Srila Prabhupada Memories—Mr. Sethi

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

Tonight I thought to begin by speaking about Srila Prabhupada and his relationship with a very dear friend and staunch devotee named Mr. P.L. Sethi. When Srila Prabhupada first came to Bombay with his disciples from America, Mr. Sethi read a notice about them in the newspaper that Srila Prabhupada had come with sadhus from America who chanted the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Mr. Sethi was part of a group who also chanted Hare Krishna, so he wanted to meet Srila Prabhupada and he got the address from the newspaper and came to see him.

Mr. Sethi lived in one of the northern suburbs of Bombay called Gauragan. At the first meeting, Srila Prabhupada asked Mr. Sethi what he did during the day beginning from when he woke up in the morning. Mr. Sethi said, “I get up. I brush my teeth. I take bath. I have a cup of tea and a piece of toast and I read the newspaper and I go to work.” Srila Prabhupada said, “What is the difference between you and a pig?” [laughter] Mr. Sethi thought about it and he concluded there wasn’t that much of a difference [laughter]. He asked Srila Prabhupada, “What should I do?” Srila Prabhupada said, “To begin, you should invite the devotees every Sunday morning to do hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana in your suburb and then you should feed them sumptuous prasāda.” 

This became a regular practice every Sunday. Later when Srila Prabhupada got the Juhu Land, Mr. Sethi bought some land just behind Juhu and he built a house for him and his family there. In India people give names to their houses and buildings, so he named his house “Vrindavan.”

Srila Prabhupada underwent a great struggle to get the Juhu Land and then to get the permission to build on the land. Mr. Sethi himself was a building contractor and so Srila Prabhupada engaged him in getting the permits and doing some of the early construction. At the back of the land were six small apartment buildings—two-story apartment buildings—and before Srila Prabhupada got permission to build the temple in the main project, somehow Mr. Sethi got permission to add one story on top of each of the buildings at the back. The roofs of those old buildings had little white ceramic tiles—not full tiles, but chips set in cement—and Srila Prabhupada said we could just keep that as the floor and build the walls and roof on top. 

When the first additional apartments were ready, Mr. Sethi took Srila Prabhupada on a tour. Srila Prabhupada looked at Mr. Sethi with great affection and he said, “Just as you are building these rooms for my disciples here, Krishna is building your rooms for you in the spiritual world.” Actually Mr. Sethi left this world during the past year, and by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy, his departure was most auspicious and glorious, but we will come to that later. 

We had this permission to add one story on the tops of the buildings at the back, but we were not getting permission to build the main project. Finally Mr. Sethi said, “Unless we pay them some money, we can’t get the permission.” So he wanted to know if Srila Prabhupada was willing to do that. Srila Prabhupada asked, “How much?” Mr. Sethi said, “Five thousand rupees.” And Srila Prabhupada asked, “How do we know if we pay the money that we will get the permission to build?” Mr. Sethi said, “The Municipal Commissioner who is the ultimate authority seems to be a good man and this is how it works in Bombay.” So, Srila Prabhupada said, “Let me think about it overnight and I will tell you tomorrow morning.”

Then after Mr. Sethi left the room, Srila Prabhupada discussed the matter with me and perhaps one other of the managers of the Juhu project. He said, “So, what should we do?” And then he raised another point which was, “What if we give the money to Mr. Sethi and he doesn’t even give it to the Municipal Commissioner?” 

And then he told a saying in Bengali that there was a man who was a goldsmith and his mother gave him some gold to make into a ring, and the goldsmith was thinking, “Should I use all the gold in the ring or should I use some of the gold to make the ring and put the rest in my pocket?” Prabhupada was saying that that type of cheating is so much a part of the goldsmith’s business that even if his own mother gives him gold to make an ornament, he is thinking, “Should I cheat and keep some of the gold for myself?” Prabhupada said this constructing business and paying bribes and getting permits is such a business that someone who is in that business might be thinking, “Maybe I should keep some of the money and put it in my pocket even if it is coming from a spiritual person.”

