Giriraj Swami’s Vyasa-puja Address

Giriraj Swami: I am happy to be here with all of you. Krishna-candra Prabhu said that the Mauritian devotees had come because of the love of the South African devotees and Nanda-kisora Prabhu said, “No, it is because of guru maharaja’s love.” Actually both are true. The Mauritian devotees came because I am here—that is true—but I am here because of the love of the South African devotees. [applause] Both are true.

Srila Prabhupada often gave the example of what it means to be a guru by comparing the guru to a peon. The guru simply repeats the message of Krishna and in our case in particular the message of Srila Prabhupada, and his credit is that he delivers the message as it is just like a peon or a postman. A postman personally may not be very wealthy or a peon even less so, but if the peon’s master sends a crore of rupees or a million rand to you through the peon, you won’t bother that the peon himself is only drawing a salary of a few hundred rupees, but you will see that the peon has delivered a crore of rupees to you, and you will appreciate it. So that is our duty—just to present the message as it is, as we’ve heard it from Srila Prabhupada through paramparā—and in that way transcendental knowledge descends from Krishna through paramparā to the guru, the representative of Vyasa, the servant of Vyasa, to the student or the audience. The disciple offers service to Krishna through paramparā through the guru. So the only qualification of the guru really is to be transparent that he just repeats what he has learned from his spiritual master without compromise or adulteration and whatever services are offered to him, he passes on through disciplic succession to his spiritual master and then through disciplic succession to Krishna.

As Srila Prabhupada described it, it is not a very difficult job or a complicated job. One just has to pass on. The knowledge that one has received one passes it on as it is and whatever is offered to the guru, he passes it on as it is.

I very much appreciated the ceremony at the beginning when we offered gifts to the Deities. Even though in a way you could say it was symbolic, but it was very nice because it is just passing on whatever we have, whatever is given to us, to Krishna. This is very easy. But as Srila Prabhupada said in one of the first lectures he gave in Boston when I was there, “Krishna consciousness is simple for the simple, but difficult for the crooked.” This very simple process to just pass on the knowledge as you’ve received it from your spiritual master and his predecessors and whatever is offered to you in terms of gross material things or even subtle psychological things, just pass it on to your spiritual master, and he will offer it to his spiritual master, he will offer it to his spiritual master, and it goes to Krishna. It is very simple if we are simple and that is not so easy, but it is easier than being complicated.

Srila Prabhupada received the message of Krishna from his guru maharaja and we presented it to us and whatever we offered him, he offered to his spiritual master and through him, through disciplic succession to Krishna. But if you listen or read Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s writings and read our Srila Prabhupada’s writings, you will see there is a difference in language, and even in a way a difference in emphasis of some details. So as His Holiness Bhakti Chaitanya Swami said in his wonderful talk on the meaning of Vyasa-puja four years ago, Vyasa himself he took the Veda and divided it into four and he made adjustments because Kali-yuga was coming. He made adjustments to make the knowledge more accessible to people in Kali-yuga. So the representative of Vyasa such as Srila Prabhupada and all the acharyas in the line, they also have to present the knowledge in such a way that people can understand it and appreciate it and accept it and that requires some realization. 

In fact Srila Prabhupada gives a definition of realization in a purport in the First Canto of being able to present the essence in an interesting manner just suitable for the audience. So we must have some realization. Every devotee has some realization and if he or she speaks according to his or her realization, it will be effective, even if your realization is just by chanting Hare Krishna you feel relieved from your anxieties, you get clarity in your thoughts, or you feel happy. Every devotee has some realization and if he speaks according to his realization, it will be effective. Of course it is our process to repeat. There is a no question. It is our process to repeat, but if we repeat too much beyond our realization, it may not be as effective, although by repeating one gets realization. 

