Remembering Srila Prabhupada—Part 02

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

I am seeing so many new faces tonight. I thought to speak a bit more about how I first met Srila Prabhupada and the devotees and how I was saved by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy and engaged in his service. 

As I mentioned last night, I was looking for perfect happiness, and I got the idea that to achieve perfect happiness I should follow some form of eastern mystical practice, and then I understood that in order to realize spiritual perfection, I needed a guru. So my whole focus became how to find my guru. I even got the idea that I don’t actually choose my guru, that my guru is already there, and that I just have to find him. I even had a mental impression of what my guru looked like. He didn’t have hair. All the swamis and yogis who came from America to India then had long hair and beards. I was becoming hopeless, “How will I find my perfect master?” 

Then Srila Prabhupada spoke at my university near Boston, but I didn’t get a chance to speak with him personally. So I went to the old Boston temple and heard Srila Prabhupada speak. After the lecture Srila Prabhupada asked for questions and I asked him the question that was burning within my heart, I said, “There are so many swamis and yogis and masters and each one is teaching a different method of spiritual realization and each one says that his is the best. So how do I know which is the best?” Srila Prabhupada replied in a most intelligent way by asking me a question. He asked, “What is your goal?” because one will choose the method that is best to achieve one’s goal. So he asked, “What is your goal? Do you want to become God or do you want to serve God?”

Now up until then all the swamis and yogis whom I had met had taught that you can become God or become one with God. So, Srila Prabhupada said, “What is your goal? Do you want to serve God or become God? If you want to become God, it means that you are not God now, and how can ‘not God’ become God?” He said, “God is God. He is always God. He doesn’t have to become God by yoga or meditation. Krishna is God. He is God when He is playing on the lap of Mother Yasoda. He is God when He is speaking the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna. He is always God. He doesn’t have to become God.” 

Then Srila Prabhupada said, “If you sow the seed of service to God and water it by chanting, God will provide the sunlight and air and all other conditions to make your service grow. But if you want to become God, why should God help the competition? God is in your heart. He is ready to help you. If you want to become God, you are only cheating yourself. You can become godly but you cannot become God.” 

Then Srila Prabhupada asked me directly, “So, do you want to serve God or do you want to become God?” At that time I got the distinct impression that Srila Prabhupada knew everything about me, that he could see right into me and through me. I felt that he was seeing beyond the walls of the temple down the roads that led to my apartment, that he was seeing right into my apartment into the bathroom where I had placed on the wall a sign that I had engraved in my own ornate lettering with different colors and the sign said, “You are god.” [laughter] I felt Srila Prabhupada was seeing that sign on my wall and he was asking me, “So, do you want to serve God or do you want to become God?” But I felt ashamed in front of so many people in the temple room that I had the abominable desire to be God. I began to say, “I want to serve God. . .,” but I knew I couldn’t cheat Srila Prabhupada. I knew that he knew everything. So I said, “I want to serve God but actually I realize I wanted to become God.” And Prabhupada said, “Yes.” 

Then I knew that I had found my perfect master and I bowed my head to the floor in surrender. But it wasn’t just surrender, I was embarrassed that my sinful desire had been exposed in front of all the people in the temple and I imagined that they would all be staring at me and glaring at me, “Oh, he wanted to become God.” So I kept my head to the floor and eventually I heard sounds that indicated that the atmosphere was changing. The devotees had brought a big plate of prasāda for Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada looked at the plate and said, “I am not God. I cannot eat all of this. Distribute.” So the devotees were distributing prasāda.

From then on I came every night to be with Srila Prabhupada. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening Srila Prabhupada would speak in the temple, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday he would speak outside, usually at a university. And on Sunday would be the Sunday love feast.

So the next program had outside the temple was at the International Student Association in Cambridge, Massachusetts associated with Harvard University. Srila Prabhupada gave a beautiful talk that I remember vividly till today, but I don’t have time to repeat what he said. From the very beginning I was intrigued and fascinated and impressed by the way he answered questions. 

At the International Student Association one Indian man quoted the verse from the Bhagavad-gītā: ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham, in which Lord Krishna says, “Everyone follows My path.” So the man was saying that, “We are all following Krishna’s path and we will go to Krishna in the end anyway, so what is the use of following some specific process?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “If everyone is following Krishna’s path and going to Krishna anyway, what was the need for Krishna to speak the Bhagavad-gītā? He spoke the Bhagavad-gītā to teach you the proper path by which you can come to Him.” 

So every evening there was a program with Srila Prabhupada. Two days later was the one at Harvard Divinity School that I mentioned yesterday and then there was program at North Eastern University. There was also one at Boston College. This particular program Srila Prabhupada. . . there was always kirtan at the end of the talk, but the kirtan at this engagement had an especially powerful effect on me. Because of the beautiful kirtan that His Holiness Niranjana Swami led earlier, I thought to tell you of my experience with that kirtan. There were chairs towards the back of the classroom where most of the students and staff were sitting and then there was an open area where the devotees were dancing in a circle. As I was dancing in the circle I felt an overwhelming feeling of love for all the people in the room and from the people from the room that feeling of love extended beyond the walls of the classroom into the surrounding areas of Boston across the United States and throughout the universe. 

I had never had such an experience in my life and I was so overwhelmed that after the kirtan I approached Srila Prabhupada. I had never approached him on my own initiative before, but I was so overwhelmed. I came up to the dais where he was sitting on an elevated seat. I came very close to him and as I came close, I felt I was entering a sphere of spiritual energy, and I looked at Srila Prabhupada and I said, “This chanting is wonderful.” Srila Prabhupada began to chuckle, to laugh, and his body was heaving. I knew he was feeling transcendental ecstasy. He looked at me with so much happiness. His face broke into a huge smile and he said, “Thank you very much.”

In this way two weeks passed and one day Srila Prabhupada and the devotees were getting ready to go somewhere. So I asked the devotees, “What’s happening?” They said, “Srila Prabhupada is leaving.” I thought, “Srila Prabhupada is leaving. Why is he leaving? Where is he going?” I didn’t know there was an ISKCON beyond the Boston temple. I asked if I could come to the airport and the devotees said yes. At the airport almost all the devotees were crying. Up until then I was convinced that everything about Krishna consciousness was perfect—the spiritual master was perfect, the philosophy was perfect, the process of chanting was perfect, the food, prasāda, was perfect—everything was perfect. So I thought, “Maybe this is the defect that Srila Prabhupada has to leave.” So when I saw all the devotees crying at the airport, I asked one lady devotee, Arundhati dasi, “Why are all the devotees crying?” She replied that Srila Prabhupada had said that in the spiritual world meeting and separation are the same. On the absolute platform, meeting and separation was the same—both are ecstasy. So the answer sounded perfect, but still, some doubt remained in my mind whether it was practical.

