Serving Srila Prabhupada with Kausalya

Badrinarayana: He is a sannyasi, he is a senior (unintelligible 00:00:04) in our society, an initiating guru – that means he initiates disciples and trains them in Krishna consciousness. So many other qualifications. I think that tonight, you are going to speak primarily about early days in India or whatever you like?

Kausalya: Yes.

Badrinarayana: Yes. We also have—this is Kausalya, who joined the Krishna Consciousness Movement. How old were you?

Kausalya: Sixteen.

Badrinarayana: Sixteen-years-old. With all talent, beauty, opulence of American life, met Srila Prabhupada said, “Let me give my life to his lotus feet.” So it is a most amazing thing.

So the two of them are great heroes. Went to India when it was the vast frontier. Gargamuni was saying that there is no question of bottled water. He said, when he was first there, they were drinking Limca, and the Limca had ants in it. [laughter] That is how because it could be otherwise, you drink water and got sick.

Kausalya: We all got sick.

Badrinarayana: So just great heroes. If you go to Bombay now, I will finish, but you saw this huge, beautiful temple there. Thousands of people are going through. They are just starting an eight million—Is it eight million dollars?

Giriraj Swami: Four.

Badrinarayana: Four million dollars.

Giriraj Swami: Okay, eight.

Badrinarayana: Worth eight million dollars in India, expansion. But there was absolutely nothing there. It was a fishing village, practically speaking, with rats and four-legged rats, and many two-legged rats. And they stayed there, these are two great heroes. Because of their surrendered service, these beautiful temples came up. So without further ado, please give them a nice hand – Giriraj Maharaja and Kausalya.

Devotees: Haribol! Haribol!

Giriraj Swami: You should begin.

Kausalya: You want to begin?

Giriraj Swami: No, you should begin.

Kausalya: Alright, I will begin.

Giriraj Swami: So Kausalya and I, not only have the great privilege of serving Srila Prabhupada in India, but we also have the great opportunity to associate with so many of Srila Prabhupada’s other disciples in India, and they really did extraordinary service. So I am very eager to hear Kausalya, who was actually very close to Srila Prabhupada. He had a very affectionate relationship with her. I would like to hear her speak first.

Kausalya: Okay. Thank you so much for inviting me. I just moved to the area, and I already feel welcome. So it is a lovely honor to be here, and I guess I love to talk about Srila Prabhupada because a lot of people—a lot of devotees, and a lot of people in general don’t know his more playful side and they tend to think of Prabhupada, and I think that video showed a lot of his heart.

And so we were very, very fortunate. In 1970, Prabhupada decided to go back to India, and he brought a handful of devotees with him. And I was very fortunate to be one of them. So I feel incredibly blessed. And that is when I met Giriraj, and we traveled around India. Started in Bombay, and you saw some of the activities in Bombay when we first got there. And then, we traveled from there. Our first engagement, Prabhupada was always open. In fact, he used to say “I am just like a cow. Wherever you take me, I will give milk, so take me anywhere.” And our first engagement was in Amritsar, which is in the Punjab. And it was a gathering of swamis, and Prabhupada was invited as one of the people to speak. And there was only five women that had come to India in this first group, but only two of us went to Amritsar and the other three stayed in Bombay. And that was Yamuna and I.

And so we took the train, and when we got there, there was just two places to sleep. There were two small rooms, and then a giant courtyard. And so Prabhupada said, “I will take one room, and Yamuna, Kausalya will take the other room. So we took the room next door to him. And because we were the only two women, and I think also because I was very young, I was only eighteen at the time, he was very protective. And so every engagement we went on, he always had us ride in the car with him. And it was in Amritsar that I first started realizing his playful side. We were driving to an engagement, and he decided that he needed. . . We had a driver and Prabhupada in the front seat, and me and Yamuna in the back seat—and he decided to stop and buy shoes. He thought he needed new shoes. So he said, “Stop at the next Bata shoe store.” So we stopped at the next Bata shoe store. And so we all got out of the car, and Prabhupada said to Yamuna and I, “You choose the shoes for me.” So he just sat down, and we went wandering all around the store, and we found these white crisscrossed plastic sandals that we thought were wonderful. And so we said, “I will take one and you take the other.” So we both took one up to him and we slipped them on his feet, and he smiled and he said, “Do you like them?” And we both said, “Yes.” And he said, “Well then, we will buy them.” So he bought them, and it was so amazing, because I was shoe shopping with my guru. It was really an amazing experience for a young girl from California. But Prabhupada was always very playful, and he had a sweet nature. And so wonderfully deep and sweet and caring and loving.