One disciple had heard that the moon is churned from the ocean of milk. So the disciple said, “How is it possible? What does it mean the moon is churned from the ocean of milk?” So Srila Prabhupada said, “Just repeat that the moon is churned from the ocean of milk.” And the disciple repeated it. Then Srila Prabhupada said, “Repeat again.” And again the disciple said, “The moon is churned from the ocean of milk.” Then Prabhupada said, “Repeat it again.” And then the disciple again said, “The moon is churned from the ocean of milk.” And Prabhupada said, “Now do you understand?” And the disciple said, “Yes, the moon is churned from the ocean of milk.”

So by repeating, we get realization. When The Nectar of Devotion first came out, and The Nectar of Devotion begins from the very beginning stages of devotional service and proceeds to the most advanced stages, so Srila Prabhupada said that all of his students should read The Nectar of Devotion and if there is anything they don’t understand, they should just read it again and again and again. So repetition has its own potency. The more we repeat something as it is, the more realization we get.

But Srila Prabhupada wanted us to be able to present his teachings, the teachings in his books. We heard the name of Brijratan Mohatta in one of the letters. Brijratan Mohatta was a very intelligent person and he took interest in Krishna consciousness quite early in the movement’s history in Bombay. He eventually gave us a place to stay, an apartment he had as a guesthouse. He gave us a place to stay for free. Naturally we wanted to reciprocate his kindness so one of the devotees would meet him some time and speak to him about Krishna consciousness. When Srila Prabhupada came, Mr. Mohatta met him and he complained that he had asked a question to one of the senior devotees and the senior devotee could not answer it properly.

So Srila Prabhupada brought it up with the senior devotee and the devotee said, “Srila Prabhupada, he asked this question and I opened your book and I read him the answer right from your book.” And Srila Prabhupada made a face like, “He doesn’t want to know what’s in the book. He wants to know what you know.” 

So we should read and we should repeat. The more we repeat, the more we get realization and the more the knowledge stays with us. Probably as we have more realization, we will be able to present the philosophy more simply and in a way that is interesting and appealing to the audience.

Srila Prabhupada would translate mainly at night and the servants were always very eager to know how much he had translated because it was so important how much Srila Prabhupada translated because that meant his books, that meant the knowledge that nourished the movement, that nourished the devotees, and spread the movement. So one morning the servant came in and he could tell from the numbers on the Dictaphone how much Prabhupada had translated. The disciple saw that the night before Prabhupada had translated a lot. He had gone through a lot of numbers. He expressed his appreciation to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada replied, “Oh, I can translate very quickly, but I am taking a subject that is very difficult and trying to make it understandable for you all and that takes a lot of thought and time and effort.” 

As I read more, as time passed, as the years went on, I kept finding things that Srila Prabhupada had said in the most casual way, I thought it was just coming from him, but I found that practically everything that he said was in the scripture, but he presented it in such a natural way, I thought he was just speaking. But then I saw everything, all these very simple statements that he made are all confirmed in scripture or to put it another way, he was repeating what was in scripture but in his own words. So that is desirable to be able to present the message in a very simple way like Prabhupada did, with conviction and some realization. 

And then to practice what one preaches. Acharya means “one who teaches by example.” So if we say something and act in a different way, it won’t have much effect. As Srila Prabhupada said, “If you are smoking a cigarette and you tell someone, ‘Don’t smoke,’ it is not going to be very effective.”

There is the story of the mother who brought her child to Mahatma Gandhi and said, “My child eats too many sweets and it makes him sick. Please tell him not to eat sweets.” Gandhiji said, “Come back in two weeks.” So the mother brought the child back in two weeks. Gandhiji told the child, “Don’t eat sweets.” The mother asked, “That is what I asked you to do two weeks ago. Why did you have us come back two weeks later?” And Gandhiji replied, “Because then I was eating sweets myself [laughter] so how could I tell him not to eat sweets. I had to give up eating sweets first.”

That is also part of the process to repeat the message as it is and to practice what one preaches. Those who do preach find that quite often we may say something in a talk and then we are tested on the exact same thing that we spoke about. That is good. It is humbling and it makes us more realized in what we say, but there is also a warning there, a little warning, that we should practice what we preach and if we preach something that we haven’t realized too deeply, we may be tested on it, but that is also good because if we pass the test, then we have that much more realization.