Prabhupada boarded the aircraft but the devotees just stayed in the airport. They didn’t move. Even after the airplane took off, they stayed looking out the window at the airplane. So I asked Arundhati, “What is happening?” She replied that, “Srila Prabhupada said that when the spiritual master leaves, we should look at the airplane until it disappears into the sky, just like the gopīs watched the chariot of Krishna when He left Vrindavan to go to Mathura. They kept looking at the chariot until it disappeared in the distance.”

We continued to associate with the devotees even after Srila Prabhupada left. Very soon thereafter I moved into the temple but that doubt remained, “Maybe this is the one defect in Krishna consciousness that the spiritual master has to leave.” 

One day we were chanting in front of the Copley Square subway station and somehow I felt Srila Prabhupada’s presence in a very tangible way. I felt, “Yes, he is actually present and what the devotees said was true that on the absolute platform there is no difference between meeting and separation—both are occasions of ecstasy.”

Srila Prabhupada went from Boston to Columbus, Ohio, and to different places, ultimately to Los Angeles. In December he returned to Boston. In the meantime Srila Prabhupada had the devotees who were involved with ISKCON Press move to Boston and establish the Press in the basement of the New Boston temple, quite a big temple at 40 North Beacon Street. Srila Prabhupada was so happy that we had our own press that was printing his books. He took a tour of the press. He saw all the different machinery, met the devotees who did the different services, and he was very happy. After Srila Prabhupada left, when the devotees were cleaning out his desk, they found a piece of paper on which Srila Prabhupada had written a small note, thanking some of the devotees for establishing the press. So he was really very, very eager that his books be published and distributed, but he was very concerned that the devotees maintain their spiritual lives. 

After Srila Prabhupada had left Boston and for a good part of the next year, somehow the leaders of the movement became very focused on making money, and the devotees would have to leave the temple right after breakfast and stay out until very late at night. We hardly had time to chant our rounds. There was no evening program. We came back so late that it was hard to get up early in the morning. Srila Prabhupada was in Los Angeles and he understood what was happening and he introduced some measures to purify the movement. First he said the devotees should come back from saṅkīrtana about five or six in the evening and they should have an evening program in the temple. They should take rest, get up early, and attend the morning program. Further he didn’t want the devotees to charge a specific amount or a minimum amount for the Back to Godhead magazines they were distributing. He said we should just give them the magazine and ask for a donation. He wanted us to depend on Krishna. He didn’t want us to be too preoccupied with money. 

There was another incident that took place coming to point on depending on Krishna, but there is a little history to the incident, so I will go back to the beginning. When I first joined the Boston temple, we didn’t regularly go out on hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana and we hardly distributed any magazines or books, but still, devotees were joining, and the only income we had was Satsvarupa’s paycheck from the welfare office where he worked as a social worker. All the devotees were very surrendered. They were ready to do whatever was required. So they had meeting what to do and Srila Prabhupada said the devotees could get jobs if they needed. Different devotees volunteered. “I used to work in the post office. I can get a job in the post office,” or, “I know the grocer down the street. I can work in the grocery store.” One devotee named Nanda-kisora raised his hand and quoted a letter from Srila Prabhupada in which Srila Prabhupada said, “If you just go out on saṅkīrtana all of your problems will be solved materially and spiritually.” Prabhupada had even written, “You can close the temple to go out on saṅkīrtana.” So we all agreed, “Yes, we will try it. We will go out on saṅkīrtana.”

The next day we went out to chant and we hardly had any magazines or books to distribute, but we held out conch shells and baskets and we asked people to contribute. We came back to the temple at night and counted up the lakshmi and there was more than seven dollars. So we thought, “This is pretty good. Let’s try again tomorrow.” We went out again the next day just asking for donations and giving people Back to Godheads. We came back and counted up and there was twelve dollars. So we thought, “This is really good.” We went out the third day and came back and counted up and there was nineteen dollars. So we thought, “Yes, what Srila Prabhupada said is true, if we just do saṅkīrtana, all of our problems will be solved materially and spiritually.”

Later, when we got the big building on 40 North Beacon Street, we had to make big mortgage payments every month, but we took the risk and we calculated that if we did so many Back to Godheads every day we would be able to distribute our quota of Back to Godheads and at the same time pay our mortgage. But one winter, maybe January, it was so cold out, it was very hard to meet our quota, and we didn’t have nearly enough money to make the mortgage payment, which was due on Monday. So all the devotees felt very morose because it seemed inevitable we would lose the building and all the money we put into the building. 

But that Sunday after the program, a middle-aged lady—and we hardly got middle-aged people then. They were mostly just young people—she said she really liked the paintings on the walls of the temple. They were all original paintings done by the devotees. Many were done for the books and some were done just for the temple. She said she wanted to buy them and she asked how much they cost. We didn’t really have any idea how much they were worth as pieces of art, but we gave a figure that was enough to cover the mortgage, and she paid it, and we were able to keep the temple.

Srila Prabhupada had faith in the chanting of the holy names, he had faith in the potency of the saṅkīrtana movement, and he was willing to take risks for the sake of spreading the Krishna consciousness movement, and fulfilling the order of his guru maharaja and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And all of us, as we proceed in devotional service, are required to take risks. As long as we stay in our comfort zones, as long as we keep doing the things that are easy for us and comfortable for us, we will not be able to really make advancement and we won’t really feel guru and Krishna’s mercy. That was a very major theme in Srila Prabhupada’s life. He took great risks to spread Krishna consciousness. He took personal risks, he took financial risks, and in a way he took risks by investing or entrusting great responsibility to his young disciples. He was ready to give a devotee a chance to really show what he could do. Because of Srila Prabhupada’s love and trust in us, we wanted to rise to the occasion. We didn’t want to disappoint him.

One little incident that shows how devotees rise above their ordinary natures for the sake of Srila Prabhupada, took place with me in Bombay. It is not a story that I tell very often, but it illustrates the point. Srila Prabhupada had entered an agreement with Mr. Nair to buy the Juhu land. That was another risk that Srila Prabhupada took because he had no money to pay for the land. Mr. Nair was not just a businessman. He was a crook. He had already entered an agreement to sell the same land to some other party and on some pretext he had cancelled the agreement and kept the other party’s money. In a similar way he tried to cheat Srila Prabhupada. As part of the whole intrigue, he accompanied us to visit our lawyer. It turns out that he was in collusion with our lawyer to cheat us. 

He arranged that we would drive to the city and he was in the backseat on the right side, I was in the middle, and he arranged for a lady to sit next to me on my left. I didn’t really want to sit next to a lady, but I was intimidated by the whole situation. I was new and Mr. Nair was a very big man in Bombay. So I just went along with it. Then this lady started to put her hand on my leg, on my upper leg, making her way upward. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was getting agitated. I was only about twenty-four years old and my mind and senses were going wild. It was building up to such a point that I was thinking, “Oh well, who cares. I will just enjoy with her.” But then I thought, “If I do that eventually the news will get out and our position as a movement will become very weak and Srila Prabhupada’s mission will be compromised.” And I thought, “I can’t hurt Srila Prabhupada in this way.” So even though for myself, because I was so agitated by the lady, I was ready to through caution to the wind, but for the sake of Srila Prabhupada, I couldn’t. Then I realized how powerful Srila Prabhupada’s mercy was that I actually loved him more than I loved myself because in that mood I was ready to do something that would have hurt me personally, but I wasn’t prepared to do something that would hurt Srila Prabhupada.

