Japa Retreat—Day 02—Srila Prabhupada’s Faith in Holy Name Giriraj Swami

Giriraj Swami: The subject is “Srila Prabhupada’s Faith in the Holy Name.” From what I have heard and seen of Srila Prabhupada, his faith in the holy name was a constant theme in his life and in his mission. The first incident that I will relate refers to when Srila Prabhupada was in the grihastha ashram before he went to America, and he met a godbrother of his named Dr. O.B.L Kapoor in Mathura. When Srila Prabhupada was in grihastha ashram, he was a pharmacist for a British, English chemist, and Dr. Kapoor asked him, “You are a chemist, you know so many formulas. Do you know the formula for developing love of God?” Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes.” “Well, can you give it to me?” “Yes: tṛṇād api sunīcena taror api sahiṣṇunā amāninā mānadena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā harih”

This story was told by Niskincana Krishnadasa Babaji Maharaja who was another godbrother of Srila Prabhupada whom Srila Prabhupada said was a paramahamsa. At Srila Prabhupada sannyasa initiation ceremony, the priest was conducting the yajña, and Krishnadasa Babaji was chanting japa. And of course, Prabhupada and one other devotee were sitting, and the priest who was performing the yajña motioned to Krishnadasa Babaji, “I am reciting the mantras, keep quiet.” And then, when he turned back to the mantras… “svāhā,” Prabhupada motioned to Krishnadasa Babaji, “Keep going.” [laughter] So, to move ahead in time, I first really met the devotees in Boston in early 1969 and moved into the temple there, and after a month or two, the devotees found that they didn’t have enough money to support the temple. Basically, all the money was coming from Satsvarupa Maharaja who was working for the welfare department; we didn’t have saṅkīrtana yet. Once in a while, we would chant in the streets. So, the devotees were very surrendered, they were ready to do whatever was needed, and Srila Prabhupada said, if necessary, the devotees could get jobs.

So, Satsvarupa called a meeting and one devotee volunteered, “I used to work in the post office before I joined, I could get a job in the post office.” And another said, “I know the grocer down the street, I could like to get a job at the grocery shop.” And different devotees were volunteering to help. And then, one devotee named Nanda Kishore raised his hand, and he referred to a letter that Srila Prabhupada had written. And in those days, any letter that came for any devotee was an occasion, and everyone in the temple would gather around and wait for the devotee to come, and then he would read the letter. I guess if he wanted, he could read it silently to himself first, but it was expected that everyone would hear the letter. So, he referred to a letter that Srila Prabhupada had written in which he said that if you just go on saṅkīrtana, (then saṅkīrtana meant basically chanting out in the streets), all of your problems will be solved spiritually and materially. So, this is a very strong statement. So, the devotees decided, “Let’s try it.” So, we went out the first day, we didn’t try to sell books or magazines then because we went out on the street and chanted and we had some baskets of conch shells that we could use, hold out, it was like begging bowls. I don’t remember where we went the very first time, but the main places we went were Harvard Square, Boylston Street, and the Boston Common. Once in a while, we went to Newbury Street, but only occasionally.

So, we went out, we chanted, we asked for donations, we came back, we counted up the Lakshmi, and there were seven dollars, which was quite a lot back then for us. So, it looked promising, definitely looked promising. [laughter] So, “We will try it again.” We went out the next day, chanted in the streets, asked for donations, came back and counted up, there were twelve dollars. We thought, Wow. This could really be big. [laughter] And we went out the third day, did the same thing, maybe with more enthusiasm and conviction, came back and counted up, there were nineteen dollars. So, we thought, What Prabhupada said is true. [laughter] If we just do saṅkīrtana, all of our problems will be solved spiritually and materially.

