Japa Retreat—04 Srila Prabhupada’s Faith in the Holy Name—Level 01—Day 02

Giriraj Swami: As we were chanting around Tulasi-devi at the end I looked at the picture of Srila Prabhupada on the wall which was painted from a photograph taken of him around 1966 and I was thinking in the same vain as Syamala Sakhi was thinking about the Pancha-tattva that they came to give us the holy name and I was also thinking of Srila Prabhupada that he also came to the western world to give us the holy name. He did so on the order of his spiritual master and at the same time he had faith in the holy name that if people like us would just chant the holy name everything else would follow.

Srila Prabhupada had a godbrother named niṣkiñcana Krishnadasa Babaji whom I heard Srila Prabhupada said was a paramahamsa and niṣkiñcana Krishnadasa Babaji approached another godbrother of Srila Prabhupada’s named Bon Maharaja. Bon Maharaja had been sent by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura to England and Europe but he didn’t really have much effect and then he came back to India. So Krishnadasa Babaji Maharaja approached Bon Maharaja and said that, “You went to the West and Swami Maharaja (that’s how they referred to Srila Prabhupada because they also referred to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura as Srila Prabhupada) went to the West. You presented the teachings of Lord Chaitanya and Swami Maharaja presented the teachings of Lord Chaitanya. You introduced the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and Swami Maharaja introduced the maha-mantra but Swami Maharaja was completely successful and you hardly achieved anything. So what is the reason?” I don’t know if Bon Maharaja ventured an answer but Krishnadasa Babaji answered and he said, “The reason is that Swami Maharaja had full faith in the holy name of Krishna and you didn’t.”

This is a very powerful statement. It is a very significant point. It is not a light point. Prabhupada had full faith in the holy name and with that conviction he came to the West and brought the holy name and encouraged us to chant.

Earlier when Srila Prabhupada had not yet gone to the West another one of his godbrothers, Oul Bihari Kapoor, approached him. They met in Mathura. In grihastha ashram Srila Prabhupada had been a chemist or a pharmacist. So Dr. Kapoor asked him that, “You are a chemist or a pharmacist. You know so many formulas. Do you know the formula for developing love of God?” Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, I do.” [laughter] So Dr. Kapoor said, “Can you tell me what it is?” He said, “Yes. Tṛṇād api su-nīcena taror iva sahiṣṇunā amāninā māna-dena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ.” Srila Prabhupada’s faith in the holy name was there from the beginning. It formed the basis of his journey to the West and his service to his spiritual master and to all of us.

At Srila Prabhupada’s sannyasa ceremony in Mathura at a certain stage of the ceremony the priest was doing the fire sacrifice and chanting mantras and Krishnadasa Babaji was chanting the holy name. He really relished the holy name. One time His Holiness Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Swami took me to meet him on one Ekādaśī at night. He was just sitting in the courtyard of some ashram. It was very dark—maybe there was a bare light bulb in the corner—and he was just chanting japa and relishing. He was literally tasting, savoring. He was really drinking the nectar of the holy name. So during Srila Prabhupada’s sannyasa initiation ceremony he was chanting japa and the priest motioned to him, “Keep quiet. I am saying the mantras. This is very important.” And then the priest went back to reciting the mantras, “Svāhā!” leading the devotees and offering the grains. Prabhupada motioned to Krishnadasa Babaji, “Keep chanting. Keep chanting. Don’t pay attention to him.” [laughter] So he had that deep faith.

Soon after I joined the devotees in the Boston temple the devotees had a financial crisis. As I mentioned when I first joined we didn’t really do hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana or distribute books. We just basically had Monday, Wednesday and evening programs in the temple and the Sunday feast. Prabhupada had said that if the devotees need to they can get jobs. At the time Satsvarupa dasa was the temple president. He worked for the welfare department and his check from the welfare department was the only income that the temple had. But as few more devotees were joining and the art department was there, it wasn’t enough. The devotees were very surrendered. They had a meeting and one devotee, Patita Pavana, said that he had worked in the post office before he joined so he could get a job at the post office. Another devotee said that he knew the grocer down the street and he might be able to get a job in the grocery store. Like that. And then this one devotee named Nanda-kisora raised his hand. He was a very humble devotee. They all were actually—most of them. Hare Krishna. I don’t want to commit any offense. It’s just different natures. They’re all wonderful devotees. So he recalled a letter and all of Srila Prabhupada’s letters were taken as important documents and messages for everyone. Whenever a letter came all the devotees would gather around and whoever it was addressed to would open it and read it and everyone would listen. So in one letter Srila Prabhupada had said that, “If you just go on street saṅkīrtana, hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, all of your problems will be solved—spiritually and materially.” So Nanda-kisora quoted that statement and everyone thought, Yes, that’s what we should do.