So there were many factors to consider whether Mr. Sethi will give the money or the full amount to the Commissioner, whether the Commissioner will in fact give the permission, or whether the Commissioner will take the amount and then ask for more. There were so many complexities and finally Srila Prabhupada decided, “We will not do this.” 

We were a little apprehensive of how Srila Prabhupada would present it to Mr. Sethi and how Mr. Sethi would take it. So we were waiting quite apprehensively for Mr. Sethi to come. Eventually the next morning he came and he sat down in front of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada said, “So, what do you think?” “Should we do this?” he said to Mr. Sethi. Mr. Sethi said, “Yes, I think we should do this because we are not getting the permission.” Prabhupada immediately said, “All right,” just the opposite of the way the discussion had been going the day before. So Prabhupada arranged the money and we got the permission. 

There were many complications that took place in the history of the Juhu Land, but tonight I wanted to focus more on Mr. Sethi and his service to Srila Prabhupada and his relationship with Srila Prabhupada.

I think I mentioned the other night, but still, I will mention again that during this struggle the municipality had demolished the semi-permanent temple we had built for Radha-Rasabihari. We decided we would just rebuild it. We didn’t really need permission to rebuild it because we already had permission to build it and the municipality didn’t really have valid grounds to demolish it. The landlady, Mrs. Nair, she went to the court to try to get an injunction to stop us from rebuilding the temple. That was on Friday and the judge said he would not give any injunction without hearing us. She said, “Just give a temporary injunction for the weekend and then you can decide on Monday.” He said, “No, I won’t give any injunction without hearing them.” So we knew we had the weekend to rebuild the temple because once it was rebuilt, she couldn’t do anything. 

In those days it was very hard to get cement and it was a little hard to get bricks. I remember when His Holiness Niranjana Swami was staying with us in Santa Barbara, we were watching the DVD Following Srila Prabhupada by Yadubara Prabhu. Guru dasa Prabhu described the first time that Srila Prabhupada took the disciples to Vrindavan. All the disciples were just waiting to hear Srila Prabhupada discuss Krishna’s pastimes and the glories of Vrindavan, but the whole time on the bus Srila Prabhupada was silent. He was quietly chanting japa and looking out the window. As they were getting closer to Vrindavan, Srila Prabhupada cleared his throat, and the devotees knew he was about to speak, and they were just waiting to hear what Srila Prabhupada would say about Krishna in Vrindavan. So Prabhupada cleared his throat and said, “Cement. We have to get cement.” [laughter] He was thinking about the construction. When His Holiness Niranjana Swami heard that, he chuckled and said, “Srila Prabhupada.”

So cement was a big thing. Mr. Sethi brought the cement and bricks from his own construction sites so we could rebuild the temple. And then, Mr. Maitre, the local municipal counselor who was in this conspiracy with Mrs. Nair, he came to the site and threatened us that, “You stop the construction immediately.” Mr. Sethi said, “No. Why should we stop?” And Mr. Maitre said, “Well, okay, you can build it up, but I am coming in the night with fifty guṇḍās (hooligans) and we are going to break it down.” And Mr. Sethi said to his son who was with him, “Brij Mohan, bring my revolver.” Then Mr. Sethi said to Mr. Maitre, “Don’t bring fifty guṇḍās. Bring a hundred. Bring two hundred. I have two hundred and fifty cartridges. So if you want to break down the temple, you have to bring more than two hundred and fifty men.” He was that staunch and he stayed all night—Saturday night and Sunday night—making sure that the work was done and that no harm was done to the work. 

Then Monday morning we appeared in court and we told the judge that the temple has already been rebuilt and the judge said to Mr. Nair, “What is done is done. There is nothing we can do about it now.”

Eventually we did get permission to build the main project. The question was whether we needed to do piling. Piles are like a foundation that goes under the ground to support a structure. Generally to determine if you need to use piles, you call a company and they drill into the earth and they see how far down that have to go before they reach bedrock. Because we were near the beach, it was expected that the soil would be sandy and there would be water underneath and we probably need to put in piles which is quite an expense. Prabhupada said, “No piles. We don’t require piles.” But there was some doubt and Mr. Sethi didn’t want to build without piles and then the foundation wouldn’t be strong enough to support the building.