Later I found out that the lady was a well known prostitute in Juhu and I was very careful after that to stay away from her. There were two points. One is that Srila Prabhupada invested so much trust and gave so much responsibility to his young disciples. He was ready to take risks and, at the same time, because he did invest so much love and trust in us, we wanted to rise to the occasion and not disappoint him. It is a long story, Srila Prabhupada’s struggle to get the Juhu land, but in the end Srila Prabhupada was successful. 

One day after we had gotten the land, Srila Prabhupada was sitting on the terrace on one of the old buildings where he was staying in Juhu and one devotee—he is still there—a Bengali devotee named Haridasa Prabhu was fanning Srila Prabhupada. At seven o’clock Srila Prabhupada asked Haridasa if he heard the sound of kirtan coming from the temple. Haridasa listened and he said, “No, I don’t hear anything.” Prabhupada said, “Listen closely.” Haridasa strained to hear and he said, “No, I don’t hear anything.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “That is the point, where is the kirtan? Where are the devotees?” Haridasa speculated a little and said, “Well, they must be out in the city collecting and not come back yet.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “That was not my idea that the devotees should go out day and night to collect. They should come back at five in the evening and attend the evening program otherwise they will become like karmis. 

Then Srila Prabhupada asked Haridasa, “Do you know why we were successful in the struggle to get the land? Mr. Nair was so wealthy and influential. He was the owner of the Free Press Journal which was one of three daily English newspapers in Bombay, he had been the sheriff of Bombay, and he was very wealthy. We had no money. We didn’t know anyone. We had no influence yet we were successful. Not him. Why?” Haridasa didn’t know what to say. Srila Prabhupada gave the answer that, “We were successful because we were working to please Krishna whereas he was working for his own sense gratification. So we are successful not by our own strength and resources, but we are successful by Krishna’s pleasure, by Krishna’s mercy. So the devotees should come back from the city and chant and dance in front of the Deities and please the Deities and by the Deities’ mercy, by Krishna’s mercy, we will be successful.”

Again Srila Prabhupada was demonstrating his great faith in Krishna and he was also showing his protective mood toward the devotees. He didn’t want the devotees to become weak in their spiritual lives for over-endeavoring too much for the sake of money. So that is the duty of the acharya, he engages the devotees in service that will please the paramparā, please the previous acharyas, and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, but at the same he guides them in the proper practice of sādhana-bhakti so that they remain strong in Krishna consciousness and are able to continue to serve and preach. Srila Prabhupada was very vigilant. He didn’t miss anything. He was very attentive.

Time passed and we not only got the land, but were building the temple and guesthouse and cultural center. Srila Prabhupada had a very staunch devotee named Mr. Sethi. Mr. Sethi was such a staunch devotee of Srila Prabhupada. He, in relation to Srila Prabhupada, reminded me of Hanuman in relation to Lord Rama—so staunch. Towards the very end of Srila Prabhupada’s manifest pastimes on earth in 1977 Mr. Sethi approached me. He was a member of a group of householder devotees who would meet every Sunday and do twelve hours continuous nāma-saṅkīrtana. After the twelve hours of kāṇḍa hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana they would sing songs from Vrindavan for two hours. They had a guru who was a devotee of Krishna and was associated with Vrindavan. The group was called Radha Madhava Prema Śuddha Nama Saṅkīrtana Maṇḍalī. We know Radha Madhava. Prema means “pure love.” Śuddha means “nectar.” Then nāma-saṅkīrtana maṇḍalī means a group or association. So Mr. Sethi suggested that the group come to Hare Krishna Land in Juhu one Sunday. 

Srila Prabhupada at the time was very sick. He was upstairs in his new quarters but he could hardly move. So the Radha Madhava group came and they were doing kirtan in the temple, but they wanted some reciprocation with Srila Prabhupada. So they came out of the temple and began to chant under his window. Eventually Mr. Sethi went upstairs. The lift wasn’t working so Mr. Sethi had to climb up to the sixth floor and he helped Srila Prabhupada come to the balcony. Srila Prabhupada came to the balcony and he glanced down upon the devotees and the devotees were in ecstasy. 

The next day Srila Prabhupada met me and he said, “The kirtan was wonderful. We should invite the whole Radha Madhava Prema Śuddha Nama Saṅkīrtana Maṇḍalī to stay on Hare Krishna Land. We will give them lodging and boarding and all they have to do is hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana twelve hours a day.” I thought, “These people are married. They have jobs. They have homes. They have children. I don’t know how it is going to work if I propose that they just give up everything and stay at Hare Krishna Land and do hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana for twelve hours.” So I remained silent. Then Srila Prabhupada said, “I want all of our devotees to do twelve hours nāma-saṅkīrtana in the temple every day.” I said, “Srila Prabhupada, we have so much service to do. We have to finish the construction. We have to open the temple.” I knew how important the Juhu project was to him. So I said, “I don’t think we can do that.” Then Srila Prabhupada said, “All right. Then one day a week on Sunday, twelve hours nāma-saṅkīrtana.” By then I was so relieved I immediately agreed. I said, “Yes, we can do that.”

Later when I explained the exchange to Tamal Krishna Goswami who was the GBC, he was the secretary to Srila Prabhupada, he said that, “Srila Prabhupada had engaged in transcendental bargaining with you. First he said you should invite fifty families to live on Hare Krishna Land and maintain them to do twelve hours kirtan everyday. Then he said all of our devotees should do twelve hours kirtan everyday. So by the time he said just one day a week, twelve hours, you were so relieved you immediately agreed. If he would have directly asked for twelve hours on Sunday, you might have gone for four hours.” [laughter]. 

The twelve hour kirtan on Sunday was practically the best we ever did at the Juhu temple. I was the temple president in Juhu. Juhu was a big project. There were always so many problems to deal with, but somehow all the problems got solved in the Sunday kirtan. I thought of Srila Prabhupada’s instructions that, “If you just do saṅkīrtana, all of your problems will be solved.” So during the week devotees would come with their problems, and on Monday and Tuesday I would try to deal with them, but by Wednesday and Thursday I knew the twelve-hour kirtan was coming, and all the problems would be solved. So I wouldn’t directly tell the devotees I was waiting for the kirtan because they might I was being irresponsible, but I said, “Give me some time. Let me think about it and I will speak to you again after the weekend.” And it was miraculous. Either the devotees realized that the problem wasn’t really a problem or the problem got solved on its own or Krishna gave me the inspiration how to deal with the problem, but after the twelve-hour kirtan, all the problems were solved. 