So the next day we went out on the streets. We chanted and I don’t think we even had BTGs to distribute then. Maybe we had a few but mainly we would just ask people for donations. So we came back and we counted up the Lakshmi. There was seven dollars. It looked promising. In those days seven dollars was something. So we thought we’ll try it the next day. We went out the next day, did the same thing, maybe with even more enthusiasm and conviction, came back and counted it up: twelve dollars. I thought, This is getting good. What Prabhupada said is true. And we went out the third day, came back and counted it up. There was nineteen dollars. Then there was no doubt what Prabhupada said was true. And then we would go out every day. That was in interesting statement: “If you chant Hare Krishna all your problems will be solved—materially and spiritually.” Prabhupada had that faith.

Then eventually we moved from the small storefront at 95 Glenville Avenue to a big mansion, 40 North Beacon Street. It was the first property that ISKCON owned, that the devotees purchased, and Srila Prabhupada was very enthusiastic and he said that the Press should move from New York to Boston. The devotees began to print Prabhupada’s books and one of the first books was Easy Journey to Other Planets. Srila Prabhupada directed every aspect not of the publication but of the presentation of the books. He gave the titles and he also in this case at least said what he wanted on the cover. What he wanted was on one part of the cover was the material universe like outer space with different stars and planets and then the other section was the spiritual sky. It had some Vaikuntha planets but mainly Goloka Vrindavan with a lotus and Radha and Krishna. Then he wanted a devotee flying through outer space from the material universe into the spiritual sky with dhoti, kurta, śikhā, and his japa-mālā. That was the cover of the book, that by chanting japa we can travel beyond the material universe to the spiritual sky, to Goloka Vrindavan. That’s our ticket back to Godhead. Later when the devotees showed him the cover, Prabhupada was pleased and he said, “Yes, by the beads.” [laughter] So it is very powerful.

Then we went to India and that was a little surprising. We began doing hari-nāma just like we were doing in the West but eventually Srila Prabhupada said we should not do so much because in India a lot of beggars go on the street and chant and he didn’t want people to think we were beggars. And then he introduced the life membership program which he said was really designed to distribute his books. But we did have big pandal programs which Prabhupada said we should call “Hare Krishna Festivals.” The first was in Bombay and the second was in Calcutta. Calcutta at the time was under the sway of communists and a group called Naxalites who were communist youth but their idea was to terrorize rich people. They would kidnap the sons of rich families. Sometimes they would just shoot rich people dead in the street. It was really a horrible situation. At that time a lot of the richer people actually left Calcutta and moved to Delhi and other places.

In this climate Srila Prabhupada wanted us to organize a big pandal. We did it. Prabhupada sent Tamal Krishna Goswami and me from Bombay. Before the pandal began, a couple of days before, he received a letter, “Fly or die.” It sounds overdramatic but they cut the letters out of the newspapers so no one could trace the typewriter and they pasted it and sent it. The day before the pandal there was a press conference. The mood of many of the reporters was very challenging. One of them challenged, “What is this pandal program going to accomplish? You could spend the money to help poor people. What is the pandal program going to accomplish?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “What will it accomplish? It will accomplish hearing. People will get a chance to hear.” And then he said, “The whole big arrangement has come from hearing. I went to the West and I spoke and some young people heard me and because they heard me now they have come and all of this is manifesting.”