Another one of my favorite stories when we were in Amritsar was, we were invited to go to the Golden Temple, which is a Sikh temple. And so we went there and we walked all around the temple and toured the temple and they had this big chapatti making, giant like an upside down wok, where they were making chapattis and serving, feeding the needy people, and so Prabhupada said we should do this. We should make like this. And he toured the temple, and he was very impressed. And then when we left, they had Prabhupada sign the guest book at the end. And we all gathered around, and he signed A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. And under that it said comments of the temple and your religion. And his comments were very spiritual. And then his religion was Krishnaite, which I thought was funny. So we traveled from one town to the other for how many months?

Giriraj Swami: Six months.

Kausalya: For six months, and went all over India, and Prabhupada was tireless. We were all young, in our twenties, and I was a little younger, but Prabhupada would outlast all of us. And we would have hundreds of engagements at every place we would go, and we would go from house to house to house, and he was always so gracious, and he taught us everything. How to drink water without touching the cup; that was one of the first things he taught us. Do you remember that?

I am not so good at it now, but Giriraj will demonstrate. So because in India, they will think that you are first class if you do that. It is much cleaner. And not to touch anything with your left hand, because that is considered very, very muci, not śuci. So it was just little things like that; one thing after the other. He taught us all sorts of small, proper etiquette while we were in India, and I could go chronologically, but there is so many little stories that pop into my head, and if I can just share them with you.

In one place, we were walking around. I don’t remember what the context was, but Prabhupada told me—he wasn’t just telling me; he was telling all of us. He said, “Marble is better than gold.” He said, “When I was a boy, I used to eat off of marble plates with my father. And he said that marble is better than gold. So I tucked that in the back of my head, and when we got to Calcutta, while he had gone somewhere internationally, this was later on down the line, I had arranged to get him a whole set of marble plates, a marble tally and marble katoris, marble glass, everything white marble; beautiful, white marble—had it specially made. And when Prabhupada arrived, I brought in a big tray of fruits and sweets on the marble plates, and I was so happy. I put it on his desk and paid my obeisances, and he goes, “Oh, marble plates.” And I came up, and he said, “But these are white marble.” And I just wanted to shrivel into nothing. And then he looked at me, and he goes, “When I ate with marble plates with my father, it was black marble.” And I am thinking, Oh God, I got the wrong kind! Then he looks around. He is teasing me. He goes, “But I have so many white fathers now, so this is alright.”

And then, some of my other favorite stories:

When we were traveling, we were invited to Gorakhpur, which is where Gītā Press is. Giriraj Maharaja mentioned Gītā Press, and Prabhupada’s first publication was done by Gītā Press, right?

Giriraj Swami: Oh, I don’t know.

Kausalya: Well, I don’t know. Anyway, he was invited there by Hanuman Prasad Poddar.

Devotee: What it was, I think, is that he gave a big donation to Hanuman Prasad, for the first publication of the Delhi Vibrant Times.

Kausalya: Okay, I knew there was something; there was a connection. And he invited us to come to Gorakhpur. So we all came, and first of all, we were living in a small house with—What was his name? Dr. something.

Giriraj Swami: Raul; Ravindra Pratap Raul.

Kausalya: Right. And it was a very small home and Prabhupada had a room, and we were in a room, and I don’t know where the men were sleeping. Where were you sleeping?

Giriraj Swami: There was like a hallway that we were sleeping in.

Kausalya: It was a hallway. We were all jammed in this house, and it was very tight quarters. But earlier, my japa beads had broken, and so I had asked Srila Prabhupada to chant. I picked up new japa beads when we were in Vrindavan, and I asked Prabhupada to chant on them, and he said, “I will when I can.” So I kept pestering him, “Will you chant on my japa beads?” And he finally said, “Give me your japa beads.” So while we were in this house, he kept them for several days, and I would ask him on a daily basis, because I had the old ones, but there were some broken beads. “Have you chanted on my japa beads, yet, Srila Prabhupada?” “No, not yet.” So then, one day I was getting really anxious to have them back and have him chant on them. So there was a curtain in his room. It wasn’t a door, it was a curtain, and he always would take rest in the afternoon. I looked at my watch. I thought, He must be awake by now. So I peeked in to see if he was awake, and he was lying down in bed with my beads wrapped all around his hands like this, asleep on his side, and I was silent as a church mouse. I just pulled the curtain aside, and the minute I did that, his eye opened and he goes, “Kausalya, you may have your japa beads.” So I came in, I paid my obeisances, but it was so exciting. I still have those beads; he was sleeping with them. It was quite wonderful.

Well finally in Gorakhpur, the quarters were so tight that. . . I don’t know who gave us that ranch.

Giriraj Swami: That was Hanuman Prasad Poddar. The Gītā Press gave it to us.

Kausalya: Okay. So he knows more than I know.

Giriraj Swami: No.

Kausalya: But anyway, we moved to this farmhouse. And prior to going to Gorakhpur, where we had been at the Kumbha-Mela, the first, Kumha-Mela that we had ever attended and that was in early 1971, I think, right?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, December, January.