Then, after preaching Krishna consciousness in the United States, Srila Prabhupada returned to India in 1970. And in 1971, we had the first Calcutta pandal program. And at the time, Calcutta was in the grips of communists, and there was a group called Naxalites, who were communist youth, but they were terrorists. Every week, there were incidents, often they would kidnap some rich man’s son and hold him for ransom, sometimes they will just shoot and kill a rich man on the street. There was an incident like that two blocks from where Srila Prabhupada and the devotees were staying when they first arrived in Calcutta. So, in this atmosphere, we arranged for the pandal program, and Srila Prabhupada received a note, “Fly or die.” It was really quite something; they cut out the letters from the newspaper and pasted them on so no one could trace the letterhead and typewriter. But Prabhupada didn’t budge. Then, just before the pandal program began, there was a press conference behind the pandal, and the reporters were in a very challenging mood and an aggressive mood, and one of them said, “What is the use of this big arrangement, spending so much money? What is the purpose? You could have spent the same money to feed poor people.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “The purpose is to give people a chance to hear. This whole huge arrangement has come just because people heard. I went to America and spoke, and some young people heard, and out of their hearing, this whole huge arrangement has come.”

So, the first night of the pandal came, and a group of Naxalites came to disturb the function. And it was the usual system in pandals that the ground would be covered by dharis, Indian carpets. And then, on the side, there would be folding chairs for VIPs. In our case, the VIPs were life members and anyone who paid a rupee. [laughter] So, the Naxalites came, and they took objection, “Why do some people get to sit on chairs and others have to sit on the ground?”

Devotee: How do they do this? Do they come up to the stage and shout things?

Giriraj Swami: Yes. Facing the audience, the chairs were on the right side. The pandal is like an open ground, anyone can walk in. So, they were sort of in the middle and towards the back of where the chairs were. And we had a life member, he was a really good supporter. In fact, he was one of the only Bengali supporters we had then, almost all the life members were [Unintelligible 00:14:08]. And he had been a colonel in the army, Colonel Datta. So, he was a militant type of person. So, he definitely didn’t want to back down, he didn’t want to use diplomacy, he wanted to go straight for them. So, that really caused the situation to escalate. And then the Naxalites who just really disturbed the program and made sure no one could hear Prabhupada speak, they started to just clap the folding chairs together. And it was really tense, we didn’t know what was going to happen. They could become violent; causing disruption like that, it was bad but they could do worse. And we looked towards Srila Prabhupada, what he would do, and he just leaned forward slightly into the microphone, govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi, he just started to sing the Govinda prayer, with great intensity and feeling. And what we saw from our position on the stage is that these Naxalites, they just put the chairs back, unfolded them, put them back where they were, and quietly left. Of course, later I heard from Gurudasa Prabhu, that Prabhupada sent him to tell them if they want to sit on the chairs for free, then they can sit for free. [laughter] So, the two things were going on at the same time. [laughter]

So then, a major event took place later in 1971. I was preaching in Madras, and I started to hear on the radio. And at least in those days, they would really play the radios loud, you could hear them for blocks. Prabhupada complained about it, he said, “They want to show off that they can afford a radio.” [laughter] So, we started to hear this song. In some of Prabhupada’s purports, he talks about cinema songs, which is the Indian equivalent of pop music. So, this was a cinema song, it was a theme song from a movie called “Hare Rama Hare Krishna.” Yes. [laughter] You can see how popular that song became.

Devotee: You have heard the [Unintelligible 00:18:16] quartet? It is a very high-end stream quartet that plays a lot of many [Unintelligible 00:18:21] background music. They started recording world music. They went to India, and the [Unintelligible 00:18:29] quartet, with a bunch of really first-class Indian musicians had [Unintelligible 00:18:34] singing the cinema songs written by her husband, Martin, and they were very first songs in their record. [Unintelligible 00:18:43] [laughter] I couldn’t believe it, the very first song.

Giriraj Swami: Spreading the holy name. [laughter] Well, yes, this song was blaring everywhere. I was staying at somebody’s house.

Devotee: Maybe everybody doesn’t know about that song.

