Coming to Hare Krishna Land

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

I have been asked to speak about my service here. I will begin before I came to Juhu. I had come to Mayapur for the first Gaura-purnima festival in 1972. Srila Prabhupada was sitting in his straw hut which they called his bhajana-kutira and he was in a very grave mood and he was in a very humble way saying that, “So much mercy is coming from Krishna.” And then he said to me that, “During the British rule they had three provinces: Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras.” So he said, “Which do you want?” I said, “Srila Prabhupada, I will do whatever you want me to.” He said, “I want you to decide.” So up until then I had never made any important decision in Krishna consciousness on my own. I always just did what Srila Prabhupada or my higher authorities told me to do. And I was happy just to follow their instructions. But I could understand that in order for me to be able to make a decision, I would really have to make more advancement. In other words, I would have to be able to know what Prabhupada or Krishna wanted me to do without Prabhupada telling me directly. 

So every morning after maṅgala-ārati I would chant my rounds in the temple and even after the morning class I would stay and chant in front of the beautiful Deities of Radha-Govinda and pray to Them to give me some guidance what I should do. But I was not getting any clear direction. 

So with my fertile, [new?] brain, I devised a plan to find out from Srila Prabhupada what he wanted me to do. I thought that I could speak in such a way that he would somehow indicate what he wanted me to do. So I said, “Srila Prabhupada, I was thinking I should go to Madras,” and I gave the reason. Prabhupada said, “Yes, you can go.” And then I said, “But then again I was thinking I should go to Bombay,” and then I gave the reason why I should go to Bombay. And in the exact same tone of voice, with the exact same facial expression he said, “Yes, you can go.” [laughter] So then I started to get the idea that my plan to trick Srila Prabhupada to tell me what he wanted me to do was not working but I already had my plan so I went with it and I said, “Srila Prabhupada, I was also thinking maybe I should just stay in Calcutta,” and then I gave the reasons why I should stay in Calcutta. With the exact same tone of voice, the exact same facial expression he said, “Yes, you can stay.” 

So I felt very [wretched?] for trying to trick Srila Prabhupada but I also felt elated that my spiritual master could not be tricked by a silly disciple. So Srila Prabhupada left Calcutta and there was still no decision. I was chanting and praying but I was not getting any answer. And then one day I just got an insight. I considered that the most important program in India then as per Srila Prabhupada was the life membership program and we were making life members and promising them so many things but we were not fulfilling our promises. So I considered that if we take good care of the life members they themselves will make more life members for us and if we don’t take care of them, if we don’t fulfill our obligations to them, they will speak ill of us and then even if we go personally to make them life members, they won’t become. And Bombay was the head office of the society. So I thought I should come to Bombay and take charge of the life membership office and take care of the life members and that will be the best service then.

So I wrote Srila Prabhupada my reasoning and he replied, “Yes. Come to Bombay immediately.” So I came to Bombay to the Juhu Land and Srila Prabhupada was staying in one of the flats, one of apartments of one of the tenants here, Mr. Padmanabha Acharya. Srila Prabhupada actually took me on a tour of the property saying what a beautiful property it is, many coconut trees, so near to the beach, and now we could have a major center here with the temple and the hotel and a restaurant, auditorium.

So the front of the land where the temple is now was just overgrown with bushes and weeds. The local people used to actually distill illicit liquor in the bushes. So Srila Prabhupada and the devotees cleared the land and put up a pandal and Srila Prabhupada was speaking every evening in the pandal and the devotees were living in tents. 

At the time Madhudvisa had been the temple president. He wanted a change, he needed a change, so Srila Prabhupada suggested he go to Australia, and Brahmananda Prabhu had come from East Africa to take charge of the project, but there were difficulties in East Africa in Nairobi, and so Srila Prabhupada sent Brahmananda back to East Africa. So the question was who would take charge of the Juhu project. I was not one of the big devotees so the big devotees were talking among themselves who is going to take charge and Brahmananda said to his brother Gargamuni, “I guess you will be the one to take charge now.” 

So Srila Prabhupada called me and the more senior devotees in his room, Mr. Acharya’s flat, and he raised the question, “Who will take charge?” And then he looked at me and he said, “So Giriraj, you will be in charge?” I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I was not inclined to management. I had come to Bombay with the idea that I would preach and make life members and organize the office to take good care of the members. But I knew that the secret of success in spiritual life was surrender and serve the spiritual master. So I knew that I should agree so I said, “If that’s what you want Srila Prabhupada then yes, I will do it.” But within my heart I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea. So there was some talk, plans to develop the project, and then he looked at me and he said, “So Giriraj, now the entire responsibility is on you.” And he started to laugh and I was thinking, “How could Srila Prabhupada say that? I didn’t want that responsibility and then on top of it, how could he be laughing?”