So now I will move ahead to Srila Prabhupada’s final pastime, not to dwell his last days with us, but to draw out a principle that relates to something that we discussed earlier. As you may know, before Srila Prabhupada left, he expressed a desire to go on bullock cart to Govardhana Hill. Srila Prabhupada’s condition was so delicate that many of the devotees thought that he won’t survive the journey, that jostling on the bullock cart will be too much for him. That was just before Govardhana-puja and then about three days later Srila Prabhupada left. 

So Tamal Krishna Goswami and the other devotees arranged for us to take a small brass deity of Srila Prabhupada on parikramā to Govardhana Hill. I was always in Bombay and I had hardly spent any time in Vrindavan except when I was with Srila Prabhupada at the end. I hardly knew anything about Govardhana Hill or any of the holy places there, but we took the deity on parikramā—we did half parikramā—of Govardhana Hill. At the end we came to Radha-kunda and Syama-kuṇḍa. The devotees placed the small brass deity of Prabhupada at the saṅgaṁ, between Radha-kunda and Syama-kuṇḍa, where there is a little mound of govardhana-śilās. The devotees were doing kirtan and at that point I perceived that Srila Prabhupada’s deity was not just a deity, but it was Srila Prabhupada, that Srila Prabhupada was fully present as the deity, and Srila Prabhupada is present as his deity, as his instructions. He is even present within the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. 

Once Satsvarupa Maharaja asked Srila Prabhupada, “While you are here we can bring our questions to you directly, but when you are not here, how will we get our questions answered?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “The holy name of Krishna is not different from Krishna. Do you understand this fact?” I am sure as His Holiness Niranjana Swami said in the beginning that we realize that we are all here because of Srila Prabhupada and so we owe a great debt of gratitude to His Divine Grace. As Srila Prabhupada himself said, it is impossible for the disciple to repay the debt to the spiritual master, but the disciple should have the desire to want to repay it and he can endeavor to repay it by doing as Srila Prabhupada did by preaching vigorously. But again, to have the potency to preach, we have to practice. We have to chant our sixteen rounds and follow the regulative principles and do everything that we have been taught to do.

Hare Krishna. Although we were not given any time limit, but according to one calculation of what an appropriate time would be, we still have a few minutes left. Do any of you have any questions or would any of you like to make any comment?

So I will take the opportunity to liquidate two of my debts. I owe answers to two questions although it is good to remain in debt. I heard that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura always kept his disciples in debt so that they would have to work hard. So maybe I will just liquidate one of the two debts. Nṛsiṁha Prana Prabhu asked about Radhanath Swami and the first Bombay pandal. I didn’t get to discuss the first Bombay pandal.

I think it was about March 31st to April 10th, we had a very big Hare Krishna Festival in downtown Bombay. I was the temple commander for the whole program and personally I was in charge of the book table. Based on my experience in Boston, I understood the way to distribute the books was to put the books in the people’s hands and when they hold the book. . .

Srila Prabhupada came to the site of the pandal early. Behind the pandal was a room for Srila Prabhupada with a sofa and some chairs where he could sit and meet people. During the day devotees would go there and sit and even take some prasāda. So when Srila Prabhupada arrived early, the room was not clean. There were glasses, there were plates with leftover prasāda, and the furniture was not in order. It was a mess. So I sincerely apologized to Srila Prabhupada. I said, “I am sorry I didn’t get the room ready in time for you.” Srila Prabhupada looked at me and said, “How much can you do? How much can one person do? It is better to control six asses than to work like an ass yourself.” That was an incidental instruction.

So I was in charge of the book table and one young American man began to spend time at the pandal, but he was a Saivite. He had long matted hair and wore simple white cloth. I was thinking, “He hasn’t had the right association.” So I preached to him about Shiva and Krishna and Shankaracharya. I was pretty heavy. Later when I read Radhanath Swami’s book, The Journey Home, and realized what his mentality was at the time, I realized he wasn’t the right person to receive the type of heavy preaching I gave him. But he is very kind and he gives me the credit for being the first devotee to engage him in practical devotional service. 

I was in charge of the book table and would do what I used to do in Boston. I would hand out magazines, put them in the people’s hands, and then I would go and ask them if they wanted to keep the magazine and if they said yes, I would ask for a donation. But soon I discovered there was a difference between Bombay and Boston, because in Bombay when I would put the magazines in people’s hands to look at, a lot of them would just walk away with the magazine. So I consulted one of our advisers, one of our life members, and he said, “Oh, you can’t do that in India.” “What do we do?” “You have to cut a hole in the corner of each book and magazine. Then you put a string through the hole and tie the string to the leg of the book table. That way they can hold the book and magazine, look at it, see if they like it, but they can’t walk away with it.”

So, there was this young Saivite sadhu from America spending time in the pandal. I asked him if he would poke the holes in the corners of the magazines, and he did it. He was happy to do it. And so His Holiness Radhanath Swami says I was the first devotee in ISKCON to engage him in devotional service [applause]. Srila Radhanath Swami ki jaya!

Then, after the pandal, not immediately after the pandal, but sometime after the pandal, we moved to Juhu and I got a very official typed letter in an India aerogram addressed to the temple president. The letter quotes our publicity material for the pandal saying, “I came to the pandal and took part in the ecstatic kirtans and bhāgavata-dharma discourses and sumptuous prasāda. I have been very inspired and I want to commit myself to this movement. So I am submitting my official application to you as the temple president to see if you will accept me as a member of your organization.” And it was signed “Raghunatha Patil.” 

So I immediately wrote him saying, “You are most welcome. Please come. We’ll be happy to meet you and after meeting you, you can stay with us.” That Raghunatha Patil later became His Holiness Lokanath Swami [applause]. Later he told me he thought he had to apply just like in India a person would apply for a job. He had to hire one of those typists on the sidewalks in India. Especially around all these courthouses there are all these typists for hire. So he hired a typist to type his application. 

You can see how Srila Prabhupada cast his loving net and caught these souls and brought them to the lotus feet of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Krishna. 

Devotee: Please tell us how to perform our evening programs during the December marathon. Devotees at this time distribute books and they cannot take part in the evening programs. Should they come back to the temple in order to do the evening program?

Giriraj Swami: This is a very good question. Srila Prabhupada was very pleased when the devotees engaged fully in the December marathon. So although in general it is nice to have an evening program either in the temple or outside the temple, but during the December marathon we can make an exception. But then on occasion it is also nice to have a period when we are just free to chant and hear like when we have big festivals or retreats or go to India to Mayapur and Vrindavan. Although in general we want to have that balance on a daily basis, but sometimes we can make an exception and forego the evening program for the sake of book distribution. Sometimes for a limited period we can forego book distribution and other services for the sake of becoming more immersed in hearing and chanting.

