SB 8.22.27 – Lord Vamanadeva and Srila Prabhupada—New Vraja Dhama

Giriraj Swami:

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

We have gathered in the most holy of places, New Vraja-dhama, on the auspicious occasion of Ekādaśī, the day before Vamana-dvadasi. Today we have fasted for half a day in consideration of Lord Vamanadeva’s appearance day tomorrow. We cannot observe the fast tomorrow because we have to break the Ekādaśī fast at a certain time tomorrow morning. So I thought this evening to speak a little about Vamanadeva’s appearance and how Srila Prabhupada considered his life to have followed certain principles enunciated in this section of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam about Vamanadeva’s appearance. 

Many of you know the history from the Eighth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Bali Maharaja, by the blessings of the brahmans, had been successful in his conquest of the universe and he was occupying the planet of the king of heaven. So the demigods as usual in such situations approached Lord Vishnu for help. Lord Vishnu appeared as a small brahmachari named Vamana to cheat Bali Maharaja. Vamana knew that Bali Maharaja was charitably inclined to brahmans and so he approached him as the little brahman boy to beg charity. Bali Maharaja said, “Yes, whatever you want.” And Vamana said, “I want only three paces of land.” Bali replied, “You are very attractive, but you do not seem to be very intelligent. I could give you a whole planet and you are asking for only three steps of land.” And Vamana replied, “If I cannot be satisfied with three steps of land I will not be satisfied even with the three worlds.” 

So Bali Maharaja agreed and Vamanadeva expanded Himself and with two steps He occupied the entire universe. Then He said to Bali Maharaja, “You have promised Me three steps, but you have given Me only two steps. You have not kept your word and for this offense I shall arrest you and punish you and send you to hell.” So Bali Maharaja accepted the Lord’s actions. He was arrested, tied with the ropes of Vasuki, and humiliated, but he tolerated, and in the end he said, “My Lord, You have accused me of not fulfilling my promise, but I have one possession left which is my head, my body, and You can place Your third step on my head.” 

During the whole discussion between Bali Maharaja and Vamanadeva, Bali Maharaja said that, “You appear to be the friend of the demigods, but actually You are a greater friend of the demons because by giving material opulence to the demigods, You are just increasing their material illusion, their false prestige, and their material attachment, whereas by depriving us of material opulence, You are actually showing us favor, because when we are devoid of such opulence, we can come to our senses and realize our actual positions.” And ultimately Vamanadeva concurs, He says that, “To show special favor to people who are too blinded by material opulence and attachment, I show then special mercy by taking away their opulence.” But in the end He concludes that, “When a devotee is given material opulence for the service of the Lord and does not become bewildered by the opulence, he is the recipient of My greatest mercy.”

Here I will read one verse and purport and then relate the whole discussion to Srila Prabhupada. This is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Eight, Chapter Twenty-two: “Bali Maharaja Surrenders His Life.”

TEXT 27

māna-stambha-nimittānāṁ

janmādīnāṁ samantataḥ

sarva-śreyaḥ-pratīpānāṁ

hanta muhyen na mat-paraḥ

TRANSLATION

Although aristocratic birth and other such opulences are impediments to advancement in devotional service because they are causes of false prestige and pride, these opulences never disturb a pure devotee of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

When a devotee is fixed in his devotional service, there is no need for the Lord to deprive him of his material opulences. The Supreme Personality of Godhead never takes away material opulences achieved because of devotional service, although He sometimes takes away opulences achieved by pious activities. He does this to make a devotee prideless or put him in a better position in devotional service.

COMMENT

The next sentences I believe were written by Srila Prabhupada thinking also of his own situation as he presented himself to us.

PURPORT (continued)

If a special devotee is meant for preaching but does not give up his family life or material opulences to take to the service of the Lord, the Lord surely takes away his material opulences and establishes him in devotional service. Thus the pure devotee becomes fully engaged in propagating Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

COMMENT

In this history of Bali Maharaja we see that the Lord gave him material opulence or allowed him to acquire material opulence, then the Lord took it away from him, and then the Lord gave him even greater opulence than he had before. 