Hearing the discussions of different devotees and thinking of the history of different yatras, different individuals, even my own history, I saw so many things that seemed to be reversals actually ended up being for the good. I am reminded of a story—I heard it from Mother Arcana Siddhi Mataji. I am not sure exactly where she heard it—but it is from Chinese literature or folk law about the wise Chinese farmer. 

The wise Chinese farmer had a horse. Somehow the horse escaped. So all the neighbors came and said, “Oh, how horrible, your only horse ran away.” And the wise Chinese farmer replied, “Maybe yes and maybe no.” Then the farmer’s son went out to find the horse. He couldn’t find the horse, but somehow he came back with two horses. So the neighbors came and said, “Oh, how wonderful! You lost one horse but you got two. How wonderful!” And the wise Chinese farmer said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” One of the new horses was untamed. So the farmer’s son was riding the horse, trying to break-in the horse, and the horse threw him off his back and the son broke his leg. So all the neighbors came and said, “Oh how horrible! Your son broke his leg.” The farmer said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” So then one of the ruler’s military men came looking for young men to serve in the army. So they came to take the farmer’s son, but they saw his leg was broken, so he couldn’t serve in the military. So they let him go. All the neighbors said, “How wonderful! [laughter] Your son was freed from serving in the military.” And the wise Chinese farmer said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” And like this the whole story continues.

So we don’t always know at the time whether something will ultimately be good or bad, but if we are surrendered to Krishna, then it really doesn’t matter what it is because by dealing with it in the mood of surrender, it will be good. 

I have thought of it on occasion but I suppose I have had the deepest realizations of it during the japa retreats on the sixty-four round days and often during the kirtan after the sixty-four rounds. But I had it in Montgomery, Texas, after the sixty-four rounds, Bada Hari dasa Prabhu led the kirtan, and different things that were reversals or appeared to be reversals I saw in a different light, and I saw how in every case it was the holy name that had gotten me through the difficult situation—japa or kirtan—and the association of my godbrothers. Really by the mercy of my godbrothers and the holy name and a lot of our chanting of the holy name is in the association of my godbrothers. 

And then just recently in the Drakensburg I had the same sense on the sixty-four round day and maybe during the kirtan led by Madhava Prabhu, but that went deeper. That went to things that were really very traumatic or very unexpected, things that I would wonder about, “How did this happen? How could it happen?” but I saw that these setbacks—if you want to call them setbacks—they were actually all part of the process of purification of the heart because bhakti is really a matter of the heart, purification of the heart. Sometimes when things are going well, when we feel we are doing well, there can be pride, envy. Those are the worst and they lead to offenses. But when there are setbacks—either things don’t go the way we expect them either in terms of the way people deal with us or the way events unfold or even the way we ourselves perform in the situation—but if we accept it in the mood of surrender, it will have the effect of purifying the heart, and then in retrospect, the whole ordeal which seems so horrible at the time is seen as a wonderful arrangement of the Lord for the purification of the devotee.

In a sense you could say those things are chastisements from the material nature or ultimately Krishna who is the cause of all causes. It can also apply to a verbal chastisement by the spiritual master or a representative of the spiritual master. But it is actually the same method of dealing either with a reversal in life or with a chastisement from the spiritual master which is in the mood of surrender, tolerating it and expecting the Lord’s mercy. Tat te ‘nukampāṁ su-samīkṣamāṇo. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says that if one tolerates the painful effects of one’s past activities and within his heart offers obeisances to the Lord or surrenders more to the Lord with body, mind, and words, such a person earns the right to enter the kingdom of God. In what may be a paraphrase of the verse, Srila Prabhupada said that if you receive chastisement from the spiritual master and accept the chastisement as his mercy or the Lord’s mercy and don’t revolt or run away, then by that acceptance of the spiritual master’s chastisement, one gets the spiritual master’s mercy and comes closer to the spiritual master, makes advancement.