Giriraj Swami: So yes, I went to a man’s house for lunch, and even there in his house, maybe coming in the windows, I heard the song. I said, “I had better ask what this is, I keep hearing it all the time.” So I said, “What does it mean?” So, it is, Dum maro dum, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama. He said, “It means ‘With every breath that I take, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.” That sounded really good, like our goal, every breath Hare Krishna Hare Rama. So, we were pretty happy about that, then kept hearing it, and then we started hearing different things about the movie. Then I asked, “What does this mean? Dum maro dum?” What it really means is, “With every puff that I take, Hare Krishna Hare Rama.” [laughter] So, then we started to hear that the film depicted hippies who were smoking marijuana and chanting Hare Krishna and doing everything else that hippies do. But still, we thought, Let us take advantage of this. Because, there was a musical in America, in England called “Hair.” So, whenever Hair would play at a theater, devotees could go and do hari-nāma in front of the theater and sell books. So, I had the idea, “We will do hari-nāma in front of the theater in Calcutta where ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’ is showing.” [laughter] So, we did and when the film was just about to start, because you could tell people were coming out, the next batch was going in.

So, it got quiet, I thought, Let me just go in and steal a look at it. So, I went in, it was so dramatic, this big screen and a very loud amplification. And the first shot shows waves of the ocean coming onto the shore, and the narrator, in a very resonant voice, says, “For centuries, India’s spiritual culture remained within her shores. But then. . .” And then it switches to a picture of Srila Prabhupada, the photo Guru dasa took, I think, in 1966. “One man crossed the ocean and took India’s spiritual culture to the West.” And then there is very dramatic shot of the London Ratha-yatra. This huge screen and with live sound, the London Ratha-yatra coming down one of the major streets, the devotees chanting and dancing. And I thought, Wow, this is great. And then it cuts to a scene of hippies scantily clad, dancing to this song and smoking and chanting. Anyway, that was when I walked out.

So, it was very serious. And we approached Srila Prabhupada and asked him. And that is what we did whenever anything happened. And he said, “Actually, the government was behind this film because they didn’t want us to spread, they didn’t want us to become big in India.” But he said, “In the long run, it will help us because eventually, people will forget the dum maro dum, and they will just remember the Hare Krishna Hare Rama. And so, it came to pass. From Calcutta I went to Bombay, Bombay became my base. And when I got there, whenever I would go to the city, there are all these street urchins, they sell magazines and beg. And as soon as they would see me, they would gather around and mock me, going like this, dum maro dum It was like a plague, we could hardly walk down the street downtown, and these street urchins would just surround us and taunt to us, dum maro dum. You hardly hear Hare Krishna Hare Rama. So, this went on for about a year, it was really intense, and then it started to shift, it would be the same thing but it would sort of be half dum maro dum, half Hare Krishna Hare Rama. And eventually, the dum maro dum practically dropped out. And then, when people would see us, they would just smile and say, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama. And what Prabhupada said came true.

So, Prabhupada knew that the holy name of Krishna is transcendental, it is ever fresh, and the other words, dum maro dum are mundane sound vibrations, and people would get tired of it, and then it happened. Just as a note, because Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu has such a keen sense of ISKCON’s history. Some friend, I think a few of them, at different times, but some friend came to Srila Prabhupada in Juhu and suggested we file a case against Devanand. He was everything; producer, director, and main star. Prabhupada didn’t seem interested. But at one time, someone came and said, “Have you heard of Devanand?” Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes. We urinate in his face.” So then, from Calcutta I came to Bombay, we got the Juhu land. It was a big struggle related to the Juhu land. The owner, Mr. Nair, he was mentioned in relation to Prabhupada’s statement that, “We will all go back to Godhead and there will be another ISKCON in the spiritual sky, except Mr. Nair, he has to stay behind.” But anyway, it was a big struggle, first to get the land, and then there was another struggle to get the permission to build, and then there was another struggle to build the temple.

