Remembering Srila Prabhupada—Part 01

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

I am very happy to be here in this beautiful temple of Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai in the presence of Srila Prabhupada and His Holiness Niranjana Swami Maharaja and all of the other wonderful devotees here.

Before coming here I was in South Africa where it is summer now and there I met His Holiness Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Swami Maharaja. I mentioned to him that I was coming to Ukraine and I asked him if he had any information that would be useful for me. He said, “The devotees there are very nice and once you have visited there, you will want to come back again.” So far I’ve seen that the devotees here are nice and I hope that I will be able to reciprocate your kindness in an appropriate way. 

One of the first things I heard when I entered Ukraine was from Damodara Carana Prabhu. He said, “The devotees are waiting to hear your memories.” And in the car today Nṛsiṁha Prana Prabhu asked me about a specific incident that took place some years ago in Srila Prabhupada’s presence. So I thought I must at least answer his question. But to give a proper context to these experiences with Srila Prabhupada, I will begin from the beginning, which was in Boston in 1969.

I was already looking for a guru. I was actually looking for perfect happiness and I was reading books about eastern philosophy and mysticism. From reading these books I got the idea that I needed a guru. So my search became how to find my guru. There were many gurus or so-called gurus in America then and I began to meet them, but in every case I found some defect and I thought, “This is not my perfect master.” I met so many. I was beginning to become hopeless. I finally decided, “I will go to India to find my guru.”

One month before I finished my last year in college I saw posters in different places on the university campus with a picture of a holy man from India. The poster said, “Lecture on Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by Swami A. C. Bhaktivedanta.” Now that night I had arranged to go with some friends to see an art film at Harvard Square. I was already a vegetarian so I invited the friends to my apartment and we had pasta and salad and then we were supposed to go to the movie, but I kept thinking of that poster, and something in my heart kept pushing me that, “I must go to the lecture.” 

So I told my friends that I wanted to go to the lecture, but they were very upset with me. One of them in particular was very upset and she said, “Why do you always have to be running after these swamis and yogis? Why can’t you be like other people?” I really didn’t want to upset her or the other friends. I actually wanted to agree to skip the lecture and go with them to the movie, but something in my heart kept forcing me, “You must go.” Finally I said, “I have to go to this lecture tonight, but I promise you this will be the last swami I ever go to.” [laughter]

So we went to the lecture hall and because of the discussion with my friends we reached late and there was kirtan being performed on the stage. Srila Prabhupada was sitting on the stage and one of the devotees was leading kirtan and the other devotees were dancing in a circle on stage. One by one the students in the auditorium were getting out of their seats and jumping up on the stage and dancing with the devotees. The transcendental sound vibration in the auditorium was so powerful I also felt like running up on the stage and joining the chanting and dancing, but I looked at my friends on my side and I thought, “If I do that, it will be too finished, it will be too much for them to tolerate.” So I stood up and I was singing and dancing but I stayed in my place. I didn’t go on the stage.

After the kirtan one of the devotees announced that they needed a ride to Boston because in those days they didn’t have a car. They didn’t have any motor vehicles. So they said, “If anyone is driving to Harvard Square or Boston, the devotees need a lift.” I had told my friends that, “Let us go to the lecture and then after the lecture we’ll go to the late show of the film,” which was at Harvard Square. So I met the devotees in the entrance to the auditorium and I told them, “I have a station wagon and I am driving to Harvard Square and I can take devotees with me.” Many devotees, all the devotees squeezed into that station wagon. I don’t know how they fitted in but there were two seats and then a compartment in the back. So there were three in the front seat—I was driving—and maybe four or five squeezed in the back seat and then the back compartment everyone else squeezed in. 

I got the address of the temple. They explained that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday there were programs in the temple, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday there were programs outside, usually at some university. So I could come to the temple the next day.

I went and the small temple room was packed, full of people. Srila Prabhupada was speaking. His Indian accent was quite strong at the time and I wasn’t used to the accent or the philosophy. So it was a little hard for me to understand what he was saying. At one stage he quoted a verse from the Bhagavad-gītā: manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye, that out of many thousands of persons, one will seek perfection, and I thought, “That is me! [laughter] He is talking about me.” 