Thank you very much for listening so patiently. I look forward to having more and more of your association in the days to come. And now we will have more of those ecstatic kirtans. Hare Krishna. [applause]

Hare Krishna. I am seeing so many new faces tonight. I thought to speak a bit more about how I first met Srila Prabhupada and the devotees and how I was saved by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy and engaged in his service. 

As I mentioned last night, I was looking for perfect happiness, and I got the idea that to achieve perfect happiness I should follow some form of eastern mystical practice, and then I understood that in order to realize spiritual perfection, I needed a guru. So my whole focus became how to find my guru. I even got the idea that I don’t actually choose my guru, that my guru is already there, and that I just have to find him. I even had a mental impression of what my guru looked like. He didn’t have hair. All the swamis and yogis who came from America to India then had long hair and beards. I was becoming hopeless, “How will I find my perfect master?” 

Then Srila Prabhupada spoke at my university near Boston, but I didn’t get a chance to speak with him personally. So I went to the old Boston temple and heard Srila Prabhupada speak. After the lecture Srila Prabhupada asked for questions and I asked him the question that was burning within my heart, I said, “There are so many swamis and yogis and masters and each one is teaching a different method of spiritual realization and each one says that his is the best. So how do I know which is the best?” Srila Prabhupada replied in a most intelligent way by asking me a question. He asked, “What is your goal?” because one will choose the method that is best to achieve one’s goal. So he asked, “What is your goal? Do you want to become God or do you want to serve God?”

Now up until then all the swamis and yogis whom I had met had taught that you can become God or become one with God. So, Srila Prabhupada said, “What is your goal? Do you want to serve God or become God? If you want to become God, it means that you are not God now, and how can ‘not God’ become God?” He said, “God is God. He is always God. He doesn’t have to become God by yoga or meditation. Krishna is God. He is God when He is playing on the lap of Mother Yasoda. He is God when He is speaking the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna. He is always God. He doesn’t have to become God.” 

Then Srila Prabhupada said, “If you sow the seed of service to God and water it by chanting, God will provide the sunlight and air and all other conditions to make your service grow. But if you want to become God, why should God help the competition? God is in your heart. He is ready to help you. If you want to become God, you are only cheating yourself. You can become godly but you cannot become God.” 

Then Srila Prabhupada asked me directly, “So, do you want to serve God or do you want to become God?” At that time I got the distinct impression that Srila Prabhupada knew everything about me, that he could see right into me and through me. I felt that he was seeing beyond the walls of the temple down the roads that led to my apartment, that he was seeing right into my apartment into the bathroom where I had placed on the wall a sign that I had engraved in my own ornate lettering with different colors and the sign said, “You are god.” [laughter] I felt Srila Prabhupada was seeing that sign on my wall and he was asking me, “So, do you want to serve God or do you want to become God?” But I felt ashamed in front of so many people in the temple room that I had the abominable desire to be God. I began to say, “I want to serve God. . .,” but I knew I couldn’t cheat Srila Prabhupada. I knew that he knew everything. So I said, “I want to serve God but actually I realize I wanted to become God.” And Prabhupada said, “Yes.” 

Then I knew that I had found my perfect master and I bowed my head to the floor in surrender. But it wasn’t just surrender, I was embarrassed that my sinful desire had been exposed in front of all the people in the temple and I imagined that they would all be staring at me and glaring at me, “Oh, he wanted to become God.” So I kept my head to the floor and eventually I heard sounds that indicated that the atmosphere was changing. The devotees had brought a big plate of prasāda for Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada looked at the plate and said, “I am not God. I cannot eat all of this. Distribute.” So the devotees were distributing prasāda.

From then on I came every night to be with Srila Prabhupada. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening Srila Prabhupada would speak in the temple, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday he would speak outside, usually at a university. And on Sunday would be the Sunday love feast.

So the next program had outside the temple was at the International Student Association in Cambridge, Massachusetts associated with Harvard University. Srila Prabhupada gave a beautiful talk that I remember vividly till today, but I don’t have time to repeat what he said. From the very beginning I was intrigued and fascinated and impressed by the way he answered questions. 

At the International Student Association one Indian man quoted the verse from the Bhagavad-gītā: ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham, in which Lord Krishna says, “Everyone follows My path.” So the man was saying that, “We are all following Krishna’s path and we will go to Krishna in the end anyway, so what is the use of following some specific process?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “If everyone is following Krishna’s path and going to Krishna anyway, what was the need for Krishna to speak the Bhagavad-gītā? He spoke the Bhagavad-gītā to teach you the proper path by which you can come to Him.” 

So every evening there was a program with Srila Prabhupada. Two days later was the one at Harvard Divinity School that I mentioned yesterday and then there was program at North Eastern University. There was also one at Boston College. This particular program Srila Prabhupada. . . there was always kirtan at the end of the talk, but the kirtan at this engagement had an especially powerful effect on me. Because of the beautiful kirtan that His Holiness Niranjana Swami led earlier, I thought to tell you of my experience with that kirtan. There were chairs towards the back of the classroom where most of the students and staff were sitting and then there was an open area where the devotees were dancing in a circle. As I was dancing in the circle I felt an overwhelming feeling of love for all the people in the room and from the people from the room that feeling of love extended beyond the walls of the classroom into the surrounding areas of Boston across the United States and throughout the universe. 

I had never had such an experience in my life and I was so overwhelmed that after the kirtan I approached Srila Prabhupada. I had never approached him on my own initiative before, but I was so overwhelmed. I came up to the dais where he was sitting on an elevated seat. I came very close to him and as I came close, I felt I was entering a sphere of spiritual energy, and I looked at Srila Prabhupada and I said, “This chanting is wonderful.” Srila Prabhupada began to chuckle, to laugh, and his body was heaving. I knew he was feeling transcendental ecstasy. He looked at me with so much happiness. His face broke into a huge smile and he said, “Thank you very much.”

In this way two weeks passed and one day Srila Prabhupada and the devotees were getting ready to go somewhere. So I asked the devotees, “What’s happening?” They said, “Srila Prabhupada is leaving.” I thought, “Srila Prabhupada is leaving. Why is he leaving? Where is he going?” I didn’t know there was an ISKCON beyond the Boston temple. I asked if I could come to the airport and the devotees said yes. At the airport almost all the devotees were crying. Up until then I was convinced that everything about Krishna consciousness was perfect—the spiritual master was perfect, the philosophy was perfect, the process of chanting was perfect, the food, prasāda, was perfect—everything was perfect. So I thought, “Maybe this is the defect that Srila Prabhupada has to leave.” So when I saw all the devotees crying at the airport, I asked one lady devotee, Arundhati dasi, “Why are all the devotees crying?” She replied that Srila Prabhupada had said that in the spiritual world meeting and separation are the same. On the absolute platform, meeting and separation was the same—both are ecstasy. So the answer sounded perfect, but still, some doubt remained in my mind whether it was practical.