But after we got the land, one evening, Srila Prabhupada was sitting on one of the terraces, flat rooftops of one of the tenement buildings that came with the land. And Haridasa Prabhu, still there, Bengali disciple of Srila Prabhupada, he was fanning Srila Prabhupada. And at about seven o’clock, Srila Prabhupada looked at his watch, and he asked Haridasa if he heard the sound of kirtan coming from the temple. Haridasa said, “No.” “You don’t hear the sound of kirtan coming from the temple?” Haridasa said, “No,” and Srila Prabhupada said, “That is the point. There is no kirtan, and there should be.” Then he asked, “Where are all the devotees?” And Haridasa speculated and said, “Well, they must be out collecting, and they haven’t come back yet.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “This was not my idea that they should go out day and night to collect.” Then he asked, “Do you know why we are successful? Mr. Nair was very wealthy, and we had no money, and no fixed income at all. Mr. Nair was very influential, he owned the Free Press Journal, which was one of three daily English 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 still, we were successful, and he was not. Why?” And Haridasa Prabhu didn’t know what to say, and Prabhupada said, “Because we were acting to please Krishna, and he was acting for himself. So, we should understand that we are successful not by our own independent endeavors, but we are successful by Krishna’s mercy. So, the devotees should come back, and they should chant and dance in front of the deities for the pleasure of the deities, and we will be successful by the pleasure of the deities, the mercy of the deities, not by our own independent efforts.”

I heard in this latest Following Srila Prabhupada, I hope everyone is following this series, it is wonderful. There are some shots of Prabhupada chanting japa in his quarters in Los Angeles, and Shrutakirti Prabhu, who was Prabhupada’s servant for a couple of years, commented that most devotees only saw Prabhupada either when he was giving class, or on a morning walk, or giving darshan, or when he was dealing with some problem or some issue related to the movement. But he had the opportunity to see Prabhupada when no one else was there, and he said that Prabhupada was just a very Krishna conscious person, and whenever he wasn’t engaged, he was always chanting. Sometimes he would sit down with a harmonium and sing, he won’t ever record it, he would just sit down with the harmonium and sing. He would chant japa, he would read his own books, which he said were actually written by Krishna, he just took pleasure in Krishna consciousness, he relished Krishna consciousness. And that is the mood we are trying to develop here, that it is not all work, it is not all business. I found that very instructive that he just took pleasure in chanting japa, in reading, in singing, just by himself, not for anyone else, just him and Krishna. So, that is very much a part of Prabhupada but we might not know that just by seeing the DVDs of him speaking from the vyāsāsana, or on the morning walk, or the press conference, or at a festival. And he wanted us to relish, he wanted us to taste and distribute, it is the mission of the Pancha-tattva, to taste and distribute.

There are many little incidents but I will conclude with one that came very close to the end of Srila Prabhupada’s time with us. Srila Prabhupada had a very staunch devotee named Mr. P. L. Sethi. He actually just passed away a few months ago, but he was really staunch, the mood that Hanuman had towards Rama, that was the mood he had towards Prabhupada. And there is just so many stories I could write a book about it. But Mr. Sethi had been part of a group called the Radha Madhav Prem Sudha Saṅkīrtana Mandal, which is based in Vrindavan; they have a guru in Vrindavan, and he was associated with them from before he met Prabhupada. In fact, when he first met Prabhupada, he was living in one of the Northern suburbs and he invited the devotees every Sunday to do hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana in the streets and then feed them a big feast. Eventually, he built a house near the Juhu temple, which he named Vrindavan. So, the Radha Madhav Prem Sudha Saṅkīrtana Mandal would meet every Sunday. They were all householders, and they would meet at some householder’s home, and they would have twelve hours continuous kirtan from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and then from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. they would sing Vraja songs. And the culmination, one lady would sing the song, Jaya Radhe Jaya Radhe Radhe Jaya Radhe, Jaya Krishna, Jaya Krishna, Jaya Sri Krishna.

So, Mr. Sethi had the idea to have the group come to Hare Krishna land one Sunday and do their hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana there. So, we arranged it. And at that time, Prabhupada was staying at the top of the tower where his quarters are, and the building wasn’t really finished, and the lift wasn’t working, the elevator, and the old temple was sort of very close to one of the balconies of Prabhupada’s quarters. So, they were chanting, and they would really get into the kirtan. And at a certain stage, they just really wanted to see Prabhupada, but he couldn’t come down, he was very sick. And they couldn’t go up, the kirtan had to go on, the elevator wasn’t working. So, they just got the idea they would come out of the little temple that we had, and they just spontaneously started chanting under his window. And after a while, Mr. Sethi, I guess, helped Prabhupada walk to the balcony. So, he glanced out on them, he was very ecstatic. And Prabhupada stood there for a few minutes and then he went back inside.

