Well I think the clue is given in one sense in one statement I made some days ago quoting from Srila Prabhupada where Srila Prabhupada said there are three categories of disciples. The highest category will know what the spiritual master wants even without the spiritual master asking. The second will take an order from the spiritual master and execute it perfectly and the third as Srila Prabhupada explained it, the third will receive an order from the spiritual master and he’ll say, “Yes Srila Prabhupada, I will do it immediately.” And then while he is walking down the stairs, he will think, “What was it that Srila Prabhupada wanted me to do?” means he gets the order even getting the order directly he has trouble executing it. So when one is sort of experienced enough or pure enough one can have a sense of how to please the spiritual master even without the order of the spiritual master but one always have to be careful not to imitate. If one is in a lower category, I mean everyone is equal spiritually but if one is at the lower degree of maturity in Krishna consciousness and he tries to imitate someone who is more mature, more advanced then he will get into trouble. So it is important that we know what our actual position is and act accordingly and yeah it just happens, you sort of get a sense. When you express yourself and if the superior doesn’t like it he will tell you, if you can take it. 

Question: How do you deal with it emotionally?

Giriraj Swami:  Emotionally? Well we are talking about love. Naturally when love develops or affection develops then it is there and even when it is there we do observe proper etiquette but when it is not there definitely we have to follow the rules and regulations and the etiquette and not try not to go beyond our limits. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Giriraj Swami:  The question is, did Srila Prabhupada reject going by motorcar to Govardhana instead of bullock cart. Well, there was some talk of some compromises. He could just go in Vrindavan. But really the devotees,—- I mean he couldn’t sit up in bed. He could hardly talk. So the devotees that were concerned that Srila Prabhupada shouldn’t suffer unnecessarily they didn’t want him to do anything. They just wanted him to stay and take the doctor’s medicine and try to develop the capacity to digest a little so he could drink and gradually get some strength. They really didn’t want him to go anywhere and he couldn’t. He couldn’t sit up. He was—at the very end he was translating Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. He was just lying down and they would hold the microphone right up to his mouth. You could hardly hear him speak but they held it up to his mouth and they recorded it. He was like very very weak. He wasn’t eating for months. So when you are really sick you know how difficult it is just to—you can’t get out of bed. To be able to get up and go to the bathroom is a major achievement you know at a certain point.

Question: When you were in India your father came to request him to release you or something like that. I heard a story. I am not sure about this but would you please share this pastime with us as to what Srila Prabhupada said to your parents and what happened?

Giriraj Swami:  This would be the last one because it is getting late. But yes when I first joined in Boston my father said I mean we will not go into all the details and nuances but the essence was that he would give me whatever I wanted, a large sum of money to come back. So I said no. So then after being in India for some time, my parents came to Calcutta and Srila Prabhupada was in his room. It was just one room really, but along one wall was the bed and along the other wall was his asana like this but on the floor like a bolster behind him and then a table in front of him and then there were mattresses around the room covered with white sheets, that’s the system in India. So Srila Prabhupada was speaking with some devotees and then my parents came in. He spoke very expertly because my father was interested in material success and achievements. So Srila Prabhupada started to explain how when he was a householder one astrologer had predicted he would become the richest man in India and how he had a pharmacy shop and how Motilal Nehru was his customer and how—very subtle and very skillful the way Srila Prabhupada spoke. So Motilal Nehru who was the father of Jawaharlal Nehru was his customer, he used to come but the Jawaharlal Nehru was a ‘made in England’ man. He only wanted things made in England and Prabhupada said that if the same medicine was available from India and the same medicine we got from England the exact same and the one from England cost twenty times more than the one form India he would take the one from England. He was like that. Basically he said that Jawaharlal Nehru was useless. Motilal Nehru had other sons that were better and he thought. “Well, ok let’s give this one to the freedom movement. He is useless anyway.” Anyway the way Prabhupada was speaking was like very interesting but at the same time a subtle message- how successful Prabhupada was and could have been and how silly it is to think that anything made in England is better than something made in India just because it was made in England. 

But then eventually my father came to the point that he wanted me back and he said that he wanted to set up a trust for me in America worth a million dollars and he wanted me to come back with him. He said I could still be a devotee but I could be closer to home. So Srila Prabhupada said well he could go but the problem is the association. It is important that he has association and then my father said well let him just come and sign the papers and Srila Prabhupada said well you can send the papers here and he can sign them here. So when my mother heard that she started to cry. She was really worried about my health because I looked thin and India was known to have many diseases. So she was concerned about my health. She said she is afraid that I would not get enough protein. So Srila Prabhupada had like a container of rasagullā. He had both, rasagullā and sandeśa. They are made from milk which has been turned into cheese like you put lemon like cottage cheese, you could say but they have a little sugar. They are very delectable sweets, like very high class Bengali sweets. So he had some. The devotees had prepared some for him and so he held up a rasagullā and said this is a rasagullā. This is made of cheese and full of protein and then he said to me that you should eat two dozen sandeśa and rasagullās every day. And then he wanted to get my mother to try some.

He gave everyone some but she was too upset and then Srila Prabhupada’s sister Pisima was there. So she started saying how fortunate my parents are that their son is a devotee and how good it will be for the whole family, their son is a devotee. That didn’t really pacify them much and then Srila Prabhupada said ok well now it is winter in America and it is cold there and Prabhupada’s program was that he would spend roughly—he would spend six months in India and six months in the West and in the winter when it was cold in the West and more pleasant in India he would be in India and then in the summer when it was very hot in India and more pleasant in the West he would go to the West. So Srila Prabhupada said, “Let him remain with me for six months.” It was about October, “and I will take personal care of him and then when I come to the West in the spring I will bring him with me.” So then I said to my father that just see how intelligent Srila Prabhupada is. When the weather is bad in the West he is in India and when the weather is bad in India he is the West. Then my father said, “He is very intelligent.” And then Srila Prabhupada said actually your son is intelligent because he has understood my plan and then my father said to Srila Prabhupada, “Actually you are very intelligent and Srila Prabhupada said, “Well, I guess I must be otherwise how could I attract so many intelligent young men like your son?” So that was sort of the end of the meeting and then when we left the room my father was very impressed and he said, “I can say two things about your master: one he is an expert organizer and two he really knows how to deal with people and in my father’s value system those were like the two highest compliments he could give to anyone. 

So just one small note to end the story. So we had the pandal at (Desapriya?) Park in Calcutta for Srila Prabhupada and then we had the first Delhi pandal and from Delhi Srila Prabhupada wanted someone to go to Madras in his place. So I went to Madras and in Madras I was living at different people’s houses and I think I was quite happy there preaching all the time. There was a lot of good prasāda. So I started to put on weight and eventually we arranged a program for Srila Prabhupada and he came to Madras and when he saw me he said that I should take a picture of myself and send it to my parents so they would know I was healthy. 

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya! 
Nitai-Gaura premānande Hari Haribol!