Kausalya: Yes. December, January. So the deities that we had been traveling with—they were small brass deities—had been in a trunk because in Dr. Raul’s house, there was no place to put them, we were just jammed in there. And Prabhupada was getting anxious to take them out of the trunk and start doing ārati. And so he told me first thing when we got to the ranch that we should take the deities and “tomorrow morning we will have maṅgala-ārati.” So he said, “Set up an altar.”

So I remember thinking to myself, I don’t know how to do this. I had this two big empty rooms. They were probably about the size of this room, but there was an archway in the middle, and on one side we were going to put the deities, and on the other side is where the devotees would gather and the vyāsāsana and everything. And I basically was lost. And I started to put together a few things. I found a table, and within minutes of beginning my project, Prabhupada walked in and he said, “Where are the others?” I said, “I don’t know, Srila Prabhupada.” He said, “Well, get them. Call them.” So everybody gathered, and he said, “Tomorrow morning we will have ārati.” And he assigned everyone different tasks. Giriraj and. . . Who went with you?

Giriraj Swami: I forgot.

Kausalya: Anyway, another brahmachari, went out. Prabhupada told them to pick leaves; bring branches. And then, Tamal and Hamsaduta, who were the only householders there who had really nice, white dhotis, he said, “You will give dhotis.” And Tamal immediately gave his dhoti, and I remember Hansadutta was a little hesitant, because they were very fine cotton. And he said, “Kausalya will take care of it.” But then, the minute they came with the dhotis, Prabhupada said, “Tear them into strips.” So we tore them into these long white strips. And then, Giriraj and the other guy, I can’t think of who it was, came back with the branches, and we found bamboo. And Prabhupada was directing the whole thing. And we tied bamboo to the table that I found, and I found some little stairs and we had little pieces of cloth from the pandal, and we created a patchwork quilt on the back with all these different pieces of cloth. And you take a white strip of dhoti, and he would put a piece of leaf, and we would wrap it so all the poles were covered with these beautiful leaves. And then he had Hemavati donate a sari that we used as a curtain, and it was the most wonderfully rustic but wonderful temple. And sure enough, the next morning we had maṅgala-ārati.

And it was in Gorakhpur, also that Prabhupada taught us a new song, Radha-Madhava. And I remember he said we will sing this new song, and he had me write it down, and then I passed out little pieces of paper to everybody. And then the next morning he sang it, and it was the most amazing thing. Every day we would sing Radha-Madhava—Jaya Radha-Madhava. We all got so that we relished this.

And in Gorakhpur we had very bad electricity. So the lights were always shutting off and we would suddenly be in the dark. So I got in the habit of putting candles all around the vyāsāsana. And so when the lights would go off, Prabhupada would still have some light. And one day, the lights went off and he was singing Jaya Radha-Madhava. And it got pitch dark and he stopped, right in the middle of singing, and you could hear a pin drop. And then suddenly you could hear him crying, and Prabhupada said, “This is Krishna playing in the bushes with Srimati Radharani.” And then, he said, “Chant Hare Krishna,” and it was the most ecstatic kirtan we ever had. Do you remember that?

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Kausalya: And then Srila Prabhupada used to tease me all the time in Gorakhpur, because my job was to clean the floors while he was lecturing. We would have maṅgala-ārati, and then he would talk on the Bhāgavatam, and I would be in the other room cleaning the floors. And sometimes, he would make comments like, “Kausalya is a very good devotee. See how she is cleaning the floors so nicely.”

So one day he goes, “Kausalya, Come here.” And I came in, and he said, “Every day, you were cleaning the floor very nicely. But today, you are cleaning like a crow takes a bath.” And I said, “What does that mean, Srila Prabhupada?” And he goes, “Like this, you don’t use enough water.” He said, “I will show you.” So he climbs down off the vyāsāsana, walks into the other room, he gets down, he goes, “Where is your bucket?” So Prabhupada is squatting on the floor, and he takes my rag and makes it soaking wet. And he does this big. . .and then he says, “Squeeze it out.” And I squeezed it out. And he mopped it up, and he goes, “There, now that is expert.”

So there is so many stories.

Devotee: Tell us about Surat.

Kausalya: Oh, okay. Surat was actually one of our most ecstatic engagements. Let us see; we went from Amritsar to. . . Where did we go next? We went from Amritsar to. . .

Giriraj Swami: I will tell you.

Kausalya: Okay, good.

Giriraj Swami: From Amritsar, we got on the train to come back to Bombay.

Kausalya: Right.