And surrender is really the basis of any true advancement. Bhakti begins with surrender because it is the mood of surrender that will keep us fixed in our efforts even in the face of difficulties and reversals. From that comes realization. And from that comes the potency to share one’s realization with others.

I will mention something about the South African yatra which is very congenial. Any visitor will immediately feel it how much respect there is for senior devotees, how much enthusiasm there is to hear from them, and offer hospitality to them, and render service to them, and that makes senior devotees inclined to come back and spend time here. 

I had a very interesting discussion with His Holiness Radhanath Swami when he was staying with me in Carpinteria for many weeks. The devotees were planning to have a little birthday celebration for me and the scheduling was such that he ended being there. He actually had a plan to go to Los Angeles for a few days so we planned it from our side that the celebration would take place when he was in Los Angeles, but he changed his plan and so he was going to be there at the same time as the celebration. 

I knew that at the time he was very strict about non disciples not being invited to his Vyasa-puja, what to speak of nondisciples, godbrothers. So I asked him about it and he said that there are two reasons why he doesn’t allow non disciples to attend and they are complimentary. One is he doesn’t want someone who doesn’t really want to be there, who is not really in the mood to glorify him or honor him or worship him, to feel compelled by social pressure to attend. He said the other reason is that Vyasa-puja is the one time in the year that the disciples can express their appreciation, their affection, their desire to serve, their desire to worship without any restriction. And they feel all year long because of etiquette and different policies and different circumstances we have to keep our feelings in check, but this is the one day in the year when we can express our feelings fully, without reservation. Radhanath Swami said that if someone who is not a disciple is there and is not in the same mood as the disciples, they will feel inhibited in expressing themselves because they will feel, “Oh, there are some visitors here. They are not in the same mood and how will they take it.” They may feel some reservation.

He said, in his case, in relation to me, if he was allowed to come, or if he was invited to come, it wouldn’t be because of social obligation or pressure that he came, but he would be coming because he wanted to come. As far as the disciples’ feeling inhibited by his presence, he told me, “You should ask them.” So I asked them and of course they said, no, they would be happy to have him, and they wouldn’t feel inhibited in their mood.

Now here we have an open invitation to everyone to come and I can’t say for sure, there may be people here who at least theoretically, hypothetically, it is possible that maybe they feel they have to be here because people will think if they weren’t here, “Why weren’t you there? You don’t like our guru maharaja.” But I think that it is a testimony to the basic mood of respect and appreciation for senior devotees that prevails in South Africa, that even in an open assembly of devotees that the mood remains very sweet and congenial. And so I commend all of you and commend the leaders for whatever the factors are for this mood to be here.

To be perfectly honest, even disciples may not be in the mood of a disciple. That is the way it is. Anyone can have pride. Anyone can have envy. It doesn’t mean that just because someone is initiated by a spiritual master that those anarthas are not there. They can be there. So why discriminate. But overall I would say the mood has been very nice.

I would like to reciprocate with everyone personally, especially the devotees who spoke, but for lack of time I won’t, but I will just say one thing about one devotee who I did not expect to speak, but when I came in front of Srila Prabhupada’s vyāsāsana to offer him a garland and then ārati, Sri Hari Prabhu was standing there and I looked at him and I felt something really tangible. As I was offering the ārati, in my heart I felt like going up to him and saying, “It really means a lot to me that you are here.” And I kept thinking it and then I would think, “Well, should I interrupt the ārati. I could do it.” But then I thought maybe people wouldn’t understand. I just wanted to tell him that, “It means a lot to me that you are here.” So then I thought maybe after the ārati but there was a certain flow of traffic [laughter] and in that flow of traffic I felt it is better not to go against the current, but just come and take my seat here. So then I thought, “Well, I will just have to find some time afterwards to tell him.” 

And in that process I was imagining he might ask why. So then I thought, “Why? That is a good question. Why?” And I imagined that if he asked, this would have been the answer, but having heard him speak there could be more to it, but this was the answer that came to mind then. To me he is the emblem of the early devotees in the yatra here who were not initiated by Srila Prabhupada. What year did you join?