So we hired a company that specialized in doing these tests. The machinery was drilling into the earth and it had only gone about four feet and it hit bedrock. Nobody was expecting it. In fact the drill broke when it hit the bedrock. This was one of many, many instances which made Mr. Sethi’s faith in Srila Prabhupada increase. He felt that Srila Prabhupada knew everything. 

There were so many events. Once Mr. Sethi had the idea—it is very common in India—he had the idea to have some performing artists like singers or dancers, Indian cultural artists, to do a performance, and then sell tickets, and the proceeds of the performance would go to the temple construction fund. Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, go ahead. Do it. If you can make money from the charity benefit performance, it will be most welcome.” Then Mr. Sethi said, “But I will need some of the disciples to sell tickets.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Oh, no. My disciples are meant for selling books not tickets.”

Another time Mr. Sethi had the idea that there were ways that the devotees could make money for the project. Srila Prabhupada agreed that they could make money for the project, but then he told a story that there was once a student who hated arithmetic. So the teacher was trying to think of some inventive way to teach that student arithmetic. The teacher drew on the board a cow and he said, “Suppose a farmer has one cow and then he gets two more cows. How many cows will he have?” So the boy said, “Three.” And then he said, “Suppose the farmer sells one of the cows. Then how many cows does he have?” And the boy said, “Two.” So then his schoolmate sitting next to him said, “Hey, the teacher is teaching you arithmetic.” And the student said, “Arithmetic! I hate arithmetic.” So Srila Prabhupada told this story to make the point that some people, they have a causeless aversion to devotional service, so he was saying that we can’t force people to engage in devotional service, but we can trick them. 

But that was actually told in a different context. That was about getting the workers to work. But in relation to Mr. Sethi’s idea that the devotees could make money for the project, he told a different story. In this story a child had grown up to be a youth and he was learning algebra. So in his algebra notebook he was writing: A+B=C. His mother saw him writing in the notebook and she said, “You have been studying for so many years and you are still doing ABCs.” Prabhupada said the mother couldn’t understand that there was a big difference between this ABC and that ABC. So Prabhupada said that yes, he could engage his disciples in different ways, but they are thinking, “I have come to Swamiji for bhajana and now Swamiji is engaging me in the same business.” And Prabhupada said, “They don’t understand there is a gulf of difference between this business which is for Krishna and that business which was for sense gratification.” 

Although Prabhupada said that, he didn’t introduce any of those ideas. When we discuss what Srila Prabhupada said about different things, we may be discussing only part of what he was thinking. He very well could have been having many other thoughts which he didn’t reveal to us. Sometimes it would require some depth of realization to appreciate—of course we could never know for sure in full why Srila Prabhupada did what he did—but one could understand to some degree why Prabhupada did something by being attuned to Srila Prabhupada’s inner mood and thoughts to whatever degree we can be. 

Srila Prabhupada said there are three categories of disciples. Later I found the same discussion in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. He said the first class disciple knows what the spiritual master wants before the spiritual master even asks for it. The second class disciple receives an instruction from the spiritual master and executes it perfectly. The third class disciple receives an instruction and the way Prabhupada described it, he will say, “Yes Srila Prabhupada,” and he will leave the room and halfway down the stairs, he will think, “What was it that Prabhupada wanted me to do?” That was a little more polite version than what I read later in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says the third class son or disciple will get an instruction and argue about it or begrudge having to do it. 

In general we should try to act on the second class platform and receive the instruction and execute it perfectly because if we are not really on the first class, we might speculate about what the spiritual master wants and then make mistakes. 

Like Srila Prabhupada said, “If the spiritual master asks for water, and you bring milk, thinking that milk is better than water, that is not service, because you should bring him what he asks.” But still, if one is blessed by the spiritual master to understand his heart to some extent, one can do what the spiritual master would want even without being told.