Giriraj Swami: But Srila Prabhupada had been corresponding with an Indian gentleman from Delhi when he was in America. Actually, the Gītā Press has a publication called Kalyana, and they published an article about Srila Prabhupada’s work in America. That was very appreciative of Srila Prabhupada’s efforts. So anyway, he was an advocate, Mr. Gupta. Somehow he had written to Srila Prabhupada, and they were corresponding. And so he came to the Delhi Station, because the train had about an hour stop over there, and he asked Srila Prabhupada, “Leave some disciples in Delhi to start a center there.” So right on the spot, Srila Prabhupada told Gurudas and Yamuna and two other brahmacharis—one named Gopal and one named Bruce who was later initiated as Banu, and myself. He said, “Get down, and see what you can do.” And that was it. So then, he and the others carried on to Bombay, and that is where the man came and said, “You can save me.”

Kausalya: Right. Oh yes. That is a great story.

Giriraj Swami: No, you tell that. That is your story. And then from there we all met in Indore.

Kausalya: Right. And then from Indore. . .

Giriraj Swami: The Bombay group went to Indore, and Prabhupada had the small group from Delhi also come to Indore for Gita-jayanti Sumela, and then, from there we went to Surat.

Kausalya: And somewhere in between we went to the Kumbha-Mela. Right?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, that was before.

Kausalya: That was before. Okay, the reason I am bringing this up is we were living. . .

Giriraj Swami: No, no, no. That was after.

Kausalya: Oh, that was after. You are right, that was after.

Anyway, just to give you the little story that he was talking about, when we came back to Bombay – Oh, one thing Gurudas told me that I didn’t know. I just learned this last week. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Bombay Temple was in January of last year, and they were kind enough to invite me, and Gurudas was there. And I just learned a little titbit that Gurudas asked Prabhupada, “Yamuna and Kausalya are so close, I would like Kausalya to get off in Delhi, as well.” And Prabhupada said, “No. I have plans for her.” But I never learned what those plans are, which is torturing me now. Anyway, little tidbit.

So we went back to Bombay, and we were invited to live in a Rama mandir, Rama temple. And it was wonderful there, but the one story that Giriraj was talking about, Prabhupada would have daily darshan, and this one man came in and he prostrated himself in front of Prabhupada and said, “Swamiji, you will save me.” And then, Prabhupada looked at him and he goes, “No, I cannot save you. I can tell you how you can save yourself, but you must do the work.” And that stuck in my mind that Krishna consciousness is not something that you just glom on to somebody who is already enlightened. It takes your own internal work to advance yourself spiritually.

And anyway, so then we went from there—he was talking about Indore—then we went to Surat. And Surat was magic. There is almost nothing to describe it. The people of Surat were so Krishna conscious that it was actually mind-boggling to all of us. They were so good to us. They would announce in the paper the kirtan route, and so then the ladies would drape cloth over our route to shade our path. And then, everyone would come out piling us with garlands upon garlands upon garland, so we had to take them off and give them to others. And they would come put kumkum and chandan on our foreheads and bring out glasses of water or nimbu pani or bananas or sweets or whatever it was. And they were all chanting with us, and there was just such incredible spiritual energy in the whole town. It was overwhelming to all of us. Prabhupada had unlimited energy in Surat. I think we just we went from early in the morning till late at night, and he would take darshan for hours and hours, passing out these little rock candies.

And we were living in this huge mansion of—What was his name?

Giriraj Swami: Bhagubhai Jariwala.

Kausalya: Bhagubhai Jariwala. He has such a great memory.

Anyway, so we had a regular program and everything, and one of the most amazing stories that I love to tell is, at the time we were learning the Īśopaniṣad. And so I had memorized the whole Īśopaniṣad, and I was brash enough in those days to say to Prabhupada, “Prabhupada, I have memorized the whole Īśopaniṣad.” It was very different, because his door was always open to us. Because we were a small group, we were very close and tight-knit family, and so there was no impediment to going in and talking to him. So I went in and I said, “Srila Prabhupada, I have memorized the whole Śrī Īśopaniṣad.” He goes, “Very nice.”

So then we went on this engagement out into—it was a suburb, out in the country of Surat, and we were—Did you go to this engagement? No. Anyway, Prabhupada was sitting on this porch. I remember the house had mud floors, but they were very clean. And Prabhupada said they were covered with cow dung, and they used cow dung in some of these houses to make the floors. And so he is sitting on the porch, and after he gave his lecture, he said, “Kausalya, come here.” I am thinking, What does he want? And, because I am just sitting out in the audience, like you. So I walked up to him, and he said, “Sing Śrī Īśopaniṣad.” And I am thinking, Oh God, did I stick my foot in my mouth? So I sang it, and I pulled it off, and Prabhupada was so pleased. I kept looking at him, and he was beaming. And when I was done, I started to pay my obeisances, and he pulled me towards his lap and he patted me on the head and patted me on the back. I felt like a puppy dog. It was really amazing though.

But anyway, Surat was incredible. That was also in Surat, and there was some magic in that town. I don’t know if anybody has seen the pictures from that engagement, but it was absolutely amazing. The people of Surat were all so saintly, so open to Krishna consciousness. It was absolutely incredible and inspirational to all of us.