So it was decided and the pandal program was continuing and then it came time for Srila Prabhupada to leave and on the last night of the pandal program he spoke about the Six Gosvamis, their mood of separation. I felt that Srila Prabhupada appreciated how we were all in the mood of separation because he was going to be leaving and he was reciprocating with our mood. He rādhe vraja-devike ca lalite he nanda-sūno kutaḥ, that, “O Radharani, O son of Nanda Maharaja, where are You?” And then Srila Prabhupada the next morning went to the airport and we had arranged for Srila Prabhupada to be in the VIP room. All the devotees crowded into the VIP room—it was a pretty big room—and they did kirtan. Madhudvisa Prabhu led the kirtan and the devotees were dancing ecstatically, jumping up and down, and Srila Prabhupada said, “If you go on having kirtans like this, your mission will be successful.” So that stuck in my mind. Then Srila Prabhupada left.

So this is the initial account of my coming to Hare Krishna Land. It is a big story the struggle that Srila Prabhupada underwent to get the land and then to get the permission to build the temple and then to actually build the temple. In fact Srila Prabhupada himself said, “It was a great fight and someone should write a book about it.” And some devotees have had the idea to make a feature film about it. So although the intrigues with the landlord and the tenants and the municipality, it was already going on during that short period when I was there with Srila Prabhupada, but I have to pick up the theme on a future occasion because it requires more time. 

Sometimes it is said that the greatness of the Lord is manifest when He fights with great demons. Were it not for Hiraṇyakaśipu, we would not know how great the Lord was in His appearance as Nṛsiṁhadeva Bhagavān. Similarly, were it not for Rāvaṇa, we would not know the prowess of Lord Ramachandra. So in the same way the former owner of the property, Mr. Nair, he was actually quite a big demon. He was a very formidable force to deal with and in the past he had bluffed and cheated many businessmen and even government officials and he probably thought Srila Prabhupada is just an old sadhu with some American followers who really don’t know much about bhakti or the ways of the world. So he probably thought that he’ll easily—having bluffed and cheated so many others before—that he’ll easily bluff and cheat Srila Prabhupada and his foreign disciples. But he was in for a big surprise. 

In fact it reminds me of a little incident when I was here in Juhu. Just now before coming to India I was in the Philippines and Hong Kong. So somewhere about 1974 Srila Prabhupada had gone to the Philippines and Hong Kong and I was surprised to find some devotee—I don’t know how because we weren’t supposed to and as far as I know we never did read Time magazine—but some devotee found a little report about Srila Prabhupada’s visit in Hong Kong in Time magazine. There was a section in Time magazine called People meaning important people, famous people—little reports about them. So I never forget this report, it was really very skillfully and expertly written. It began, “There is trouble stirring in nirvana. At a press conference in a posh hotel in Hong Kong, Swami Bhaktivedanta, the leader of the World Hare Krishna movement, was asked about Guru Maharaja Ji, and Swami Bhaktivedanta replied, ‘First we have to decide whether he is God or dog.’ And then he said (about Guru Maharaja Ji), ‘He is cheating the people but when he meets Krishna he will realize that Krishna is an even greater rsi than he is and Krishna will take everything away from him.’”

I meditated on this report and I felt the whole [Bhāgavata?] philosophy was contained in those few sentences of Srila Prabhupada’s quoted in the magazine. It was so deep and profound and personal. Later what Srila Prabhupada had predicted came true. It appears that Guru Maharaja Ji who was known initially here as Bal Yogesvara had been appointed Bhagavān by his mother but Guru Maharaja Ji ended up marrying an American lady which his mother did not like so she rejected him as Bhagavān and kept her other son as the new Bhagavān. [laughter] There was a picture on the front page of the Illustrated Weekly of India and the whole story. 