Prabhupada boarded the aircraft but the devotees just stayed in the airport. They didn’t move. Even after the airplane took off, they stayed looking out the window at the airplane. So I asked Arundhati, “What is happening?” She replied that, “Srila Prabhupada said that when the spiritual master leaves, we should look at the airplane until it disappears into the sky, just like the gopīs watched the chariot of Krishna when He left Vrindavan to go to Mathura. They kept looking at the chariot until it disappeared in the distance.”

We continued to associate with the devotees even after Srila Prabhupada left. Very soon thereafter I moved into the temple but that doubt remained, “Maybe this is the one defect in Krishna consciousness that the spiritual master has to leave.” 

One day we were chanting in front of the Copley Square subway station and somehow I felt Srila Prabhupada’s presence in a very tangible way. I felt, “Yes, he is actually present and what the devotees said was true that on the absolute platform there is no difference between meeting and separation—both are occasions of ecstasy.”

Srila Prabhupada went from Boston to Columbus, Ohio, and to different places, ultimately to Los Angeles. In December he returned to Boston. In the meantime Srila Prabhupada had the devotees who were involved with ISKCON Press move to Boston and establish the Press in the basement of the New Boston temple, quite a big temple at 40 North Beacon Street. Srila Prabhupada was so happy that we had our own press that was printing his books. He took a tour of the press. He saw all the different machinery, met the devotees who did the different services, and he was very happy. After Srila Prabhupada left, when the devotees were cleaning out his desk, they found a piece of paper on which Srila Prabhupada had written a small note, thanking some of the devotees for establishing the press. So he was really very, very eager that his books be published and distributed, but he was very concerned that the devotees maintain their spiritual lives. 

After Srila Prabhupada had left Boston and for a good part of the next year, somehow the leaders of the movement became very focused on making money, and the devotees would have to leave the temple right after breakfast and stay out until very late at night. We hardly had time to chant our rounds. There was no evening program. We came back so late that it was hard to get up early in the morning. Srila Prabhupada was in Los Angeles and he understood what was happening and he introduced some measures to purify the movement. First he said the devotees should come back from saṅkīrtana about five or six in the evening and they should have an evening program in the temple. They should take rest, get up early, and attend the morning program. Further he didn’t want the devotees to charge a specific amount or a minimum amount for the Back to Godhead magazines they were distributing. He said we should just give them the magazine and ask for a donation. He wanted us to depend on Krishna. He didn’t want us to be too preoccupied with money. 

There was another incident that took place coming to point on depending on Krishna, but there is a little history to the incident, so I will go back to the beginning. When I first joined the Boston temple, we didn’t regularly go out on hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana and we hardly distributed any magazines or books, but still, devotees were joining, and the only income we had was Satsvarupa’s paycheck from the welfare office where he worked as a social worker. All the devotees were very surrendered. They were ready to do whatever was required. So they had meeting what to do and Srila Prabhupada said the devotees could get jobs if they needed. Different devotees volunteered. “I used to work in the post office. I can get a job in the post office,” or, “I know the grocer down the street. I can work in the grocery store.” One devotee named Nanda-kisora raised his hand and quoted a letter from Srila Prabhupada in which Srila Prabhupada said, “If you just go out on saṅkīrtana all of your problems will be solved materially and spiritually.” Prabhupada had even written, “You can close the temple to go out on saṅkīrtana.” So we all agreed, “Yes, we will try it. We will go out on saṅkīrtana.”

The next day we went out to chant and we hardly had any magazines or books to distribute, but we held out conch shells and baskets and we asked people to contribute. We came back to the temple at night and counted up the lakshmi and there was more than seven dollars. So we thought, “This is pretty good. Let’s try again tomorrow.” We went out again the next day just asking for donations and giving people Back to Godheads. We came back and counted up and there was twelve dollars. So we thought, “This is really good.” We went out the third day and came back and counted up and there was nineteen dollars. So we thought, “Yes, what Srila Prabhupada said is true, if we just do saṅkīrtana, all of our problems will be solved materially and spiritually.”

Later, when we got the big building on 40 North Beacon Street, we had to make big mortgage payments every month, but we took the risk and we calculated that if we did so many Back to Godheads every day we would be able to distribute our quota of Back to Godheads and at the same time pay our mortgage. But one winter, maybe January, it was so cold out, it was very hard to meet our quota, and we didn’t have nearly enough money to make the mortgage payment, which was due on Monday. So all the devotees felt very morose because it seemed inevitable we would lose the building and all the money we put into the building. 

But that Sunday after the program, a middle-aged lady—and we hardly got middle-aged people then. They were mostly just young people—she said she really liked the paintings on the walls of the temple. They were all original paintings done by the devotees. Many were done for the books and some were done just for the temple. She said she wanted to buy them and she asked how much they cost. We didn’t really have any idea how much they were worth as pieces of art, but we gave a figure that was enough to cover the mortgage, and she paid it, and we were able to keep the temple.

Srila Prabhupada had faith in the chanting of the holy names, he had faith in the potency of the saṅkīrtana movement, and he was willing to take risks for the sake of spreading the Krishna consciousness movement, and fulfilling the order of his guru maharaja and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And all of us, as we proceed in devotional service, are required to take risks. As long as we stay in our comfort zones, as long as we keep doing the things that are easy for us and comfortable for us, we will not be able to really make advancement and we won’t really feel guru and Krishna’s mercy. That was a very major theme in Srila Prabhupada’s life. He took great risks to spread Krishna consciousness. He took personal risks, he took financial risks, and in a way he took risks by investing or entrusting great responsibility to his young disciples. He was ready to give a devotee a chance to really show what he could do. Because of Srila Prabhupada’s love and trust in us, we wanted to rise to the occasion. We didn’t want to disappoint him.

One little incident that shows how devotees rise above their ordinary natures for the sake of Srila Prabhupada, took place with me in Bombay. It is not a story that I tell very often, but it illustrates the point. Srila Prabhupada had entered an agreement with Mr. Nair to buy the Juhu land. That was another risk that Srila Prabhupada took because he had no money to pay for the land. Mr. Nair was not just a businessman. He was a crook. He had already entered an agreement to sell the same land to some other party and on some pretext he had cancelled the agreement and kept the other party’s money. In a similar way he tried to cheat Srila Prabhupada. As part of the whole intrigue, he accompanied us to visit our lawyer. It turns out that he was in collusion with our lawyer to cheat us. 

He arranged that we would drive to the city and he was in the backseat on the right side, I was in the middle, and he arranged for a lady to sit next to me on my left. I didn’t really want to sit next to a lady, but I was intimidated by the whole situation. I was new and Mr. Nair was a very big man in Bombay. So I just went along with it. Then this lady started to put her hand on my leg, on my upper leg, making her way upward. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was getting agitated. I was only about twenty-four years old and my mind and senses were going wild. It was building up to such a point that I was thinking, “Oh well, who cares. I will just enjoy with her.” But then I thought, “If I do that eventually the news will get out and our position as a movement will become very weak and Srila Prabhupada’s mission will be compromised.” And I thought, “I can’t hurt Srila Prabhupada in this way.” So even though for myself, because I was so agitated by the lady, I was ready to through caution to the wind, but for the sake of Srila Prabhupada, I couldn’t. Then I realized how powerful Srila Prabhupada’s mercy was that I actually loved him more than I loved myself because in that mood I was ready to do something that would have hurt me personally, but I wasn’t prepared to do something that would hurt Srila Prabhupada.