Sri Hari dasa: 1978.

Giriraj Swami: I felt, because I know when I came for the first time, he was one of the main devotees involved with the project here and I thought he came just a little after Srila Prabhupada left and he is been through a lot. One spiritual leader had difficulties and then that spiritual leader, he left ISKCON. He actually took shelter of a sannyasi in the Gaudiya Matha and he tried to get his. . . a lot of his disciples were in that mood, “Okay, our spiritual master is gone to So-and-so in the Gaudiya Matha. We will also go.” And then I came with another devotee who was expected to help the yatra and he did. In many ways he did. Then he also had difficulties, a different type—-same or different—he also had difficulty. And the devotees here, I think any devotee, the devotees here have gone through a lot, and I saw Sri Hari Prabhu as the emblem of the devotee who’s gone through so much over so many years, but he is still here. He didn’t go anywhere else. He didn’t go to any other Vaishnava saṅga. He didn’t go to maya saṅga. He is still here. Given all the excuses that he would have not to be here, I thought he is really here because he wants to be here. That really meant a lot to me that he wanted to be here. It doesn’t only apply to today’s program, but every program that he has attended I felt the same way, but more so today.

That is really moving. It is really touching. Srila Prabhupada says in one purport in the Bhagavad-gītā, the famous verse, tad vidhi praṇipātena, that one has to be able to pass the test of the spiritual master. When the disciple passes the test of the spiritual master then the spiritual master is pleased to bestow upon him transcendental knowledge. Transcendental knowledge doesn’t mean theoretical book knowledge. It means real knowledge, some insight into oneself, into Krishna, into the material world, into the spiritual world. Those tests come in many different ways. It may come through the direct instruction of the spiritual master.

I was quite charmed by Bhargava Prabhu’s description of his visit to South Africa with Srila Prabhupada as a photographer. I have heard the tapes. When I began to serve here, I listened to all of Srila Prabhupada’s tapes from when he was in South Africa and he got so upset with Bhargava Prabhu. In this one lecture and it seemed like it was a public lecture, Prabhupada stopped speaking. He couldn’t continue and he said, “I have told you not to take pictures when I am speaking. I become very much disturbed when you take pictures. That flashing light.” He was really upset.

So in the DVD we saw Bhargava Prabhu described how Prabhupada told him, “Get out! I never want to see you again.” So Bhargava Prabhu left, took it as an order of the spiritual master, and he just began to walk. He walked, walked, walked. Miles and miles, he just kept walking. He didn’t know where to go or what to do. Meanwhile Prabhupada was asking, “Where is Bhargava? Why isn’t he here?” And finally somehow the devotees got in touch with him and he came back. Prabhupada asked him, “Why weren’t you at the program when I was speaking?” And Bhargava said, “Well you told me not to come.” And Prabhupada said, “I never told you not to come. And even if I did, still you should have come.” [laughter] 

These are sort of tests. We have to obey the order but we also have to know the heart of the guru. There are three levels or three stages of discipleship or studentship. The third level, the disciple gets an instruction and either he forgets or he begrudges following it or he speculates. The second class, he receives an instruction and executes it perfectly. And the first class, even without being told by the spiritual master what he wants, he knows what the spiritual master wants and he does it. But, as in any aspect of Krishna consciousness, imitation is dangerous, and we should try to be on the second class. If someone is really on the second class, he will naturally come to the first class. That is the rule. You should try to follow the instruction exactly as you receive it. But at a certain stage we need to know what the spiritual master would want because he may not be there and he may leave the planet. It is bound to happen to all of us. 