So Prabhupada persisted and then the first night of the pandal it was like that, it was the traditional system that most of the grounds were covered with daris (Indian carpets) and then on one side or both sides there would be chairs for special guests. In our case we invited some VIPs and then life members and anyone who paid one rupee could also sit on a chair. A group of Naxalites came and they made a big commotion that, “Why some people get to sit on chairs and other people have to sit on the ground? Everyone should sit on the ground.” I think they were just looking for an issue to pick a fight. Prabhupada was on the stage with the disciples and they were just shouting and hollowing, deliberately making a disturbance. And then they started to take the folding chairs that we had there and clap them together just to make a big disturbance. It was really tense because those people could do anything. They were violent. We didn’t want to provoke them more but at the same time Prabhupada couldn’t speak because they were making so much noise.

So we were looking to Prabhupada, what is he going to do. Suddenly he just bent forward towards the microphone and began singing, “govindam ādi-puruṣam tam ahaṁ bhajāmi.” And he just began to sing the Govinda prayers. Somehow the whole disturbance subsided. The young men put down the chairs and quietly left. So it was quite miraculous.

Then after the Calcutta pandal was the Delhi pandal and when we were in Delhi Srila Prabhupada got an invitation to go to Madras but he was planning to go to Vrindavan from Delhi, the first time he was going to go with the devotees to Vrindavan. But he wanted someone to go to Madras. No one wanted to go. Everyone wanted to go with Prabhupada to Vrindavan. But I had that idea that the secret of success in Krishna consciousness was to follow the order of the guru and please the guru. So I volunteered.

I went to Madras. I kept asking for help but it was hard to get devotees. For a lot of the time I was alone there. While I was there a song came out. In Prabhupada’s purports sometimes he mentions cinema songs, the most popular songs. The refrain of this song was—I forget all the words—but it was, “Damara dama, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama. Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.” We didn’t have a center in Madras. I was just staying with different people. So I kept hearing the song and I asked my host what is the meaning of the song. I don’t know if he misunderstood it or if he was just being polite but what he said at the time was, “With every breath that I take, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama,” which sounded very nice [laughter]. So for a while we were in that illusion that’s what the song meant. Eventually we found out that what it really meant was, “With every puff that I take, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.”

From Madras we went to Calcutta and the movie was playing. We didn’t really know what it was but from the old days in America whenever Hair would show devotees would do hari-nāma in front of the theatre and distribute books. So we thought, O, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama. it would be a great opportunity. [laughter] So we did it. We were having hari-nāma and distributing books outside the theatre and I thought, Let me steal a peek. Let me see what is this movie. So I went inside just as it was about to begin. It was like that, you get the one crowd coming out and the other crowd going in. It was very impressive. Big screen. And it begins with the shots of the ocean, the waves of the ocean. The narrator says in a very deep voice that, “For centuries India’s spiritual culture remained within the shores of India but one man (and then it showed a picture of Srila Prabhupada) took India’s spiritual culture across the ocean.” And then it showed the London Ratha-yatra, so dramatic, the big screen, and I thought, Wow! This is amazing! And then it showed a bunch of hippies smoking ganja or hashish and chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Rama and they were really dressed like hippies and boys and girls mixing. It was really bad and I think the theme of the movie was that Prabhupada was degrading the Indian culture by giving it to hippies who were just misusing it and chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Rama and smoking dope and having free sex and everything else.

That was a blow. Srila Prabhupada actually said the government was behind it because they were afraid that this movement would become too popular. They wanted to turn people away from it. They also started rumors that we were CIA. It was the same type of thing. They knew we weren’t CIA but they just wanted to spread rumors about us because they didn’t want people to take to Krishna consciousness. They thought that spiritual life was going to keep the people down. Actually they wanted to keep the people down. Maybe they were afraid spiritual life would . . . Some people said we should file a suit. The star of the movie was Devanand. The film was completely identified with Devanand. He was a really big star then. So this man came up, “You know about Devanand?” Prabhupada said, “Yes. I urinate in his face.” [laughter]

Now we’re coming to the point, Srila Prabhupada’s faith in the holy name. Srila Prabhupada said, “In the long run this will actually help us because eventually people will forget the ‘Damara dama’ and they’ll just remember the ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.’” And it actually came true. From Calcutta I went to Bombay and then I was based in Bombay. Especially the street urchins, they were so many street urchins in Bombay, beggars. They sell magazines at street corners. Whenever they would see us they would just gather around and go like this, making a pipe, “Damara dama, damara dama . . .” They wouldn’t even get to the “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama” most of the time, Just, “Damara dama . . .” It was a plague. Wherever we went these little kids would gather around us and taunt us, “Damara dama . . .”