Later I found out that the lady was a well known prostitute in Juhu and I was very careful after that to stay away from her. There were two points. One is that Srila Prabhupada invested so much trust and gave so much responsibility to his young disciples. He was ready to take risks and, at the same time, because he did invest so much love and trust in us, we wanted to rise to the occasion and not disappoint him. It is a long story, Srila Prabhupada’s struggle to get the Juhu land, but in the end Srila Prabhupada was successful. 

One day after we had gotten the land, Srila Prabhupada was sitting on the terrace on one of the old buildings where he was staying in Juhu and one devotee—he is still there—a Bengali devotee named Haridasa Prabhu was fanning Srila Prabhupada. At seven o’clock Srila Prabhupada asked Haridasa if he heard the sound of kirtan coming from the temple. Haridasa listened and he said, “No, I don’t hear anything.” Prabhupada said, “Listen closely.” Haridasa strained to hear and he said, “No, I don’t hear anything.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “That is the point, where is the kirtan? Where are the devotees?” Haridasa speculated a little and said, “Well, they must be out in the city collecting and not come back yet.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “That was not my idea that the devotees should go out day and night to collect. They should come back at five in the evening and attend the evening program otherwise they will become like karmis. 

Then Srila Prabhupada asked Haridasa, “Do you know why we were successful in the struggle to get the land? Mr. Nair was so wealthy and influential. He was the owner of the Free Press Journal which was one of three daily English newspapers in Bombay, he had been the sheriff of Bombay, and he was very wealthy. We had no money. We didn’t know anyone. We had no influence yet we were successful. Not him. Why?” Haridasa didn’t know what to say. Srila Prabhupada gave the answer that, “We were successful because we were working to please Krishna whereas he was working for his own sense gratification. So we are successful not by our own strength and resources, but we are successful by Krishna’s pleasure, by Krishna’s mercy. So the devotees should come back from the city and chant and dance in front of the Deities and please the Deities and by the Deities’ mercy, by Krishna’s mercy, we will be successful.”

Again Srila Prabhupada was demonstrating his great faith in Krishna and he was also showing his protective mood toward the devotees. He didn’t want the devotees to become weak in their spiritual lives for over-endeavoring too much for the sake of money. So that is the duty of the acharya, he engages the devotees in service that will please the paramparā, please the previous acharyas, and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, but at the same he guides them in the proper practice of sādhana-bhakti so that they remain strong in Krishna consciousness and are able to continue to serve and preach. Srila Prabhupada was very vigilant. He didn’t miss anything. He was very attentive.

Time passed and we not only got the land, but were building the temple and guesthouse and cultural center. Srila Prabhupada had a very staunch devotee named Mr. Sethi. Mr. Sethi was such a staunch devotee of Srila Prabhupada. He, in relation to Srila Prabhupada, reminded me of Hanuman in relation to Lord Rama—so staunch. Towards the very end of Srila Prabhupada’s manifest pastimes on earth in 1977 Mr. Sethi approached me. He was a member of a group of householder devotees who would meet every Sunday and do twelve hours continuous nāma-saṅkīrtana. After the twelve hours of kāṇḍa hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana they would sing songs from Vrindavan for two hours. They had a guru who was a devotee of Krishna and was associated with Vrindavan. The group was called Radha Madhava Prema Śuddha Nama Saṅkīrtana Maṇḍalī. We know Radha Madhava. Prema means “pure love.” Śuddha means “nectar.” Then nāma-saṅkīrtana maṇḍalī means a group or association. So Mr. Sethi suggested that the group come to Hare Krishna Land in Juhu one Sunday. 

Srila Prabhupada at the time was very sick. He was upstairs in his new quarters but he could hardly move. So the Radha-Madhava group came and they were doing kirtan in the temple, but they wanted some reciprocation with Srila Prabhupada. So they came out of the temple and began to chant under his window. Eventually Mr. Sethi went upstairs. The lift wasn’t working so Mr. Sethi had to climb up to the sixth floor and he helped Srila Prabhupada come to the balcony. Srila Prabhupada came to the balcony and he glanced down upon the devotees and the devotees were in ecstasy. 

The next day Srila Prabhupada met me and he said, “The kirtan was wonderful. We should invite the whole Radha-Madhava Prema Suddha Nama Sankirtana Maṇḍalī to stay on Hare Krishna Land. We will give them lodging and boarding and all they have to do is hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana twelve hours a day.” I thought, “These people are married. They have jobs. They have homes. They have children. I don’t know how it is going to work if I propose that they just give up everything and stay at Hare Krishna Land and do hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana for twelve hours.” So I remained silent. Then Srila Prabhupada said, “I want all of our devotees to do twelve hours nāma-saṅkīrtana in the temple every day.” I said, “Srila Prabhupada, we have so much service to do. We have to finish the construction. We have to open the temple.” I knew how important the Juhu project was to him. So I said, “I don’t think we can do that.” Then Srila Prabhupada said, “All right. Then one day a week on Sunday, twelve hours nāma-saṅkīrtana.” By then I was so relieved I immediately agreed. I said, “Yes, we can do that.”

Later when I explained the exchange to Tamal Krishna Goswami who was the GBC, he was the secretary to Srila Prabhupada, he said that, “Srila Prabhupada had engaged in transcendental bargaining with you. First he said you should invite fifty families to live on Hare Krishna Land and maintain them to do twelve hours kirtan everyday. Then he said all of our devotees should do twelve hours kirtan everyday. So by the time he said just one day a week, twelve hours, you were so relieved you immediately agreed. If he would have directly asked for twelve hours on Sunday, you might have gone for four hours.” [laughter]. 

The twelve hour kirtan on Sunday was practically the best we ever did at the Juhu temple. I was the temple president in Juhu. Juhu was a big project. There were always so many problems to deal with, but somehow all the problems got solved in the Sunday kirtan. I thought of Srila Prabhupada’s instructions that, “If you just do saṅkīrtana, all of your problems will be solved.” So during the week devotees would come with their problems, and on Monday and Tuesday I would try to deal with them, but by Wednesday and Thursday I knew the twelve-hour kirtan was coming, and all the problems would be solved. So I wouldn’t directly tell the devotees I was waiting for the kirtan because they might I was being irresponsible, but I said, “Give me some time. Let me think about it and I will speak to you again after the weekend.” And it was miraculous. Either the devotees realized that the problem wasn’t really a problem or the problem got solved on its own or Krishna gave me the inspiration how to deal with the problem, but after the twelve-hour kirtan, all the problems were solved. 