As Srila Prabhupada described his life’s history to us, he was in gṛhastha-āśrama and he had the idea to make money to use in the service of the Lord. And his guru maharaja would come to him in dreams and beckon to him to come out of his family and follow him and preach Krishna consciousness fully. Srila Prabhupada describes he would wake up in a state of horror thinking, “How can I leave my wife, how can I leave my children, how can I leave my home.” And one astrologer had predicted that Srila Prabhupada would become the richest man in India, but then things started to go wrong with his business, and finally the setbacks culminated once when Srila Prabhupada was away on business and his servants ransacked his office and plundered his materials. And it was such a great blow to his business that he was unable to recover from the loss. He thought of the verse from the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam: yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ anaiḥ. Lord Krishna says that when He is especially mercifully inclined to a devotee, He takes away all of his material opulence. Srila Prabhupada thought, “Maybe this is what’s happening to me.” 

Even within his family, his relationship with his wife was strained. Srila Prabhupada wanted to preach as a grihastha, but her mood was not so much to preach. She wanted to live a pious life as a Hindu family. And the crisis in his relationship with his wife came to ahead when she pawned his treasured volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in order to get money to buy tea biscuits. Srila Prabhupada said to her in utmost seriousness, “You will have to choose between me and tea.” She thought he was joking so she replied, “Well, I will choose tea of course!” But when Srila Prabhupada heard her answer, a very firmly resolution took place within his heart to leave the family and he did.

For many years as he described that he loitered here and there. Actually he was trying to preach but without much success. And then he procured a free passage on the Scindia Steamship to New York City. And again after loitering here and there, struggling in New York City, eventually he was able to establish Krishna consciousness in New York City, but it was so hard and discouraging that Srila Prabhupada would periodically visit the Scindia Steam Navigation Company Office to see when the next boat was going back to India, but fortunately for us and everyone, Srila Prabhupada never actually took the boat back.

So here we can learn that a pure devotee also has emotions, also has feelings, also can feel discouraged, but what distinguished a pure devotee from an ordinary person is that the pure devotee is fixed in his determination to serve Krishna no matter what. And then as we know from Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta, from various cinematic presentations such as Your Ever Well-wisher and Following Srila Prabhupada, Srila Prabhupada was blessed by Krishna with tremendous success, unprecedented success, and from a certain point of view, he was blessed with tremendous opulence.

After serving Srila Prabhupada in Boston for a year and a half, Srila Prabhupada asked me to go to India and serve him in India. After I had been in India for about a year, my parents came to Calcutta to try to get me back. So, Srila Prabhupada was in his room, in the same room in Ray Castle, 3 Albert Road, sitting at his low table as usual with some disciples. After greeting my parents he began to speak to them in a very intelligent way. He said that when he had his chemist shop or pharmacy in Allahabad, one of his customers was Motilal Nehru, the father of Jawaharlal Nehru who later became the prime minister of India. He said that Motilal Nehru complained to him about his son, Jawaharlal, how useless he was and how he wanted to offer him to Gandhiji’s freedom movement just to get him out of the house. So in a very subtle and entertaining way, Srila Prabhupada was attacking my father’s prejudices. Then he said that Jawaharlal Nehru was a “Made in England” man, that in the shop if Srila Prabhupada had the exact same medicine made in England and the exact same medicine made in India, Nehru would pay twenty times the price to get the medicine made in England. Again Srila Prabhupada was challenging the typical western prejudice that the West is superior and India is inferior.

Then Srila Prabhupada said that one astrologer had predicted that he, Srila Prabhupada, would become the richest man in India. So again in a very subtle and intelligent way, Srila Prabhupada was breaking my father’s false attachments and sentiments to these so-called big people in the material world, and making him attached to Srila Prabhupada. Actually Srila Prabhupada did become wealthier, more opulent than the richest man in India. Jawaharlal Nehru, when he was in England, he kept one British servant at great expense, because he wanted the prestige of having a British servant, but Srila Prabhupada had hundreds and thousands of British and American and European servants and he didn’t have to pay him [laughter]. They were begging to work for free. 