Then I began to come every night. As I mentioned every alternate night was in the temple and every alternate night was outside. Because the devotees didn’t have a car, when they saw I was coming every night, they asked me if I could drive, and they said I should come early and come to Srila Prabhupada’s apartment which they had rented across the street from the temple, and then I would drive Srila Prabhupada and the other devotees. 

So I came and Srila Prabhupada was sitting behind a low table and most of the devotees were sitting on the floor around him. I was struck by how much love there was between Srila Prabhupada and the devotees. It was like a spiritual family and Srila Prabhupada was the transcendental father and the devotees were his spiritual children. 

In fact, in one of the first lectures of Srila Prabhupada that I heard, someone asked him a question and the question was, “Have you actually become happy?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “When I was in India I had five children and there were always so many problems and now that I have taken to Krishna consciousness, I have five hundred children and there are no problems and I love them and they love me.” So the man who asked the question said, “Yes, but that is material.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “I have many other platforms of happiness, but I have explained on a platform that you can understand. When I was living in India I had five children and now that I have come to Krishna consciousness I have five hundred children. So one who surrenders to Krishna is not the loser but he is the gainer by many times.” 

So I saw this beautiful atmosphere and mood between Srila Prabhupada and the devotees and after some minutes Srila Prabhupada told the devotees to get ready for the program. 

The program was at the Harvard University Divinity School and the students there were very smart. They thought that they were very smart. After Srila Prabhupada’s lecture some of them asked challenging questions. One of them said, “You talk so much about chanting Hare Krishna, but what will chanting Hare Krishna actually do to help people?” Then the student said, “Like in Russia they have made the communist revolution to help the people. What will chanting Hare Krishna do to help people?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “Are the people in Russia happy?” The boy looked down and Prabhupada said, “Then what is the use of the revolution?” And he said, “Even if it gets better for a time, again it will get worse, but chanting Hare Krishna will give people permanent happiness.”

Then another student asked, “You are repeating ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.’ Couldn’t you repeat anything and get the same result?” He said, “Can’t you just chant ‘One two three. One two three. One two three,’ and get the same result?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “You can try counting and when you are tired of counting you can try chanting.” [laughter] 

One by one they were asking all these challenging questions and without a moment’s hesitation, Srila Prabhupada was answering and defeating them.

After the talk the students were buzzing. They were talking to each other about the swami. They were really impressed. They didn’t expect the swami to be so intelligent and so quick. I was just wandering amongst the students, listening to what they were saying. Then suddenly one of the devotees came rushing up to me and lovingly imitating Srila Prabhupada’s Indian, Bengali accent said, “So, where is the driver?” [laughter] Then I realized, “Oh my god, Srila Prabhupada is waiting for me to drive.”

So we all packed into the car. Srila Prabhupada was in the front seat with me and the devotees were in the back seat and in the back compartment. By then it had become dark and I wasn’t exactly sure how to find the way back to the temple, but I had a general idea which way to go. So I was going straight, right, left, right, but as I kept going further I realized that we were lost. I finally had to admit it that, “We are lost. Does anyone know the way?” Srila Prabhupada turned to me and said, “Is not the driver supposed to know the way?” [laughter] I didn’t realize I was the driver [laughter] or that the driver had duties and responsibilities. I was just doing what the devotees told me to do. Anyway, the other devotees also didn’t know the way, but eventually we found our way back to the temple.

I ran around to open the door for Srila Prabhupada to get out and I said, “Prabhupada, I am sorry that we got lost.” Srila Prabhupada looked at me with such love and compassion and he smiled and said, “That is all right.” I was very impressed that not only did Srila Prabhupada have the perfect philosophy and process, but on a personal level, he was very compassionate and forgiving.

In this way I joined the Boston temple and I was there for one and a half years. Then Srila Prabhupada decided to return to India and begin the mission there and he wanted the number two person from each temple to go. So in the Boston I was the second person. Satsvarupa Maharaja was the temple president and I was the temple commander, treasurer, and saṅkīrtana leader. Hridayananda dasa brahmachari was the assistant saṅkīrtana leader. So I spent a few days with him teaching him how to be the saṅkīrtana leader and then the time came to go.