So I thought that was very interesting what Prabhupada to Bhargava Prabhu. Bhargava Prabhu told me another story because he lives in the Los Angeles area and he always comes for the Prabhupada festival or Prabhupada’s Vyasa-puja or Prabhupada’s disappearance day and we always meet and talk. So he told me that on one occasion Prabhupada had told him, “You are useless.” That was the end of the conversation. That was in Bhargava Prabhu’s mind that Prabhupada said that he was useless and it was bothering him that Prabhupada said he was useless. He felt, “If I am useless, I should just stay out of the way, if I am useless.” Then finally some time later he was in Prabhupada’s presence again and he had the opportunity to ask. So he said, “Srila Prabhupada, you said that I am useless. Am I really useless?” And Prabhupada replied, “Everything has some use.” [laughter] Whatever it is, in spite of his foolishness, in spite of Prabhupada’s chastisement, whatever it is, he is still around. He is still doing service and he is still around.

So we have to be able to take the chastisement in the proper way and again the chastisement may come from something someone says to you—dīkṣā-guru, śikṣā-guru—or it may come through the agency of the material energy or through one’s circumstances in life, and if we take it all as Krishna’s mercy awarded to us so that we can learn some lesson and improve in some way, then we come closer to the spiritual master and ultimately, according to the verse in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, we become eligible to enter the kingdom of God. That exact verse, tat te ‘nukampāṁ su-samīkṣamāṇo, it includes the word jīvātmā which means “who lives,” or, “spends his life,” and our acharyas have commented that one has simply to stay alive in Krishna consciousness, one has simply to continue to remain in the association of devotees and follow the process of Krishna consciousness—chanting and hearing and serving—and one gains the right to enter the kingdom of God just like a son has the right to inherit the property of the father. All he has to do is stay alive and in due course he will inherit the father’s property. So in the same way if we just stay alive in Krishna consciousness, just stay in the association of devotees and continue the process of chanting and hearing, remembering and rendering service, then we will earn the right to enter the kingdom of God.

So, all of us here today are in that process somewhere along the line. Some have passed through more tests than others and some are presently going through tests. They don’t know how they will pass the tests or they may be trying to deny that they are being tested and attribute it to somebody’s fault, not seeing that they are meant to be learning something from it. It is not just somebody’s fault but they are actually in the process of being tested, and if they pass the test, they will make advancement. They will come closer to guru and Vaishnavas and Krishna. And if they deny that they are in a test and just want to blame others for the situation they are in, then they will stay where they are until they pass the test. That is the good thing, if you don’t pass the test immediately, but if you stay in the school, you get another chance to pass the test. That is the worst thing—the test is too hard then you leave the school. But we stay in the school. Even if we don’t pass the test immediately we don’t have to worry because we will be tested again because we have to pass the test to make advancement. We have to pass the test.

Srila Prabhupada said that when you do pass the test, Krishna won’t test you on the same point again. So that is good. We will get another test, a more advanced test, and then the final test is the time of death. Ultimately all the tests are really variations of the one test: are we going to surrender to Krishna or not? That is the basic test. Whatever the circumstance, are we going to surrender to Krishna or not, and depending on what the situation is, what that surrender means will vary. In one situation surrender may mean doing what the people around you are telling you to do, but it could actually happen in another situation—it is a different kind of test—that passing the test might mean going against what the people around you are telling you. Generally, if the people around you are more advanced devotees, we should do what they tell us, but sometimes people, they may be making a judgment based on a stereotyped idea of Krishna consciousness, but you may be being called upon to go beyond the stereotype, to do something that is outside the stereotype, which other people won’t be able to appreciate, because they are more in the stereotype. In that case it may be that going against what they want you to do or expect you to do is passing the test. But again, that wouldn’t really refer to very advanced devotees.

We are all here. We are on the same path at one stage or another and we’ve all passed some test to be here—big or small. If we hadn’t passed some test, we wouldn’t be here because maya always tests us. Prabhupada said especially in the beginning maya tests very severely. So we’ve all passed some tests, but there will be more tests. It is good to acknowledge a test and it is good to take the opportunity to deepen our surrender to Krishna, to the process of Krishna consciousness, to the holy name, to the scriptures, to the Deities, to more advanced devotees. That is how we will pass the test.