And I think I have talked enough. Now I am going to let Giriraj talk for a little while.

Giriraj Swami: I just thought of a few small incidents as you were speaking. Well, first we went to Amritsar. And as Kausalya explained, they provided two adjoining rooms in a small building. And Srila Prabhupada was in one, and the two ladies were in the other. And every day there were so many programs, and we could not keep up with Srila Prabhupada. We really could not keep up with him. So Gurudas Prabhu, was the leader of the group. So he went to Srila Prabhupada and said, “Srila Prabhupada, the devotees are feeling tired.” And apart from the outside programs, there was the morning session and the evening session of the Vedanta Sumela.

So Srila Prabhupada said, “Alright, we will just have two outside programs a day. Is that alright?” So Gurudas said, “Alright.” So it went on like that for a while, but then as we were getting to the end of the stay there were so many invitations. And Srila Prabhupada wanted to honor them. He wanted to encourage the people in Krishna consciousness, so he started to accept more than two a day. And one day, he accepted seven engagements. And as Kausalya mentioned, she and Yamuna would ride in the car with Srila Prabhupada, but we men would go by rickshaw. And the car went much faster than the rickshaws, so by about the fifth program, we were just getting there when Prabhupada was leaving.

So anyway, the last one—that was so amazing. It was a hall, maybe a quarter of the size of this room. It was a fair sized hall. It was completely filled with devotees, local Indian devotees of Krishna. And I could tell from the way Srila Prabhupada was speaking to them, because he was speaking very intimately about Krishna and he was speaking in Hindi, and I didn’t know Hindi. We had just come to India, but the atmosphere was so special, and Srila Prabhupada was speaking with such devotion that somehow I was able to follow the talk. And of course, he would quote verses that I knew in between. It was just a very deep devotional experience.

So then at the end, it must have been after 10:00 o’clock at night after going all day long, Srila Prabhupada came back in the car, and we followed in the rickshaws. And when we got back, we saw the light was on in Srila Prabhupada’s room. So we were curious, so we snuck up to the window to peek in. And there was Srila Prabhupada reclining on his asana. It is a cushion with some bolsters behind it, reclining, listening to the tape recording of the talk that he had just given. And then I just realized that he wasn’t speaking, it was like Krishna was speaking, and he was relishing Krishna’s association by hearing his own talk again. He just had limitless energy for Krishna consciousness and limitless enthusiasm to preach.

Then Prabhupada and the party went back to Bombay; a few of us got off at Delhi, then we met again in Indore for the Gītā Jayanti Mahotsava. That is the celebration of the speaking of Bhagavad-gītā by Lord Krishna to Arjuna, which falls usually in December.

Anyway, just one small thing. So every afternoon people would come to meet Srila Prabhupada. But a lot of them had their own ideas; a lot of these Hindu gentlemen, they had their own ideas. And Prabhupada actually complained that they come with their own ideas, and they want to see if I agree with their ideas. If I agree, they think, Oh, Swamiji is very good. And if I disagree, they don’t like it.

Then we went to Surat, and it was like I imagined how the people of Rome would have received Julius Caesar or something; it was unbelievable. And our godbrother, Yadubara Prabhu, he is compiling all the footage of Srila Prabhupada ever filmed, and he is making a series of DVDs. And so he stopped by to interview me. There is going to be, I think four tracks or six tracks to accompany the visuals. One will be Prabhupada speaking at the different places that are portrayed, and one track will be him singing. One track will be disciples singing, and one track will be disciples describing the events depicted in the film. So he came to interview me, and in the course of it he showed me the footage from Surat.

Kausalya: It is incredible.

Giriraj Swami: You all must see as much footage of Srila Prabhupada as possible. That is all I can say. And on the earlier trip in Gorakhpur, because Kausalya was talking about how Prabhupada trained us in the etiquette. When I arrived there, I had some other service, so I wasn’t there initially. When I arrived there, Srila Prabhupada was just finishing a meal with the disciples. This was at the Gītā Press premises with Hanuman Prasada Poddar, personally.

Kausalya: Oh, right. Yes. I remember that.

Giriraj Swami: And when I got there, Srila Prabhupada was eating a banana. They served him a banana with the peel on it. And on the principle that you don’t touch anything pure with your left hand, you don’t touch prasāda with your left hand, he was putting the end of the banana in his teeth and tearing off the top and peeling it with his teeth and then he ate.

Kausalya: Oh, I have to tell one story. This was also in Gorakhpur that reminded me of something Giriraj said. I did a lot of cooking for Prabhupada over the years and preparing of prasādam and such. And so I served him once an apple cut up when we were there. And he said, “You did not remove the peeling.” And I said, “But that is where all the nutrients are.” And he said, “You may eat the wrapper, but I will not.”