The arrangement was that we would fly to Brussels and in Brussels we would meet with the devotees from London who had arranged a very cheap flight from Brussels to India. They had made friends with some businessman who owned an airline but the airline consisted of only one airplane which was meant for carrying cargo. It was called Bosco Airlines. He had an apartment in Brussels so for a few hours after we arrived from America we went to the apartment. There were these wonderful devotees, these two couples from England, Shyamasundara and Malati, and Guru dasa and Yamuna. The atmosphere was so thick with devotion to Srila Prabhupada we could just feel it as soon as we walked inside. 

We flew to Bombay. At the Bombay airport one Indian man came up saying that he had come to receive us and take us to his home. So we drove quite a distance from the Santa Cruz airport to downtown Bombay and I was looking at all the sites out of the window—all the Indian people. For the first time I saw rickshaws and there were cows in the streets—and I was very fascinated. He took us to his home on Marine Drive and about one week later Srila Prabhupada came from Calcutta. 

It was there at Seksaria Bhavan that Srila Prabhupada spoke to me personally for the first time. I would always dance in the kirtans and I imagined that maybe Srila Prabhupada noticed that I was making an effort to always dance in the kirtan. I thought maybe that was why he asked to meet me. He asked some questions about Boston and at the time there had been some difficulty with Brahmananda Prabhu. Srila Prabhupada commented, “How could that have happened?” Prabhupada said, “He was so advanced.” Prabhupada was wandering how it could have happened to such an advanced devotee.

After spending some time in Bombay, Srila Prabhupada received an invitation to attend the Vedanta Samelan in Amritsar in Punjab. The Vedanta ashrama was a Mayavadi ashrama. You all know what Mayavadis are. We found out that there was a circuit, a series of these gatherings of sadhus, and sadhus would go from one to the other, and they were all basically Mayavadis. 

The big attraction at the program was Srila Prabhupada and his disciples. Srila Prabhupada said about the organizers, “They know that I don’t agree with them, but they invited me because so many people want to see me and my disciples. They are not interested in dry impersonal speculation.” 

The crowd was really interested in the kirtan and they were restless. They couldn’t listen to philosophy too long, but they really were interested in the kirtan. Prabhupada wanted to train us to speak. So he said, “You do the kirtan and speak in the evening.” So we went but one night, Guru dasa Prabhu—he was the senior man and he was giving the talks—one night Guru dasa Prabhu said something that offended the people. Because they were all Mayavadis, so Guru dasa Prabhu said, “If it is all one, then why don’t you give me your wife?” Now philosophically he made a good point, but the Indian sentiment got a little offended. So the organizers complained to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada said, “All right, from tomorrow,” he told me, “you should speak.” 

The next morning Srila Prabhupada was taking his massage in the sun and I happened to walk nearby. So, Srila Prabhupada said, “I heard you speaking last night and it was very nice.” I didn’t know that Srila Prabhupada could hear me. 

Srila Prabhupada was very eager to preach. He really wanted to establish the movement in India. He began to accept invitations to programs outside during the day. He accepted so many engagements that we, devotees, young men and women, we could not keep up with him. He was accepting four or five engagements every day. Guru dasa Prabhu approached Srila Prabhupada and said, “Srila Prabhupada, the devotees can’t keep up with this pace.” So, Srila Prabhupada said, “All right. I will only accept two programs per day.” But then as we were getting towards the end of the stay there were many invitations and Prabhupada wanted to accept. So one day Prabhupada accepted invitations to seven programs. The organizers arranged a car for Srila Prabhupada but the devotees had to go by rickshaw, by bicycle rickshaw, and the programs were happening so fast, one after the other, that we fell behind. We would just be reaching the one program when Prabhupada was leaving [laughter]. 

But the last program, from the way Prabhupada was speaking, we could understand that the audience was very Krishna conscious. They were naturally already devotees of Krishna. It was very mystical because Srila Prabhupada was speaking in Hindi and I didn’t really know Hindi, but there was so much love in Srila Prabhupada’s words that somehow I was able to understand what he was saying. He did quote a lot of verses that I knew.

After the last program, the seventh program, Srila Prabhupada and his close disciples went with him in the car and then we went by rickshaw back to the ashram. It was quite late at night and Prabhupada had seven engagements, but still the light was on in Srila Prabhupada’s room. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I wanted to peek in the window and see what Srila Prabhupada was doing. Srila Prabhupada was reclining and listening to the recording of the talk he had just given. I thought, “Prabhupada is relishing. He is associating with Krishna. He is relishing hearing the talk he gave because hearing the talk he gave, he is associating with Krishna.”