In Durban recently we saw the latest DVD from the Following Srila Prabhupada series, DVD number ten, which covered Srila Prabhupada’s visits to Mauritius and South Africa in 1975. So Srila Prabhupada had a disciple named Bhargava—he is still there in Los Angeles—and Bhargava was the BBT photographer. Srila Prabhupada became very upset with him when he would take pictures while Srila Prabhupada was speaking. In fact when I began to do service in South Africa, one of the first things I did was listen to Srila Prabhupada’s talks that he gave when he was in South Africa. In one Prabhupada was giving a public preaching program in a big hall and Bhargava took a picture. Prabhupada stopped his whole lecture. He was so upset. He said, “I have told you before not to take pictures while I am speaking. I become very much disturbed by the flashing of the light bulb and I lose my train of thought.”

In the DVD narration Bhargava told of an incident when he took a photo and he disturbed Srila Prabhupada. And Srila Prabhupada told Bhargava, “Get out and don’t come back!” So Bhargava, his mind was in turmoil. He just left the temple and he was just walking, walking, walking, walking. He didn’t know where he was going, what he would do. He was just walking. Meanwhile it became time for the evening program. Prabhupada would generally do a public program in the evening. So Prabhupada asked, “Where is Bhargava?” Nobody knew. It was before the time of cell phones so nobody knew. They just started to go out and look for him. Eventually late at night after the whole program was over, they found him and brought him back.

Prabhupada asked to see him and he said, “Why weren’t you at the program tonight?” And Bhargava said, “Well, you told me not to come.” Prabhupada said, “I never said that.” [laughter] And then he said, “Even if I did, still you should have come.” 

Now I say this on that point of knowing the heart of the spiritual master and I know I am taking a risk by discussing this because I don’t want to make Niranjana Swami’s life any more difficult than it already is. I don’t want him to be in the situation where he tells you to get out and you think you know his heart and so you think, “Well, he said get out but he really doesn’t want me to get out.” It could really become chaotic. But I am taking the risk because there will definitely be some among you who are able to know what the spiritual master wants even without his asking. Srila Prabhupada was very personal in the way he dealt with disciples. Although he was the world acharya, but he had very specific types of relationships with certain individual disciples and one was Bhargava Prabhu. 

Bhargava told me recently when we met in Los Angeles that once Prabhupada told him, “You are useless!” And those words, coming from Srila Prabhupada, were weighing on Bhargava Prabhu’s mind for a long time. Then finally, many months later, when Bhargava was with His Divine Grace at Bhaktivedanta Manor, he got the chance to ask him, and he said, “Srila Prabhupada, you said that I was useless. Is that true that I am useless?” And Prabhupada paused for a moment and said, “Everything has some use.” [laughter]

His relationship with Mr. Sethi was different and it was very loving. That is another point and I will come to that later that Prabhupada’s mood and relation to everyone was loving, but he just manifested that love in different ways. Just like a parent might give a bitter medicine to a child, but that is also out of love for the child’s benefit, or to encourage the child, the parent might give a sweet candy to the child. That is also out of love. So when I say that Srila Prabhupada dealt with Mr. Sethi in a very loving way, I don’t mean to say that he was less loving to Bhargava Prabhu or anyone else, but he just exhibited his love differently according to the person and the situation.

Coming back to Mr. Sethi, eventually we did get the permission and we did the build the temple and Saurabha Prabhu arranged beautiful quarters for Srila Prabhupada on the top floor of one of the towers at Juhu that faces the sea. So when the quarters were ready and Srila Prabhupada had moved in, he invited Mr. Sethi to see them. He said to Mr. Sethi, “Just see what beautiful arrangement my disciples have made for me.” Nice beautiful chandeliers and carved wood furniture and marble floors. Srila Prabhupada said to Mr. Sethi, “I always wanted you to live with us, but you always felt that the living conditions were too austere for you. You weren’t used to living so simply. So you come and live here in these quarters and I will stay somewhere else.” Mr. Sethi said, “No, no, they made this for you.” Prabhupada said, “I am a sannyasi. I can stay anywhere. You stay here.” So that was Prabhupada’s generosity of spirit and his graciousness towards Mr. Sethi.