[Curtains open to greet Deities and ārati begins]

Once we were in Srila Prabhupada’s room in Bombay when we had just come to India and were staying with Kailash Seksaria. Guru dasa began to praise another devotee named Dinanatha Prabhu for his nice kirtans. And then Guru dasa caught himself, he noticed that Srila Prabhupada’s small Radha-Krishna were there, and he said, “Please forgive me because it is an offense to praise someone in front of the Deities.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Krishna is already glorified, but He takes more pleasure when He hears His devotees glorified.” So that’s not really the issue here. The issue is that Their Lordships are so attractive it is hard to concentrate [laughter]. So what to do? Focus, focus. [laughter]

So, back to Srila Prabhupada in Calcutta. The richest family then was the Birla family but how many homes did Mr. Birla have? Ten? Twenty? Twenty-five? But Srila Prabhupada had eventually a hundred and eight homes all over the world. So he did in fact become the richest man in India.

My father was becoming very fascinated by Srila Prabhupada’s talk. Eventually though he came to the point that he wanted me to come back to America and he told Srila Prabhupada, “I want to establish a trust for my son with one million dollars in it.” Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, you can do.” And my father said, “But I want him to come to America to sign the documents.” [laughter] And Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, you can send the documents. He can sign.” [laughter] 

Then my mother, seeing the way the discussion was going, began to cry. And she brought up her concern which was that I was not healthy in India and it’s true, I had suffered somewhat in India. Back then people had the idea if you don’t eat meat you won’t get enough protein. So she was concerned that I had lost weight, I wasn’t getting enough protein, and so on. To pacify her, Srila Prabhupada had his sister Pisima who happened to be there, place in my mother’s hand and my father’s hand, some sandeśa that he had on his table as prasāda for guests and visitors. And then he said to her, “These are made from cheese. They are very rich in protein.” He said, “Both rasagullā and sandeśa.” And then Srila Prabhupada turned to me and said, “You must eat two dozen rasagullās and sandeśa every day.” [laughter] 

Then my father rallied and said, “Why not just send Glenn back to America and he can practice Krishna consciousness there.” Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, he can go, it is up to him.” I said, “Well, I would actually rather stay here with Srila Prabhupada.” So that was hard on my parents, but Srila Prabhupada encouraged them and he said, “Right now it is pleasant in India, it is October, so let him stay with me for six months, and then when I go to the West in April, I will bring him with me.” I said, “That’s an excellent idea.” I said, “Just see how intelligent Srila Prabhupada is. When India is pleasant in the winter and the West is cold, he stays in India, and then when India is hot in the summer and it is pleasant in the West, he goes to the West.” My father was actually becoming very enlivened by Srila Prabhupada and he said, “Yes, he is intelligent.” And Prabhupada said, “Your son is intelligent because he has understood my motive.” But my father said to Srila Prabhupada, “No, you are actually very intelligent.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Well, I guess I must be intelligent otherwise how could I attract so many intelligent young men like your son.” [laughter] 

So it was settled, I would stay in India for six months with Srila Prabhupada and then when he came to the West, I would accompany him and Srila Prabhupada said he would take personal care of me while I was in India. Actually after Calcutta I went to Madras and I was doing a lot of preaching day and night. It was one of the best periods of my Krishna consciousness. And I was living with different families in Madras and eating quite well. So Srila Prabhupada said I should take a picture of myself and send it to my parents. [laughter]

Back in the room in Calcutta, so it was all settled and as my father and mother and I were leaving the room, my father expressed his great appreciation for Srila Prabhupada, and he said, “I will say two things about your master: one, he is a brilliant organizer; and two, he really knows how to deal with people.” And in my father’s system of values, those were about the two highest compliments he could pay to anyone.

So I stayed in India for more than three years, but then I actually did become quite ill. I had jaundice and I just wasn’t able to get better. Finally Srila Prabhupada said, “As long as Giriraj stays in Bombay, he won’t be able to recover.” So we made a plan that I would go back to America to recover my health. Before leaving I gathered up my physical strength and came to see Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada said to Tamal Krishna Goswami who was the GBC for India then, “I am sending Giriraj to Los Angeles where Karandhara will give him rasagullās which you couldn’t do.” [laughter] Hare Krishna.