From Amritsar Srila Prabhupada and the disciples took the train to Delhi. Actually they were taking the train to Bombay, but the train stopped in Delhi. It turns out that Srila Prabhupada had been corresponding with a lawyer from Delhi and Prabhupada sent him a letter saying that, “I will be at the Delhi train station for two hours from such-and-such time to such-and-such time on such-and-such date. If you want you can meet me there.” So the man came. His name was D. L. Gupta. He really wanted Prabhupada to leave some disciples in Delhi to preach there. Mr. Gupta said he would give them two rooms in sort of an ashram where they could stay. So Prabhupada said to Guru dasa, “Why don’t you get down and see what you can do.” So Guru dasa naturally wanted some devotees to help him. It was Guru dasa and his wife Yamuna and a devotee named Gopala and another devotee named Bruce who later became Bhanu dasa and then later Bhanu Swami and me. We were the party for Delhi. 

While we were in Delhi Srila Prabhupada sent a letter to Guru dasa asking him to go to Vrindavan to see if he could get some land for ISKCON in Vrindavan. So Guru dasa went. He was supposed to go just for a day or two but he didn’t come back. Yamuna was in charge of the party in his absence at least and she thought, “We better go and see what’s happening.” So we gathered our belongings and went to Vrindavan. In Vrindavan we met Guru dasa and Guru dasa said, “Vrindavan is a very special place. It is a very different kind of place. When I came here I told the local people that I have a specific mission here.” He actually wanted to see the palace of the king of Bharatpur at Kesi Ghata. He said, “I just want to see the palace and see if I can meet the Maharaja and then I have to go back to Delhi.” These vrajavāsīs just looked at him and smiled and they said, “Vrindavan has its own ways. You cannot just come and spend one night and go. You have to take your time and when Vrindavan wants to let you go, you will go.”

Guru dasa took us to a place where there was a little camp. That night or the next night I was in the mood to wander around Vrindavan. It was cool. It was probably November or even December and there was some moonlight, but all these narrow lanes and all the buildings looked the same, I couldn’t find my way back. Finally I gave up. I saw a big building, temple, and I saw on the steps of the temple on a verandah along the temple, there were some old men lying down and sleeping, so I thought, “I will also just lie down and spend the night there.” So I slept under the moon and stars and somehow the next day I was able to meet up with the devotees. 

I really felt that in Vrindavan I could feel Krishna’s presence. I felt that Krishna was there and the cowherd boys and the cows, and Krishna was tending the cows with the cowherd boys. I felt that that was happening. Later when we met Srila Prabhupada in Bombay and he asked me about Vrindavan, I told him that I could feel the presence of Krishna there and he said, “Yes, you cannot see Krishna yet, but you can feel His presence.”

From Bombay Srila Prabhupada received an invitation to go to Indore for the Gita-jayanti celebrations. We were still based in Delhi so we met him there. The Gita-jayanti celebrations were somewhat similar to the Vedanta Samelan in Amritsar. There were many of the same Mayavadis and it was a similar program. There was a stage and a pandal and people would come. So the organizers wanted Prabhupada and the disciples to be on stage for the whole program, but after the first night Srila Prabhupada refused. He said, “Why should I sit and listen to some Mayavadi speak nonsense.” But the organizers really wanted Prabhupada and the devotees there because it was Srila Prabhupada and the devotees that the people really wanted to see. But Prabhupada said, “No.”

It was like that that the devotees would do kirtan and Prabhupada would speak at the beginning of the program. The pandal would fill up and then when Prabhupada and the devotees left the stage most of the people in the pandal would walk out. So the organizers thought, “We will keep Prabhupada and the devotees at the end.” So then the people didn’t come at the beginning of the program. They only came at the end. 

One evening towards the beginning something extraordinary took place on stage. Srila Prabhupada was on stage and the devotees were dancing. So someone in the audience wanted the devotees to come down from the stage and dance with them in the pandal. This person or people started to pull the bottom of the ladies’ saris to get them to come into the crowd. Prabhupada rushed forward and he was swinging his karatālas. It was like Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva with His Sudarsana cakra. He came rushing forward with his karatālas like he was going to smash that person. Prabhupada was very protective of his devotees. He took very good care of all of his devotees. He was especially protective of the lady devotees in India. 