It went on like that. It was difficult. And then after maybe a year—it was a pretty popular song. It went on and on and on—or eighteen months it shifted. It was equal—Hare Krishna, Hare Rama and the Damara dama—and eventually it just as Prabhupada predicted the Damara dama dropped out. It was a mundane sound vibration and it had no real attraction. But the Hare Krishna, Hare Rama was transcendental. It was ever-fresh. The Damara dama part completely dropped out. When people would see us they would say, “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.” So that came to pass.

Then we had the Juhu project—that’s a whole history—but the very first visit that Prabhupada made to the Juhu land which he named Hare Krishna Land. . . Once he was in his room and he was hearing the kirtan from the little temple and he said, “This is Hare Krishna Land. We should always hear the sounds of Hare Krishna.” At the airport when he was leaving after his first visit they got the VIP lounge for him—it was just us and Prabhupada and Mrs. Nair—it was an uproarious kirtan, really ecstatic chanting and dancing. Prabhupada said, “If you go on having kirtans like this our mission will be successful.”

Then later one evening Srila Prabhupada was on one of the terraces of the old buildings. There were some tenement buildings that came with the land. One devotee named Haridasa was fanning him. Haridasa is still there—Bengali devotee. His mother was Didi Ma. She was one of the cooks in Mayapur. At seven o’clock Prabhupada looked at his watch and he said to Haridasa, “Do you hear the sounds of kirtan coming from the temple?” Haridasa strained to hear but he couldn’t hear. He said, “No, Srila Prabhupada.” And Prabhupada said, “You don’t hear the sounds of kirtan coming from the temple?” He said, “No.” Prabhupada said, “Well, that is the point. There is no kirtan [laughter] in the temple and there should be.” Then he said to Haridasa, “Do you know why we were successful and Mr. Nair wasn’t? Mr. Nair was very well established in Bombay. We were completely new. He was very wealthy and we had no money and no regular income—just barely got enough to survive. He was very influential. He owned the Free Press Journal which is one of three English daily newspapers in Bombay. We had no influence. He knew many important people. He had been the sheriff of Bombay and we hardly knew anyone. But we were successful and he was not. Why?” And then Srila Prabhupada gave the answer that, “We were acting to please Krishna and he was acting for his own personal desire. Because we pleased Krishna by Krishna’s mercy we were successful.”

Prabhupada asked, “Where are all the devotees?” Haridasa ventured that they were out collecting. They hadn’t come back yet. Prabhupada said, “That was not my idea that the devotees should just work day and night to collect but they should come back. They should leave the city at five o’clock and come back and chant and dance in front of the Deities. And by pleasing the Deities, by the mercy of the Deities, by the mercy of Krishna, we’ll be successful. Not by our own endeavor or over endeavor.” And he said that if they just work like that and don’t come back and chant they’ll become like karmis.

So Prabhupada really had that faith in Krishna, in the holy name that if we chant to please Krishna, Krishna will be pleased and we will be successful.

Then the last incident that I wish to relate came towards the end. In 1977 Srila Prabhupada was already quite ill. Srila Prabhupada had a very staunch devotee named P.L. Sethi. He was a Punjabi. He was actually from a Sikh family but he was a great devotee. He was like what Hanuman was to Rama that was what he was to Prabhupada. He was so staunch and had so much faith. From before he met Prabhupada he was associated with a group called the Radha-Madhava Satsanga Mandali. Their guru is in Vrindavan and they chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. They are all householders. Every week or at least every month they would have a twelve-hour ākāṇḍa-kīrtan from six in the morning until six in the evening and then they would have about two hours of Vraja songs.