Another really interesting thing about going from Mr. Bhagubhai Jariwala’s house in Surat: It was a very palatial home, and then from there to the Kumbha-Mela where we lived in tents and it was very cold. It was muddy and cold and miserable, and we were pumping water from a pump, and everybody was freezing, and of course Prabhupada never minded any of this. And I think someone was complaining how difficult it was, and he said “No, no. We are transcendentalists. We come and we live in a palace; now we live in tents. It is the same to us.”

Giriraj Swami: We were living in tents, and it was very cold in the morning. There were a few, very stalwart men. I think Tamal and Hansadutta, they would get up at three in the morning and go to the Ganges and take bath. But the rest of us, we would stay in our sleeping bags and dread the moment we would have to get out.

Kausalya: It wasn’t like there were hot showers.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, there was no heat.

Kausalya: It was a low tent.

Giriraj Swami: We would walk out of the tent, and outside the tent there were these hand pumps. 

Kausalya: Yes.

Giriraj Swami: And you would fill up a bucket, and then you would have a lota. You would be four in the morning.

Devotee: And this is January in Allahabad?

Giriraj Swami and Kausalya: Yes.

Giriraj Swami: Freezing cold and pouring this cold water on you. So it was a very strict principle that we had to attend maṅgala-ārati. That is the first ceremony in the temple at 4:30 in the morning. And we weren’t making it, because we couldn’t get out of our sleeping bags. So when Srila Prabhupada heard, he became very concerned. So the next morning, he got up at four o’clock and he went out into the freezing cold and took the same type of bath. And we felt so ashamed; so mortified that our spiritual master at the age of more than seventy years, had to do that because we didn’t want to get out of our sleeping bags. So then after that, we got up and we just did it.

And there was one other little incident there. It was so cold, we have the ārati ceremony, and part of the ārati ceremony is lighting the ghee lamp, which has little wicks made of cotton and soaked in ghee, which is clarified butter. So one morning, it was so cold – see, the pujari, his hands were becoming numb, and he couldn’t light the match. And he did, he would light it sometime, and the flame would just start to burn, and then it would go out. And he couldn’t light it. And Srila Prabhupada was there on the stage. He would sit on this vyāsāsana with a microphone, and we are just looking. It was like, “Can’t you light the lamp?” Prabhupada is waiting. And then suddenly we hear through the speaker system Prabhupada’s voice, “harer nāma harer nāma harer nāmaiva kevalam kalua nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyathā.” And the verse means that in the present age of Kali-yuga, one should chant the holy names, chant the holy names, chant the holy names. There is no other way, no other way, no other way for success in the present age. And at the time, I thought maybe there was a little tinge of sarcasm like, okay you can’t light the ghee lamp, so just chant Hare Krishna. But in retrospect, I think there was actually deep realizations in what Srila Prabhupada said. That actually, the only thing we really can do properly is to chant the holy name. We do the other things, and actually Prabhupada was very pleased with the deity worship. I mean, there is no deity worship in India like the standard of deity worship Srila Prabhupada taught us. Even the deities here, the deity worship here, you don’t see that in India. You don’t see such nice decoration and devotion.

Once the Administrator of Tirupati, the famous temple in South India, he gave some devotees from ISKCON a tour. And Tirupati is very well organized; very well managed. It is like a resort, but hundreds of times more than a resort. And of course it is all spiritual. But they get about five hundred thousand pilgrims every day, so they have a huge facility for feeding, guest rooms, and it is such a long line to see the deities that they have entertainment at different stages along the line, because people are waiting hours to see the deities. So we were very impressed by the arrangements. He said, “Yes, we have everything, but you have one thing that we don’t have, and that is devotion.”

So Srila Prabhupada inspired a tremendous level of devotion. Even now, it is going on and it is there in the deity worship. But still, the real essence of the process is the chanting.

Kausalya: Oh, wait. I have to say something, coming from that chanting idea. When we were in Jaipur, we had a wonderful pandal program in Jaipur, and Prabhupada was living on the grounds of Radha-Govindaji’s Temple there. And so I actually was very involved in that festival. So one day, I walked into Prabhupada’s quarters, and I said to him, “Srila Prabhupada, you should come outside. There are hundreds of kites in the sky. It is beautiful. All beautiful, colorful kites.” And he said, “Oh, it is kite flying season!” And I said, “I didn’t know there was a season.” He goes, “Yes! When I was a boy, I used to fly kites with my sister, and her kite would always fly higher than mine.” He said, “So one day I decided to cheat and I climbed on the roof, and my kite flew higher than hers. But then she called out ‘Govinda! Govinda! Govinda!’ and her kite flew higher than mine.” So he said, “So you see, even in our childhood we were always remembering Krishna.” He said, “So go fly kites today.” I didn’t, because I was too busy. Just one more. What time do you want to. . .