In Amritsar the organizers of the program wanted to give some presentation to the devotees and Srila Prabhupada knew that we were cold. The ashram only gave us two rooms. So in one room was Srila Prabhupada and in the next room were the ladies, Yamuna and Malati and maybe Kausalya, and we would all just sleep on these Indian cots made with ropes outdoors. When they wanted to give something to the devotees, Srila Prabhupada asked them to give each devotee a wool sweater and a woolen blanket. So one morning when we came in Srila Prabhupada’s room, he personally gave us with his own hand—each one of us—a sweater and a woolen blanket. Even though he demanded a high degree of surrender, but he also took care to see that our basic necessities were met. 

From Gorakhpur we went to Surat and in Surat Srila Prabhupada and the devotees received the best reception. The whole city seemed to be Vaishnava. Every morning Srila Prabhupada had the devotees do hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana in the streets. It would be announced in the newspaper which neighborhood the devotees would do saṅkīrtana. People would line the streets. They would close their businesses and as the procession would come down the streets, they would put garlands on the devotees, offer ārati, give them refreshments—cool drinks and sweets. 

Many of these events were filmed and Yadubara Prabhu has assembled them all into a series of DVDs called Following Srila Prabhupada. So I really encourage everyone to see these DVDs. There are even scenes of the old Boston temple with Srila Prabhupada and there are scenes of the devotees in Surat how they were received by the public there. 

I think it is about time. We should end now. I wanted to get to the answer to Nṛsiṁha Prana’s question, but I couldn’t manage tonight. We will try tomorrow and if we don’t manage tomorrow then. . . I have been going pretty fast. I’ve just said a bit about each place along the way, but we will continue tomorrow. Before we end, are there any questions or comments?

Niranjana Swami: You said that in 1970 when you left Boston you had to train Hridayananda dasa Brahmacari to take over your position of saṅkīrtana. Can you briefly describe what saṅkīrtana in Boston the 1970s was like?

Giriraj Swami: What was saṅkīrtana like in Boston in 1970 and what was involved in training the saṅkīrtana leader?

Basically every day we would go out in a van usually to the Boston Commons, a big park at downtown Boston. We would get by four and then be in the temple at forty-thirty for maṅgala-ārati and then we would stay in the temple for the whole morning program till eight-thirty. Then at eight-thirty the devotees would clean the temple building. Everyone had an assigned duty, some area to clean. Right after the morning program they would clean their assigned area. Then there would be a simple breakfast, you must have heard, very regimented: two slices of orange, one slice of apple, three raisins, two chickpeas, ginger too. 

Then as the saṅkīrtana I would have to put the books that we wanted to have to distribute into crates, boxes, and all the musical instruments into the van. And then I had to get all the devotees together to go in the van. 

We would go to the Boston Common and most of the devotees would be in the kirtan party and some of the devotees would have Back to Godheads in their arms and approach the people who would gather around the kirtan party. Then about one o’clock a vehicle would come from the temple with a big pot of dal, a big pot of rice, stacks of chapattis, and probably one sabji. The devotees would take turns having prasāda on the grass, but the kirtan would always continue and the book distribution would always continue. Then maybe five-thirty or six in the evening we’d come back to the temple. 

Sometimes we wanted to go out in the evening as well. There were not many people at the Boston Common in the evening so we would go to Boyleston Street or Avenue and we would chant on the street and there would devotees mainly with Back to Godheads and they would approach people with the magazines. 

Then I would have to collect the lakshmi from all the devotees in the evening. Of course I was also the treasurer so I would count it and bank it. I don’t know how that part worked after I left but that was basically it. 

Devotee: I heard that there is some story when Srila Prabhupada came to you in the night and you woke up and he asked you something. Could you please tell us that story?

Giriraj Swami: That story is from close to the end. That is 1977. Somehow I want to go step by step. But there are lot of steps between Surat in 1971 and Vrindavan in 1977 so we’ll have to think about how to deal with that.

Thank you all very much. We will be happy to see you tomorrow.
Srila Prabhupada ki jaya! [applause]