Now this is a very happy period, this is Srila Prabhupada enjoying opulence. Of course Srila Prabhupada was relishing Krishna consciousness, but in between there was a crisis in ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada detected that his position as the founder-acharya was being minimized, and that devotees were being influenced by the Gaudiya Matha in India and they were developing some philosophical misconceptions. It was an extremely painful time for Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada decided that he would leave America. That was not his plan. His plan was to stay in America and make Los Angeles his world headquarters, but Krishna had another plan. So I am going to read a little from a conversation which Srila Prabhupada had with Tamal Krishna Goswami on June 17th in 1977 in Vrindavan just a few months before he left.

ROOM CONVERSATION

Prabhupada: And in my horoscope there was written there, “After seventieth year this man will go outside India and establish so many temples.”

Tamal Krishna: Really?

Prabhupada: I could not understand. “What is this, that I have to go outside India? 

COMMENT

Eventually he comes to this point where he says to Tamal Krishna Goswami that:

ROOM CONVERSATION (continued)

Tamal Krishna: Yeah, you called me from France.

Prabhupada: London.

Tamal Krishna: I was in Paris.

Prabhupada: Yes, and you were Paris.

Tamal Krishna: Yeah.

Prabhupada: That “I want to go back. There is some conspiracy.”

Tamal Krishna: Actually at that time we were massaging your heart. It was such a shock to you. And I remember, the only medicine you want. . . We were massaging your heart and reading Kṛṣṇa book. And you developed a very bad cough.

Prabhupada: I do not wish to recall that. It was intolerable. Then these things were now brought to. . . Otherwise I did not want to come back to India. I would have stayed.

Prabhupada: I made my headquarter in Los Angeles. And they made a conspiracy against me.

Tamal Krishna: I never understood that.

Prabhupada: That means Krishna desired. Otherwise I had no plan to come back here to India.

Prabhupada: My plan was like that, but Krishna’s plan was different. When I was coming back, I was speaking to Dvarakadhisa (the Deities in Los Angeles), “I do not know. I came here to live. Why are You driving me away?” While leaving Los Angeles I was not happy.

Prabhupada: But He had this plan.

Prabhupada: Krishna wanted that, “You left Vrindavan. I will give you better place in Vrindavan. (chuckles) You were retired in Vrindavan. I obliged you to leave. Now you come back. I will give you a better place.” So He has given a temple a hundred times better than Los Angeles. 

Prabhupada: So it is always by His desire. [break] 

COMMENT

If you read the story of Bali Maharaja, you will see a lot of parallels, and Srila Prabhupada taught us by his example how to be surrendered to Krishna in every situation, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t have feelings, that he didn’t feel sorry or unhappy, or painful. He did, but he remained fixed in his determination to serve Krishna no matter what. That is his example to us.

But if we can remain detached and humble, then we may not need Krishna to come and take away our material opulence and attachments. After the first pandal in Delhi, first a young man from America came to visit Srila Prabhupada in a house where he was staying. He was very inspired by Srila Prabhupada and the pandal program and he said, “Srila Prabhupada, if Krishna consciousness spreads like this and everyone becomes Krishna conscious, people will learn to love each other, there will be no more hatred or anger in the world and everyone will be friends.” Srila Prabhupada said, “No more anger? What’s wrong with anger? Did someone tell you that anger was wrong?” He said, “Krishna spoke the whole Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna just to make him angry [laughter]. Krishna wanted him to fight and kill and how can you kill if you are not angry. He spoke the whole Bhagavad-gītā just to make Arjuna angry.” 