Giriraj Swami: I am not in charge. [inaudible]

Kausalya: Okay. I don’t want to keep these people from prasādam.

Devotee: I don’t want it to end but I think we probably should say fifteen more minutes; 8:30?

Kausalya: Should we take questions? Do you want to do it that way?

Giriraj Swami: Sure. That is a good idea if they want to.

Kausalya: Do you want to ask any questions, since we just have a few more minutes? Yes—

Devotee: Can you speak about just the opening of the Bombay Temple. We always hear about the great austerities that you all did there so maybe you can just say. . .-

Kausalya: Giriraj Maharaja should speak about that. I was in Bombay at the very, very beginning but then, he was there the whole time.

Giriraj Swami: Did you want to know about the opening ceremony or the history?

Devotee: No, prior to that. Of course, we hear that there is such difficulty getting the land, and you were in makeshift quarters.

Giriraj Swami: Okay. So you saw the land. So it is basically, the front portion was vacant, and the back portion had six apartment buildings that were rented out to tenants by Mr. Nair. And the law in India is such you can’t evict a tenant. They have more rights than the owner. So we were just living on the terraces; on the rooftops of the buildings. That one talk that Prabhupada was having was on one of the rooftops, but that didn’t work in the rainy season. It didn’t work that well otherwise, because it was very hot and we were really subjected to mosquitoes. I don’t know why Badrinarayana neglected them when he was talking about the rats, but the mosquitoes were also very much part of the local atmosphere, and devotees were getting jaundice; devotees were getting malaria.

There is so much to tell, it is very difficult. Anyway, there was one man named Dr. Patel who lived in Undari, a few miles from Juhu. And he came to the land after that first pandal program and Prabhupada had left. And he was very impressed. And he had been educated in England, but he remained strict vegetarian, and he knew Sanskrit. He was a little proud. So he was so moved by the devotees’ austerities, he took it upon himself. And we didn’t really have any friends, we were just plopped there. He took it upon himself to get twelve mattresses—not the mattresses that you have here. What he actually did is, he got cloth and cotton donated, and then from that he had some mattresses made, and a sheet—no two sheets—and a pillow, because we were all just living on straw mats. That was all we had. Oh and mosquito nets to keep the mosquitoes off. So he donated them to us, and we got a little relief from that.

But things may have changed to some extent, but then we weren’t very careful about material possession. We started with twelve of everything, and after a while, it was eleven of this; ten of this; nine of that. Then it was six of this; five of that; four of that. And for Mr. Patel, he was proud man to go out and beg in mochi jata market, the cotton merchants, textile merchants. It was a big thing for him. Eventually, after about three years, there was nothing left. There wasn’t a trace of his gift, and he was disturbed about it. And almost every morning he would walk on Juhu Beach with Srila Prabhupada, and they would have discussions that are recorded. So he complained to Srila Prabhupada. Oh yes, and Dr. Patel, like many Indians born Hindus, he was a Mayavadi. Although he would always insist that he was a Vaishnava, but underneath, he was a Mayavadi. He thought the ultimate goal is to merge and become one with God; become liberated.

So he complained to Prabhupada that there was nothing left of his donation. And Prabhupada said, “These boys and girls who have joined me, they don’t care about their bodies. They are prepared to lie down anywhere under any condition. They just care about chanting Hare Krishna and serving their guru Maharaja.” And he said, “That liberation that you covet so much, they already have. And that is why they don’t care about these mattresses and mosquito nets and pillows, because they are liberated.”

So but anyway, the rainy season was going to come, and Srila Prabhupada said we should construct a chātāi hut. Now, chātāi—it is like straw, but they take the palm leaves—what you call those thorns or fronds?

Devotee: Palm fronds.

Kausalya: Fronds.

Giriraj Swami: Yes. And they weave them, and they make these sheets. So the walls were made of the chātāi, and there was a frame made of bamboo poles, and then we put tarpaulin on the roof. And Prabhupada said—We probably would have been better off with cow dung, I don’t know, but we made a cement slab. But it wasn’t done well and the cement kept cracking and there were potholes in the floor, and the rain would come in. The tarpaulin didn’t really keep the rain out completely, so there would be areas of the hut that were so. . . We would put buckets there to collect the water so it wouldn’t spread. But you couldn’t sleep there or do anything.

So Bombay has these rats. They are not like the rats you have here. They are like this big. This is not an exaggeration, they are actually this big. They are peculiar to Bombay. And another thing about them is that when they bite you, you don’t feel it. So these rats would come out at night and bite devotees and devotees wouldn’t even know it. And they would wake up in the morning and they would see the blood, and then they would know that they had been bitten by one of the Bombay rats. So these were the better conditions.