So Mr. Sethi had the idea instead of having it in one of the devotee’s houses, as they would, to have it at the temple. We arranged it. The old temple was like a shed. It was okay. Meanwhile right beside it the new complex had come up and on the top floor of the tower near the old temple was Prabhupada’s quarters. The building wasn’t finished. The lift wasn’t working. Prabhupada was very ill but he was lying down or maybe reclining and listening. All these devotees really wanted to see him but they couldn’t come up. They would have had to walk up. It would have been too much for Prabhupada.

At one stage they were so eager that they came out of the temple and were just doing kirtan beneath the balcony of Prabhupada’s quarters. Eventually Mr. Sethi went up there and helped Prabhupada walk to the balcony. Prabhupada glanced down. They were just in ecstasy. He stayed for a little while and then he went back in. Then at the end they had the songs and the culmination of it was one lady would sing, “Jaya radhe, jaya radhe radhe, jaya radhe, jaya sri radhe. Jaya Krishna . . .” Mr. Sethi said when Prabhupada was listening to that tears were coming down his cheeks.

The next day I went up to see Srila Prabhupada and he said, “That was wonderful. We should invite the whole group to stay at Hare Krishna Land and we’ll tell them that we’ll maintain them. They don’t have to work. All they have to do is continuous kirtan.” I wasn’t sure what to do about that [laughter]. I heard it. But I think Prabhupada knew that that might take some time [laughter]. Then he said, “At least our devotees, they should do the twelve-hour kirtan every day, from six a.m. to six p.m.” Now we had been taught by Prabhupada that we have to serve and spread the mission and especially in Juhu we were very busy building the temple and getting it ready to open. I didn’t see how all the devotees could just spend twelve hours a day in the temple chanting. So I said, “Srila Prabhupada, we have so much service to do. How will we be able to do all the service?” And then Prabhupada said, “All right, then one day a week on Sunday.” And when Prabhupada said that, I said, “Yes,” because I felt that, “We’re off the hook.” Later Tamal Krishna Goswami said . . . I couldn’t think like that but he probably knew what he was talking about. He said that Prabhupada was doing transcendental bargaining. If he would have said, “Twelve hours every Sunday,” we might have said, “Oh, it’s too much. Maybe four hours.” But because he began with twelve hours a day, seven days a week, then when he finally said twelve hours a day, one day a week, “Oh yes, what a relief! We can do that.” [laughter]

Those kirtans, really it was just like what Prabhupada said that all problems will be solved materially and spiritually because I was the temple president and there were a lot of problems. We had to build the temple and deal with the authorities and deal with the devotees and then just India and all the disease and . . . So devotees would come to me and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday maybe I would deal with the problems. By Thursday we were getting close to the twelve-hour hari-nāma and I knew it happened every time without fail, all the problems got solved. Either they solved themselves or the devotees realized there wasn’t actually a problem after all or maybe we got some inspiration, some insight how to deal with it. So by Thursday . . . I wouldn’t tell them directly. I would say, “Well, just give me a few days to think about it,” [laughter] but I knew, “Let Sunday come. Let us do the twelve-hour kirtan. It’ll be solved .” And it happened every time. It was really wonderful.

So it back to the same point that by chanting Hare Krishna, Krishna is pleased and by Krishna’s mercy we are successful even in terms of preaching. Now this is really in the same mood of Prabhupada, especially tomorrow, mauna-vrata, it is like that twelve-hour continuous kirtan. So just give ourselves to that process, that mood of pleasing Krishna by our chanting. Actually whatever we do should be in the mood of pleasing guru and Krishna. Quite often in the beginning I would think, Prabhupada is hearing my chanting so I should chant so he’ll be pleased. You mentioned the Radha-Damodara party. Visnujana Maharaja, he had a large photo of Srila Prabhupada’s ear blown up [laughter], and he would chant in front of that picture of Srila Prabhupada’s ear with that idea that Prabhupada is hearing his japa, and he is chanting to please Srila Prabhupada. So it is all together service to guru, service to the holy name, chanting the holy name, and pleasing Krishna, chanting the holy name and pleasing Srila Prabhupada and being successful—materially and spiritually. Hare Krishna. [applause]