So then an Indian man came, he was the father of Srila Prabhupada’s Hindi translator, a nice boy named Ravi Gupta, who was translating Srila Prabhupada’s book in Hindi, and his father came to meet Srila Prabhupada in Delhi. Prabhupada said, “How are you doing? Everything is fine.” And Prabhupada said, “Have you given up smoking?” And Mr. Gupta looked down, he said, “No, Srila Prabhupada.” And then he said, “Can’t you just give me some special mercy?” And Prabhupada said, “Special mercy, there is such a thing as special mercy.” And then he quoted the verse, yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ, in which Krishna says that, “When I want to give My special mercy to someone, the first thing I do is to take away all of his wealth.” So, Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, there is special mercy. Do you want some special mercy?” [laughter] Mr. Gupta said, “No, no, Prabhupada [laughter]. I will do it myself. I don’t need any special mercy.” It is a good instruction.

I will conclude with one more story in relation to my parents and Srila Prabhupada that when I actually did get sick with jaundice and Srila Prabhupada said as long as I stay in Bombay I wouldn’t be able to recover, I ended up going to Los Angeles and my parents came to meet me and my sister also came. Later my uncle, my father’s brother, also came. So my sister came a little earlier, and by then I was feeling a little better, so I invited her to meet Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada spoke very nicely and simply to her, basically saying that if she stayed in the association of devotees she would be protected. And then from the meeting with Srila Prabhupada we went down into the temple room and I was showing her the paintings of Krishna on the wall. There was a very nice one—one of my favorites then—of Krishna and the cowherd boys herding the cows. I was explaining to my sister, “This is what life is like in the spiritual world and this is Krishna and He is God.”—like that. Suddenly she had this glimmer of realization and she looked at me and said, “Has Prabhupada seen Krishna?” And I said, “Yes.” She said, “Oh my god!” [laughter] 

So she stayed for a few days with some devotees in the community there and she was getting very attracted to Krishna consciousness, but then my parents came and saw what was happening with her [laughter], they were thinking, “Okay, now we’ve tried to get the son back,” and in the mean time they were about to lose the daughter. So even though the whole idea was that we’d all be reunited as a family, they had the idea to take her away on a little holiday to Palm Springs or somewhere in Los Angeles. But then I think they were satisfied and I think in the end it was probably for the good that she didn’t join then because it would have really changed things. 

So they came back and I invited them to come on a morning walk with Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada was so charming, he said to my mother, “Mrs. Teton, you look so young!” [laughter] And of course she was very happy [laughter]. He was very skillful with my father, asking him different legal questions, and he genuinely had legal questions that he wanted answered. And my father gave him some advice about how to protect the properties which Srila Prabhupada actually implemented. So at the end of the walk we came to the parking lot where Srila Prabhupada’s car was, and it was a Rolls Royce [laughter]. Srila Prabhupada noticed my father was eyeing the Rolls Royce [laughter], so in a very humble and shy way he said to my father, “My disciples got this for me.” And my father said, “No, no, you deserve it. You deserve it.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “If you like, you can come and ride with me.” My father said, “No, we have our rented car with us so we will go separately.”

So they were happy with Srila Prabhupada. Then my uncle came from Chicago—they are all from Chicago—and I arranged for him to meet with Srila Prabhupada. My uncle was a doctor and he had very high ideals. He was very disillusioned with the other doctors he felt were too interested in money. So for the whole time they were together and it hard for me to gather because time stood still but twenty minutes, a half hour, forty minutes—I don’t know—Srila Prabhupada just listened very patiently and sympathetically. In the whole meeting Srila Prabhupada didn’t say more than three sentences. He was just listening to my uncle with great sympathy. And at the end of the meeting my uncle and I got up to leave and my uncle said, “I’ve never met anyone like him.” And he said, “And that face, I have never seen a face like that. I must get a photo.” 

So Srila Prabhupada, he could work magic on people. Of course it was his purity and sincerity, it was śuddha-sattva, it was pure spiritual energy, but it more even than that. I think it was just his extremely merciful nature. He really loved people and cared for them. He saw beyond the body to the real person and at the end of this—I am not exactly sure at what stage—but later Prabhupada’s servant told me that he commented to Srila Prabhupada that, “Srila Prabhupada, everyone likes you so much.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, because I like everyone.” 

Hare Krishna. Thank you very much. Tomorrow we will be celebrating Radhastami.

Jaya jaya Sri Radhe-Syama!

Hare Krishna.