Soon thereafter Srila Prabhupada did leave this world, but Mr. Sethi continued his service. He had it made and paid for a beautiful, beautiful silver ārati set for offering guru-puja to Srila Prabhupada. Every year on Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa-puja he would sponsor a huge opulent feast for everyone who came to the temple on that day. Later he made a fixed deposit in the bank, put a large amount of money in the bank so that the interest from the fixed deposit would pay for a very opulent feast on Srila Prabhupada’s appearance day every year for perpetuity. 

Then last year he became ill. He was very old, maybe eighty-eight or so, but he had no fear of death. He was completely detached from the body. Two days before what turned out to be his last, he insisted that he wanted to go to the temple. So even though he could hardly move, but the family members who are all devotees—some are very good devotees like following his example—they brought him to the temple for Deity greeting. So he offered his obeisances to all the three sets of Deities and then he offered flowers to Srila Prabhupada in guru-puja and then he went back to his home, Vrindavan.

Devotees were constantly surrounding him doing kirtan. Everyone was so attached to him. It is really something when the head of the family is such a staunch devotee. His wife was also a very good devotee, his sons, and then grandchildren—the whole family was Krishna conscious. Very big family. So that affection is very strong because there is a familial relationship based on him being the father, the husband, the grandfather, and there is also a very strong spiritual dimension to the relationship, because he brought the whole family to Srila Prabhupada and Krishna. But he could feel it and he told the family and other devotees that, “Prabhupada is calling me now.” That night or early the next morning, surrounded by devotees performing kirtan, he left. I feel there is no doubt that he has gone to Srila Prabhupada. He was so fixed in service and devotion to Srila Prabhupada. At the very end his mind was fixed on Srila Prabhupada.

Sometimes devotees would ask him, “Why don’t you get initiated by Srila Prabhupada?” And once he even brought up the subject to Srila Prabhupada, not asking to be initiated, but just telling him that other devotees were asking him why he doesn’t get initiated. Srila Prabhupada replied, “You are better than initiated. An initiated disciple can worship the Deity, can serve Krishna, but you are serving the servant of Krishna, and that is higher than serving Krishna directly.” He said, “Besides, I have many works for you to do. If you are initiated. . .” I don’t know what Prabhupada had in mind, but I was thinking of paying the bribe to the commissioner, but he said, “If you are initiated, there might be some things that would be awkward for you to do as an initiated disciple, but I have many things that I want to do through you, which will be easier for you to do if you are not initiated.” 

Srila Prabhupada was very liberal. He really saw the heart of the person, the devotion, the service, and he accepted Mr. Sethi as more than an initiated disciple. And there is no doubt that Mr. Sethi’s attachment to Srila Prabhupada’s service, to Srila Prabhupada, and fixed consciousness on Srila Prabhupada at the end has carried him to Srila Prabhupada again.

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!

Mr. Sethi ki jaya!

Devotee: Can we draw an analogy between Mr. Sethi and George Harrison and the relationship between Srila Prabhupada and Mr. Sethi and the relationship between Srila Prabhupada and George Harrison?

Giriraj Swami: That is a good point. When I was saying how Srila Prabhupada was very liberal and he knew the heart of the person and he wasn’t concerned with initiation, I actually thought of George Harrison, because at an early stage George Harrison asked Srila Prabhupada if he should shave his head and move into the temple, and Srila Prabhupada said, “No, you should remain as a Beatle and write songs about Krishna.” So there is a similarity that Prabhupada saw he could do more in a way—there could have been other reasons as well—but he could do more in a way as he was in the world so to speak. 

I thought of two little incidents that involved Mr. Sethi and Srila Prabhupada in Chandigarh. Mr. Sethi was Punjabi and he had a home in Chandigarh. He very much supported the devotees’ efforts to establish ISKCON in Chandigarh. 

Some of Prabhupada’s disciples arranged a very huge pandal program for Prabhupada in Chandigarh and many people—ministers and government people—came. Prabhupada was on the stage and one of the big ministers was on the stage and he started to look at his watch and then he told Prabhupada that he had to leave. Srila Prabhupada whispered to Mr. Sethi, “He is drunk and he wants to go home to sleep.” So Mr. Sethi, as a local man, he escorted the minister to his car, and he actually could smell the alcohol on the minister’s breath. 