So, the next morning, I went to see Srila Prabhupada, and he said, “I want you to invite those people to stay on Hare Krishna land. We will give them room and board, they don’t have to do anything, all they have to do is perform hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, just like they did yesterday. And all the devotees should just do akande hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana.” So, being trained by Srila Prabhupada on the importance of mission, of service to the mission and what to speak of Juhu, where we had to open the temple. So, I said, “Srila Prabhupada, I don’t know if we can do this, twelve hours every day, we have so much service.” And then, Prabhupada said, “All right, well, then once a week on Sunday.” And when he said that, I was so relieved that I immediately said, “Yes!” [laughter] So, it happened, we did that faithfully, and really, as Prabhupada had written in the earlier letter, so many problems were solved. I was the temple president, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, if devotees came to me with a problem, I might deal with it to some extent, and on Thursday, I was already thinking that we are going to be doing twelve-hour kirtan, and the problem is going to be solved. And I wouldn’t tell them that, and I would say, “All right, give me some time, let me consider it.” And so, there is Friday, Saturday, no question. “I will think about it.” And it happened invariably, all the problems were solved, either the devotee realized it wasn’t a problem, or it was a problem but it took care of itself, or in the course of the kirtan, I got an insight into how to deal with the problem, or maybe the devotee got an insight into how to deal with the problem. It was miraculous.

Devotee: So, who was doing this kirtan?

Giriraj Swami: We were, not them.

Devotee: They didn’t come again?

Giriraj Swami: No, they continued with their service. Yes, maybe once a year they would come. The other proposal, I didn’t even know how to deal with that one, that we tell them that they should all give up their jobs. . . just live on the land [laughter], I didn’t know how to deal with it. [laughter] So, that was wonderful. Once, Prabhupada was sitting in his quarters at the back, and he did hear kirtan, and he said, “Yes, this is Hare Krishna land, the sounds of Hare Krishna should always be heard.” And one morning, when he was coming back from his walk on Juhu beach, some kids, they just saw Prabhupada and the devotees and they said, “Hare Krishna.” Prabhupada said, “Hare Krishna” back, and then he commented, “Our mission is a success, they are chanting Hare Krishna.” He really had faith in the holy name, “If people just chanted, they become purified and everything else will follow.” And one last one, actually I forgot, but is an appropriate ending. Prabhupada had another godbrother whose name I won’t mention, whom Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura had sent to England to preach. And he stayed for some time, but didn’t really have much tangible effect, and then he came back to India.

So, Akincana Krishnadasa Babaji, the same one who really loves chanting the holy name. On one Ekādaśī, B. B. Govinda Maharaja suggested, “Let us go and see Krishnadasa Babaji.” I have never seen him, I would hardly go off ISKCON property, but I said, “Okay.” We went, he was sitting in the courtyard of some temple, not really a proper courtyard, but there was this very dim lightbulb dangling, it was night, dark, and he was sitting and chanting with such relish. You could see him relishing the holy name, it was like he was drinking it.

Devotee: Was he singing?

Giriraj Swami: No, japa. But just very deep, very intense. It is hard to describe; it is like he was drinking and relishing. And Govinda Maharaja asked him, “Babaji Maharaja, it is Ekādaśī. Did you fast today?” And he would laugh a lot because he was always in ecstasy, “No, full belly.” [laughter] And Babaji Maharaja pretty much kept good relations with everyone, he wasn’t political or anything, he just would chant and go from Math to Math. But on one occasion, he questioned this preacher that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura sent to England, and he said to him, “You went to the West? And Swami Maharaja, that is how they referred to Srila Prabhupada, “He went to the West. You preached the message of Lord Chaitanya and he preached the message of Lord Chaitanya. You brought the holy name and he brought the holy name. But he was extraordinarily successful, and you could not do anything. What is the reason?” Silence. And then Babaji Maharaja gave the answer, “Because he had full faith in the holy name.” And that is the truth, he had faith in the holy name. In a way you could say he had faith in us. Well, he sure had faith in the holy name but he had faith that if we chanted the holy name, even we could become purified and engaged in the Lord’s service. So, it came to that. Hare Krishna.