So now I will move ahead to Srila Prabhupada’s final pastime, not to dwell his last days with us, but to draw out a principle that relates to something that we discussed earlier. As you may know, before Srila Prabhupada left, he expressed a desire to go on bullock cart to Govardhana Hill. Srila Prabhupada’s condition was so delicate that many of the devotees thought that he won’t survive the journey, that jostling on the bullock cart will be too much for him. That was just before Govardhana-puja and then about three days later Srila Prabhupada left. 

So Tamal Krishna Goswami and the other devotees arranged for us to take a small brass deity of Srila Prabhupada on parikramā to Govardhana Hill. I was always in Bombay and I had hardly spent any time in Vrindavan except when I was with Srila Prabhupada at the end. I hardly knew anything about Govardhana Hill or any of the holy places there, but we took the deity on parikramā—we did half parikramā—of Govardhana Hill. At the end we came to Radha-kunda and Syama-kuṇḍa. The devotees placed the small brass deity of Prabhupada at the saṅgaṁ, between Radha-kunda and Syama-kuṇḍa, where there is a little mound of govardhana-śilās. The devotees were doing kirtan and at that point I perceived that Srila Prabhupada’s deity was not just a deity, but it was Srila Prabhupada, that Srila Prabhupada was fully present as the deity, and Srila Prabhupada is present as his deity, as his instructions. He is even present within the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. 

Once Satsvarupa Maharaja asked Srila Prabhupada, “While you are here we can bring our questions to you directly, but when you are not here, how will we get our questions answered?” Srila Prabhupada replied, “The holy name of Krishna is not different from Krishna. Do you understand this fact?” I am sure as His Holiness Niranjana Swami said in the beginning that we realize that we are all here because of Srila Prabhupada and so we owe a great debt of gratitude to His Divine Grace. As Srila Prabhupada himself said, it is impossible for the disciple to repay the debt to the spiritual master, but the disciple should have the desire to want to repay it and he can endeavor to repay it by doing as Srila Prabhupada did by preaching vigorously. But again, to have the potency to preach, we have to practice. We have to chant our sixteen rounds and follow the regulative principles and do everything that we have been taught to do.

Hare Krishna. Although we were not given any time limit, but according to one calculation of what an appropriate time would be, we still have a few minutes left. Do any of you have any questions or would any of you like to make any comment?

So I will take the opportunity to liquidate two of my debts. I owe answers to two questions although it is good to remain in debt. I heard that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura always kept his disciples in debt so that they would have to work hard. So maybe I will just liquidate one of the two debts. Nṛsiṁha Prana Prabhu asked about Radhanath Swami and the first Bombay pandal. I didn’t get to discuss the first Bombay pandal.

I think it was about March 31st to April 10th, we had a very big Hare Krishna Festival in downtown Bombay. I was the temple commander for the whole program and personally I was in charge of the book table. Based on my experience in Boston, I understood the way to distribute the books was to put the books in the people’s hands and when they hold the book. . .

Srila Prabhupada came to the site of the pandal early. Behind the pandal was a room for Srila Prabhupada with a sofa and some chairs where he could sit and meet people. During the day devotees would go there and sit and even take some prasāda. So when Srila Prabhupada arrived early, the room was not clean. There were glasses, there were plates with leftover prasāda, and the furniture was not in order. It was a mess. So I sincerely apologized to Srila Prabhupada. I said, “I am sorry I didn’t get the room ready in time for you.” Srila Prabhupada looked at me and said, “How much can you do? How much can one person do? It is better to control six asses than to work like an ass yourself.” That was an incidental instruction.

So I was in charge of the book table and one young American man began to spend time at the pandal, but he was a Saivite. He had long matted hair and wore simple white cloth. I was thinking, “He hasn’t had the right association.” So I preached to him about Shiva and Krishna and Shankaracharya. I was pretty heavy. Later when I read Radhanath Swami’s book, The Journey Home, and realized what his mentality was at the time, I realized he wasn’t the right person to receive the type of heavy preaching I gave him. But he is very kind and he gives me the credit for being the first devotee to engage him in practical devotional service. 

I was in charge of the book table and would do what I used to do in Boston. I would hand out magazines, put them in the people’s hands, and then I would go and ask them if they wanted to keep the magazine and if they said yes, I would ask for a donation. But soon I discovered there was a difference between Bombay and Boston, because in Bombay when I would put the magazines in people’s hands to look at, a lot of them would just walk away with the magazine. So I consulted one of our advisers, one of our life members, and he said, “Oh, you can’t do that in India.” “What do we do?” “You have to cut a hole in the corner of each book and magazine. Then you put a string through the hole and tie the string to the leg of the book table. That way they can hold the book and magazine, look at it, see if they like it, but they can’t walk away with it.”

So, there was this young Saivite sadhu from America spending time in the pandal. I asked him if he would poke the holes in the corners of the magazines, and he did it. He was happy to do it. And so His Holiness Radhanath Swami says I was the first devotee in ISKCON to engage him in devotional service [applause]. Srila Radhanath Swami ki jaya!

Then, after the pandal, not immediately after the pandal, but sometime after the pandal, we moved to Juhu and I got a very official typed letter in an India aerogram addressed to the temple president. The letter quotes our publicity material for the pandal saying, “I came to the pandal and took part in the ecstatic kirtans and bhāgavata-dharma discourses and sumptuous prasāda. I have been very inspired and I want to commit myself to this movement. So I am submitting my official application to you as the temple president to see if you will accept me as a member of your organization.” And it was signed “Raghunatha Patil.” 

So I immediately wrote him saying, “You are most welcome. Please come. We’ll be happy to meet you and after meeting you, you can stay with us.” That Raghunatha Patil later became His Holiness Lokanath Swami [applause]. Later he told me he thought he had to apply just like in India a person would apply for a job. He had to hire one of those typists on the sidewalks in India. Especially around all these courthouses there are all these typists for hire. So he hired a typist to type his application. 

You can see how Srila Prabhupada cast his loving net and caught these souls and brought them to the lotus feet of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Krishna. 

Devotee: Please tell us how to perform our evening programs during the December marathon. Devotees at this time distribute books and they cannot take part in the evening programs. Should they come back to the temple in order to do the evening program?

Giriraj Swami: This is a very good question. Srila Prabhupada was very pleased when the devotees engaged fully in the December marathon. So although in general it is nice to have an evening program either in the temple or outside the temple, but during the December marathon we can make an exception. But then on occasion it is also nice to have a period when we are just free to chant and hear like when we have big festivals or retreats or go to India to Mayapur and Vrindavan. Although in general we want to have that balance on a daily basis, but sometimes we can make an exception and forego the evening program for the sake of book distribution. Sometimes for a limited period we can forego book distribution and other services for the sake of becoming more immersed in hearing and chanting.

Thank you very much for listening so patiently. I look forward to having more and more of your association in the days to come. And now we will have more of those ecstatic kirtans. Hare Krishna. [applause]