That was one of those incidents that really increased Mr. Sethi’s faith in Srila Prabhupada that he knows everything. But then later the chief minister of the State came to meet Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada gave him a copy of the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is and the chief minister was very respectful towards the Gītā that Prabhupada gave him. He kept the book on his head. The way Mr. Sethi tells it, he actually left the room holding the Gītā on his head. After he left, Srila Prabhupada told Mr. Sethi, “Because he has given the highest respect to the Bhagavad-gītā, he will be given the highest respect in India.” Later the chief minister became the president of India. Mr. Sethi attributed it to Srila Prabhupada’s blessings. I think it was Jnani Zail Singh. He was Sikh. He said, “Because he has given the highest respect to the Bhagavad-gītā, he will be given the highest respect in India.”

So this is the story of one humble devotee’s (Mr. Sethi was very humble) service to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada’s immense mercy and blessings upon one sincere devotee. Somehow or the other, that same mercy, immense mercy coming from Srila Prabhupada, is available to all of us who are serving him in his mission. Hare Krishna.

Devotee: How did you parents react when you became a devotee and whether they were devotees themselves?

Giriraj Swami: I was a university student in Boston when I met Srila Prabhupada and joined the temple. Just before I was due to graduate Srila Prabhupada spoke at the university and I surrendered to him. About two months later was my graduation ceremony and my parents came. They were very shocked to see what had become of me [laughter]. At that time my service was peeling potatoes and cutting vegetables in the kitchen. My father said, “I spent so much money on your education. You came this far to be peeling potatoes?” [laughter] It was the same ABC, he couldn’t understand that there was a gulf of difference between this ABC and that ABC.

It was a shock and they were quite concerned about me. There were many little incidents. Then eventually I went to India. In 1971 my parents came to India to meet me. I was in Calcutta. They came to Calcutta. As it is in Boston my father had said that, “If you leave this and come back, I will give you a million dollars,” which was really a lot of money then. They came to Calcutta and eventually they met Srila Prabhupada. 

Srila Prabhupada was so expert, he told this brilliantly constructed story about his life in Allahabad when he had a pharmacy and Motilal Nehru who was the father of Jawaharlal Nehru who became the first prime minister of India, he was one of his customers. So he said Motilal Nehru would come to his pharmacy and basically he would complain about his son Jawaharlal Nehru who was useless according to his father. So he offered his son to the freedom movement and he said how they had a prejudice in favor of England and against India. And he said that if he had the exact same medicine made in India and the exact same medicine imported from England and the medicine from England would cost ten times more than the medicine from India, they would take the medicine from England. 

So the whole story was very fascinating, but in a subtle way Srila Prabhupada was preaching to my father and attacking some of what my father’s natural prejudices or sentiments would be. Ordinary people tend to think, “Oh, someone is a big man in the material world. Like the prime minister, he must be something special.” But indirectly Prabhupada was saying he was a useless person. “Don’t put your faith in him.” Most people in Europe and America then, and probably even now, they have a prejudice. They think they are better than India, that India is backwards, and they are more advanced. Prabhupada also attacked that prejudice. I think the medicine is exactly the same, but if it has the label “Made in England,” some people will pay twenty times more. 

So then my father came to the point that he wanted me back. He said, “I want to establish a trust in my son’s name and I want to put a million dollars in it.” Prabhupada said, “All right.” And then my father said, “But I want Glenn to come home to sign the papers.” Prabhupada said, “Yes, you can send the papers here and he will sign.” 

They tried different things. My parents had met a very wealthy, aristocratic gentleman who lived in a really nice suburb, the best suburb of Calcutta. His name was C.L. Bajoria and he was a good friend of mine. They spent half a day with him and they were very happy to meet him. C.L. stands for Chiranjilal. Some people used to joke C.L. stood for crores and lakhs. It was said he owned one quarter of Darjeeling. 