Then Mr. Nair, now yes, Mr. Nair was the owner of the land, and Mr. Nair was really a cunning cheater. He was very cunning. He had taken money from a previous purchaser. But the previous purchaser only entered the agreement for the front vacant portion of the land, not the back portion that had the apartments. And so one of the conditions for the sale was that the municipality had to approve of the separation of land into two plots. And then, Mr. Nair was very influential. He had been the sheriff of Bombay, he owned a major daily English language newspaper, and he was a wealthy man. So through his friends and influence and probably bribes, because that is how a lot of India works, he made sure that the partition of the land was not approved. So he just kept the previous guy’s money, and told him “I am sorry. I can’t sell to you, because the sale wasn’t approved.”

Then he did the same thing with Srila Prabhupada. Because we were a charitable organization (It is a rule; it is true, it is a rule) you have to have the permission. Any charitable trust has to have the permission of the charity commissioner before they can buy any immovable property. And again Mr. Nair made sure we didn’t get the approval, and then he canceled the agreement. He said “I am sorry. The deadline has passed. You didn’t get the approval.” And meanwhile, he had taken two hundred thousand rupees, which was a lot of money then, and he wouldn’t give it back, and he wouldn’t sell us the land.

Prabhupada was very gracious; very charming, and he genuinely liked people. He is just very pure and full of love, and he was very charming with Mr. Nair. He would keep influencing Mr. Nair to sell it and revive the sale agreement. It was going back and forth, but by the end, Mr. Nair, I think he was surrounded by a lot of greedy people and he became very belligerent. And Prabhupada said something. No, Nair said something like, “This is not your property.” And Prabhupada said, “I never said it was my property. It is Krishna’s property. Krishna is already there.” And Mr. Nair said, “Well, I am going to come, and I am going to smash that Krishna,” meaning the deity. And then Prabhupada really became angry. And then, as Mr. Sethi said, Prabhupada left for Australia. Things were in a deadlock and Mr. Nair suddenly had a heart attack.

Anyway, there are so many stories, and I am going to say this. I hesitated to say it before because I didn’t want you to think I was trying to sell something. And the reason I. . . Oh, I don’t know if I should say.

Devotee: Well, you have to say it now.

Giriraj Swami: Okay, Okay.

Devotee: We don’t have any money, anyway, so go ahead.

Giriraj Swami: Well, I put together, not the full history but, some anecdotes of what took place over the years. Not just in Bombay, but in other places, in the form of a book called Watering the Seed.

Badrinarayana: Is that book available?

Devotee: Yes.

Giriraj Swami: Is Seki Magiti here?

Devotee: We have all the books there in the. . .

Giriraj Swami: We have some.

Badrinarayana: Oh, very good!

Giriraj Swami: Okay.

Badrinarayana: Oh, definitely!

Giriraj Swami: Okay, so. But I will come back sometime soon, I hope.

Kausalya: You have to.

Giriraj Swami: Yes. So I guess-

Kausalya: Oh, one quick Bombay story. Not only were the rats giant, the cockroaches were really, really big. I mean, really big. And in 1976, I was cooking for Prabhupada, and he was living in one of the apartments and I was living in an apartment across from him. And so I was in there cooking. And actually, it was right after—I take it back. I had just cooked. He had already taken prasāda, and he was down for his afternoon nap and his rest. And then I was cleaning in the kitchen, and this cockroach flew in, and it was, I swear to God, as big as this microphone. It was huge, and it startled me. So I made this gasp, like – Uhhhhh! and Prabhupada immediately ran out in his gumsha, and ran out, “Are you alright?” And I said, “Yes, it was a cockroach.” I said an insect. He goes, “What do you mean?” “I will show you. He is flown into your bathroom.” So we walked into his bathroom, and there it was, flopping its wings, standing there in the bathroom. Prabhupada looked at him and he goes, “Oh, it is an animal, don’t cause him any harm.”

Devotees: Srila Prabhupada, ki jaya!

Badrinarayana: I just wanted to say, I should probably say it in the microphone, that as Kausalya said, she is now living close by. And Giriraj Maharaja is going to test out the commuter train to Santa Barbara, tomorrow. So we can all offer prayers it goes very smoothly, because with her nearby and Maharaja on a smooth train, we just hope this is the tip of the iceberg. So we can do this on a regular basis if you could come back.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, we could. Actually we could.

Badrinarayana: So please give them a nice hand to welcome them.

Devotees: Haribol! Haribol!

Badrinarayana: We look forward to our next step.

Kausalya: Thank you.

Badrinarayana: You are welcome. So what? Given the time, what should we do?

Devotee: Prasādam.

Devotee: Prasādam.

Devotee: Why don’t we do a ten minute kirtan to make sure the server is ready?

Badrinarayana: Dravida, what do you say?

Dravida: I am ready for that.

Devotees: Yes.

Badrinarayana: We are going to have just a short kirtana while we are getting everything set up. So that way, you can get up while your life airs will adjust, and we will have all the feast ready.