We are all in the same boat and Srila Prabhupada is the captain of the ship and the Vedic scriptures are the favorable breezes that are propelling the boat in the right direction. So we should stay on the boat. As far as possible we shouldn’t fight while we are on the boat. It rocks the boat. But because we are on the same boat and we are all family, even if there is some fighting, some disagreements, we can tolerate it. We can tolerate it because we don’t want anyone to jump overboard or be thrown overboard. So we will tolerate. Like Prabhupada said after that incident with Ravindra Svarupa, to preach you have to be humble and tolerant. We have to tolerate.

Maybe one last note that the person. . . of course this is a lower level like friends and enemies that comes when we have material motivations, so we think if someone is helping us fulfill our material ambition, he is our friend, and if someone is getting in the way of the fulfillment of my material ambition, he is an enemy, but you would be surprised how those sentiments can change. As we become purified then we embrace everyone as a friend in Krishna consciousness. 

One thing I learned in school, there was an experiment done with high school students, each was asked to say who the person is in their class whom they disliked the most, and then for one month they were to be very, very nice to the person they didn’t like. At the end of the month, every single student in the study said that they liked the person that they didn’t like before. We usually think, “If the person is nice to me then I will like the person,” but this study showed that if you are nice to the person, you will like the person. So there is a lesson there for us. We should be nice to everybody. 

That bring me to—I am not making any promises, but it might be the last thing I say unless I get some other inspiration—it was when my parents came to visit me in Los Angeles, I’d been in India for three years, but then I got very sick with jaundice, and finally Srila Prabhupada said, “As long as Giriraj stays in Bombay, he won’t be able to get better.” So I came to Los Angeles. Actually I am making a connection here because earlier in 1971 my parents had come to visit me in Calcutta and I was very sickly and my parents were really concerned about my health. In those days people thought that if you don’t eat meat, you can’t get enough protein. So Srila Prabhupada had some sandeśa on his table. So he gave some to my mother and my father and he said, “These are made of cheese. They are high in protein.” And then he turned to me and he said, “You must eat two dozen rasagullā and sandeśa every day.” [laughter] 

I just thought Prabhupada said it. I didn’t take it that seriously, but now I am recalling this time when I was sick in Bombay and Prabhupada said that, “As long as Giriraj stays in Bombay, he won’t be able to get better,” when I was finally well enough to see Prabhupada, so Tamal Krishna Goswami was in the room. He is my dearest godbrother and śikṣā-guru, but it seems that Prabhupada had told him to supply me rasagullā and sandeśa, but I had never got any. [laughter] So Srila Prabhupada looked at Tamal Krishna Goswami and said, “Now Giriraj is going to Los Angeles and Karandhara Prabhu will supply him rasagullā and sandeśa which you couldn’t do.” [laughter] 

So now I am coming to the point. The point is my parents came to visit me. We will get back to the rasagullā and sandeśa [laughter], but my parents came to visit me, and they came on a morning walk at Cheviot Hills Park. There were book distributors, there were the devotee scientists, there were the managers, there was me, there were my parents, and Srila Prabhupada was just so charming, he was just engaging everyone and pleasing everyone. To my mother he said, “Oh Mrs. Teton, you look so young.” [laughter] He just pleased everyone. 

So then at the end of the walk we got to the car park and Srila Prabhupada, the devotees had arranged a Rolls Royce for him. So my father was looking at the Rolls Royce and Srila Prabhupada said, “My disciples got this for me.” My father immediately said, “No, no, you deserve it, you deserve it.” [laughter] And then Prabhupada said, “You can ride with me,” and my father said, “No, we have our own car.” Whatever was there, may or may not have been there, Prabhupada just completely diffused it.

So then afterwards Srila Prabhupada’s servant said, “Srila Prabhupada, everyone likes you so much.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Yes, because I like everyone.” So that is our line, that is our paramparā. We just repeat the message, follow the instructions, and like everyone, and Prabhupada will be pleased, Krishna will be pleased, and within our own hearts we will also be pleased that they are pleased. So we will also be pleased.

Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. [applause]