My parents said to Srila Prabhupada, “Mr. Bajoria is a devotee but he lives at home. He has a regular life. Why can’t Glenn be a devotee and also live at home?” Prabhupada said, “Well, he is not exactly a devotee like my disciples, but he has been touched by Krishna consciousness.” And my father said, “But still, you can be Krishna conscious at home. So why can’t Glenn be Krishna conscious at home?” And Prabhupada said, “It is a matter of association. Here he gets association with devotees. If he goes back to Chicago, he won’t have association with devotees there.” 

My mother saw the direction that the conversation was going so she started to cry. They also brought up about protein. They were concerned that I wouldn’t get enough protein in my diet, because in those days people thought if you didn’t eat meat, you wouldn’t get enough protein. Srila Prabhupada had a container of sandeśa on his table and so he put sandeśa in my father’s hand and in my mother’s hand. He was trying to pacify them with the good effects of prasāda and then he said, “These sweets are made of pure cheese. They are full of protein.” And then he said to me, “You must eat two dozen sandeśa and rasagullā every day.” [laughter] 

He could see that especially my mother was very concerned about my health. So he said, “Let your son stay with me until April and then when I come to the West in April, he can come with me.” That was about October then. So I said, “Actually this is a very good plan because right now it is very cold in America, especially in Chicago. So I can stay with Prabhupada when it is very cold in America and then when it gets hot in India and it is pleasant in America I can come with him.” I said, “Srila Prabhupada is very intelligent so he plans his schedule to be in India when it is pleasant in the winter and it is cold in America, and to be in America when it is pleasant in the summer and it is too hot in India.” And my father, “Yes, he is very intelligent.” And then Prabhupada said, “Your son is intelligent because he has understood my motive, the motive behind my strategy and my travel schedule.” And my father said, “No, you are intelligent,” he said to Prabhupada. Then Prabhupada said, “Well, I guess I must be intelligent otherwise how could I attract so many intelligent young men and women like your son.” 

So it was all settled up that I would stay with Prabhupada and come with him to America in April and in the meantime Prabhupada said he would take personal care or me and make sure that I ate enough rasagullā and sandeśa. As we were leaving Prabhupada’s room in Calcutta, walking out onto the balcony, my father expressed his appreciation for Srila Prabhupada. He said, “I will say two things about your master. He is a brilliant organizer and he really knows how to deal with people.” In my father’s value system, those were very high compliments.

I will just tell one last little anecdote. In 1973 I actually did get sick with jaundice and Srila Prabhupada said as long as I remain in Bombay I won’t be able to recover. So I went to Los Angeles and my parents and sister came to meet me there. One morning my parents and I accompanied Srila Prabhupada on his morning walk. Srila Prabhupada was so gracious and charming, not just to my parents, but there was our scientist Svarupa Damodara, and there were book distributors and managers. Prabhupada just completely engaged and charmed everyone. When he saw my mother, he said, “Oh Mrs. Teton, you look so young.” He consulted my father about some legal matters because my father was a lawyer. 

Then at the end of the walk we came to the parking lot. The devotees had arranged a Rolls Royce for Srila Prabhupada. It was just natural my father was eyeing the Rolls Royce. Srila Prabhupada could see it and in a very shy, humble way, he said, “My disciples have arranged this for me.” And my father, “No, no, you deserve it. You deserve it.” [laughter] And then Prabhupada said to my father, “You can ride with me. You come with me.” And my father said, “No, we have our own rented car.”

Then what I heard later is very significant. Prabhupada’s servant said to him, “Srila Prabhupada, everyone likes you so much.” And Prabhupada said, “Yes, because I like everyone.” And he really did. His Holiness Niranjana Swami corrected me, he said, “Everyone except Mr. Nair.” [laughter] That is true. 

We will end here. The long awaited statement from His Holiness Niranjana Swami’s mouth has issued forth [laughter]. That is true. 

Thank you for your hospitality, your attention, your affection, your wonderful service. You are in very good hands with His Holiness Niranjana Swami and His Holiness Acyuta Priya Prabhu, and the other leaders and other sannyasis and senior preachers who come here. So continue to serve Srila Prabhupada and his representatives and chant nicely, dance nicely, eat nicely. Be happy in Krishna consciousness and help to make others happy by bringing them to Krishna consciousness. Hare Krishna.

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!