So Prabhupada’s words came true but I thought of it in relation to Mr. Nair because he also thought he could cheat Prabhupada, he could cheat Krishna, but Krishna is an even greater cheat than Mr. Nair, and in the end Mr. Nair lost everything. Srila Prabhupada actually told one of his GBC secretaries that, “We should be very expert in our dealings and that after people finish dealing with us they should tell their friends, ‘Those Hare Krishna people may look like fools but they are actually very intelligent. Don’t mess with them.’” [laughter]

That was Srila Prabhupada’s vision as the acharya and he was a major force to contend with. Philosophically he was a huge force. Even practically in business deals he was a very formidable party which was admitted by the people who dealt with him. Mr. Nair, before entering the agreement to sell this land to us, he already entered an agreement to sell the same land to another party. So Nair did a similar trick with him and took his money and on some pretext he canceled the agreement and kept the money. So the Chaganlal company had filed a case in the high court to force Nair to sell the land to him. And then Nair did the same thing with us, he entered an agreement to sell the land to Srila Prabhupada and then on some pretext he canceled the agreement and wanted to keep the money and the land. So eventually it came to the stage of Prabhupada sorting out the difficulties with Mrs. Nair, but he still had to deal with the Chaganlal company. 

So at the time Srila Prabhupada was staying at Mr. Sethi’s unfinished home on the Fifth Road of the Juhu Scheme. Mr. Metha who was the proprietor of the Chaganlal company, he came to discuss with Srila Prabhupada because he also had his claim. It was a father and son but the father came. He was probably in his late sixties, early seventies, obviously a very shrewd businessman. So he came to meet Srila Prabhupada. Like a calculating businessman—even Sri Nathji dasa sometimes talks how he approached Srila Prabhupada like a businessman—so he said to Srila Prabhupada, “So, who will take the land?” And Prabhupada said without a moment’s hesitation, “I will.” [laughter] So then Mr. Metha said, “Well my claim is two lakhs.” It was a lot of money back then. Basically he saying, “Unless someone pays me two lakhs I am not going to withdraw my claim.” He said, “My claim is two lakhs.” And Prabhupada said, “My claim is five lakhs.” And Mr. Metha, he didn’t know what was happening, he wasn’t prepared for this. So in the end it was concluded that Prabhupada would take the land and he would settle on some amount with Mr. Metha. And Mr. Metha, I was accompanying him down the stairs to his car, he couldn’t believe what happened. He just kept saying, “Your guru maharaja is pukka.” He would say again, “Your guru maharaja is pukka.”

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!

Are there any questions?

Devotee [1]: Hare Krishna, Maharaja. My question is I wish to take initiation. So how do I identify who is my spiritual master?

Giriraj Swami: Why do you want to take initiation?

Devotee [1]: I wish to advance in spiritual life and I want to completely surrender to my guru maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: And how will that help you in your spiritual life?

Devotee [1]: That will be my goal in life. That is what I wish to be and that is how I wish to be in my life, even going back home back to Godhead.

Giriraj Swami: All right. What books have you read?

Devotee [1]: I am currently reading the Bhagavad-gītā and a few other books by Srila Prabhupada, small books.

Giriraj Swami: Are you attending the morning program or evening program?

Devotee [1]: Yes, Maharaja, and I am chanting sixteen rounds and on Ekādaśī twenty-five rounds, and I do attend the morning programs.

Giriraj Swami: That is good. So I would say it’s like Srila Prabhupada asking me, “Which do you want?” You need some insight and that insight comes by mercy. You can’t force it, you can’t control it. It will just come by mercy. So in the meantime take Srila Prabhupada as your śikṣā-guru—-he will always be your śikṣā-guru—-just chant and read his books and serve him, pray to him that if and when he feels you are ready he should reveal to you whom he wants you to accept as your dīkṣā-guru.

Devotee [1]: Thank you, Maharaja.

Devotee [2]: [unclear]

Giriraj Swami: I never heard that quite the way you have expressed it so I. . .

Devotee [2]: I watched the Abhay Charan video.

Giriraj Swami: Well, the answer is in the video. [laughter] Bhakti Charu Swami wrote me, he sent me the draft of the script of the Juhu episode, but the timing was such that I wasn’t able to respond. So I didn’t read the script. I did see some of the episodes but I didn’t remember exactly what you quoted and I saw in some cases for the sake of drama, for the sake of the story, so I can’t answer your question.

But there was an earlier incident in New York City, a real estate man named Mr. Payne tried to cheat the devotees and Srila Prabhupada came personally to New York City to deal with the situation because Mr. Payne had taken five thousand dollars which was a huge amount of money for the devotees. So one day Mr. Payne phoned and Srila Prabhupada took the call and he was very gracious and charming and he said, “Oh Mr. Payne, I am always thinking of you.” Afterwards a devotee asked Srila Prabhupada, “Is that true that you are always thinking of Mr. Payne?” and Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, like Kamsa was always thinking of Krishna.” [laughter]

So let us end with the immortal sound vibration of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra:

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.