SB 7.9.44 – Preach with Intensity and Conviction

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna! We shall read a verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Seven, Chapter Nine, “Prahlada pacifies the Lord with Prayers.” Text Forty-four.

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

TEXT 44

prāyeṇa deva munayaḥ sva-vimukti-kāmā

maunaṁ caranti vijane na parārtha-niṣṭhāḥ

naitān vihāya kṛpaṇān vimumukṣa eko

nānyaṁ tvad asya śaraṇaṁ bhramato ‘nupaśye

TRANSLATION

My dear Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, I see that there are many saintly persons indeed, but they are interested only in their own deliverance. Not caring for the big cities and towns, they go to the Himālayas or the forest to meditate with vows of silence [mauna-vrata]. They are not interested in delivering others. As for me, however, I do not wish to be liberated alone, leaving aside all these poor fools and rascals. I know that without Kṛṣṇa consciousness, without taking shelter of Your lotus feet, one cannot be happy. Therefore I wish to bring them back to shelter at Your lotus feet.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

This is the decision of the Vaiṣṇava, the pure devotee of the Lord. For himself he has no problems, even if he has to stay in this material world, because his only business is to remain in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The Kṛṣṇa conscious person can go even to hell and still be happy. Therefore Prahlāda Mahārāja said, naivodvije para duratyaya-vaitaraṇyāḥ: “O best of the great personalities, I am not at all afraid of material existence.” The pure devotee is never unhappy in any condition of life. This is confirmed in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (6.17.28):

nārāyaṇa-parāḥ sarve

na kutaścana bibhyati

svargāpavarga-narakeṣv

api tulyārtha-darśinaḥ

“Devotees solely engaged in the devotional service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, never fear any condition of life. For them the heavenly planets, liberation and the hellish planets are all the same, for such devotees are interested only in the service of the Lord.”

For a devotee, being situated in the heavenly planets and being in the hellish planets are equal, for a devotee lives neither in heaven nor in hell but with Kṛṣṇa in the spiritual world. The secret of success for the devotee is not understood by the karmīs and jñānīs. Karmīs therefore try to be happy by material adjustment, and jñānīs want to be happy by becoming one with the Supreme. The devotee has no such interest. He is not interested in so-called meditation in the Himālayas or the forest. Rather, his interest is in the busiest part of the world, where he teaches people Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement was started for this purpose. We do not teach one to meditate in a secluded place just so that one may show that he has become very much advanced and may be proud of his so-called transcendental meditation, although he engages in all sorts of foolish materialistic activity. A Vaiṣṇava like Prahlāda Mahārāja is not interested in such a bluff of spiritual advancement. Rather, he is interested in enlightening people in Kṛṣṇa consciousness because that is the only way for them to become happy. Prahlāda Mahārāja says clearly, nānyaṁ tvad asya śaraṇaṁ bhramato ‘nupaśye: “I know that without Kṛṣṇa consciousness, without taking shelter of Your lotus feet, one cannot be happy.” One wanders within the universe, life after life, but by the grace of a devotee, a servant of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, one can get the clue to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and then not only become happy in this world but also return home, back to Godhead. That is the real target in life. The members of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement are not at all interested in so-called meditation in the Himālayas or the forest, where one will only make a show of meditation, nor are they interested in opening many schools for yoga and meditation in the cities. Rather, every member of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is interested in going door to door to try to convince people about the teachings of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, the teachings of Lord Caitanya. That is the purpose of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. The members of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement must be fully convinced that without Kṛṣṇa one cannot be happy. Thus the Kṛṣṇa conscious person avoids all kinds of pseudo spiritualists, transcendentalists, meditators, monists, philosophers and philanthropists.

COMMENT

Hare Krishna! This verse is very important, and Srila Prabhupada quoted it often. It distinguishes the mood of a Vaishnava preacher, goṣṭhyānandī from the mood of a monist or a bhajanānandī, a yogi. And it was the mood of Prahlada Maharaja, it was the mood of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, it was the mood of Srila Prabhupada, and it is the mood of Srila Prabhupada’s sincere followers. It is the mood that every follower of Srila Prabhupada is meant to have. In fact, if we consider where we are now in the Pandava sena or the Krishna consciousness movement, were it not for Srila Prabhupada we would not be here. And if we were not here, where would we be? Each one of us can imagine where we would be. And it probably would not be a very pretty place.

Just before coming into the hall, I was speaking with Vishnumurti Prabhu who has a project called Vanipedia which is meant to make Srila Prabhupada’s vāṇī, his words available in a very systematic way on the internet. And the way that Srila Prabhupada’s vāṇī is being presented so meticulously and analytically, has never been done for any other spiritual teacher. And it cannot be done for any other spiritual teacher because they don’t have the depth and breadth of teachings that Srila Prabhupada has. And he gave the example that if a spiritual seeker is looking for teachings, they might see something, like you might see an insect or something, “Oh! That looks interesting.” But then you look more closely, “Ahh, that is ugly.” But with Srila Prabhupada’s teachings, the same things, “Oh! This looks interesting.” You look at it, “Wow, that is beautiful. Wow, I didn’t know that was there.” So we want to make Srila Prabhupada’s teachings, which are the teachings of Krishna, the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, paramparā available to people. That is our mission. Srila Prabhupada says in the purport, “That is the purpose of the Krishna consciousness movement.” And Srila Prabhupada gave his life for that purpose, his guru Maharaja Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura gave his life for that purpose, and we are also meant to give our lives for the same purpose.

Now, young people have their educations to pursue, their careers to pursue, and that is well and good. We have two examples which I am going to cite: one is Srila Prabhupada, and one is his guru Maharaja Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura was brilliant, to say the least. He had a photographic memory which means that he could read something once and remember every word. He could take a mental photograph of every page and refer to it in his mind. So the schools had to buy books especially for him because he read all the books in the library and he remembered every word on every page in every book. He was extraordinary and so many people saw a very brilliant future for him. But he, I guess in modern terminology we could say, he dropped out. He dropped out because he felt that if he continued, because he had such a brilliant future ahead of him that there would be all sorts of pressure on him to pursue his brilliant future in the material world which he didn’t want to do. He didn’t want to be a great success in the material world. So that was one course. He was a lifelong brahmachari and from the very beginning he dedicated himself to the mission of his father, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura and Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

And then Srila Prabhupada, he was also a bright student, and he was very successful in his career. He married, he had his wife, he had several children, he was successful. And at a certain stage things started to go wrong from the material point of view. One astrologer had predicted that he would become the wealthiest man in India. But different things started to go wrong in his business and they culminated once when he was traveling for business and his employees just ransacked his office, his store and stole everything. It was such a devastating blow that Srila Prabhupada’s business never recovered. And he was wondering, Why is this happening, what is going wrong? It seems like everything is going wrong. And he came across a verse in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and he thought maybe this is the answer. And the verse says,

yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi

hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ

And the verse is spoken by Lord Krishna to Maharaja Yudhisthira—you know how the Pandavas suffered. You are in the Pandava Sena, so you are probably thinking how the Pandavas were victorious, which is there. But the Pandavas also suffered. So, Lord Krishna explained to Maharaja Yudhisthira,

yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi

hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ

That when I am especially mercifully inclined to some devotee, the first installment of My special mercy is I take away all of his material opulence. And generally, people are popular when they have money. And if they lose their money, they lose a lot of their so-called friends and so-called relatives. And so the person suffers doubly. He loses his opulence and then he loses the so-called respect and affection of his so-called friends and relatives. And in that condition, he gives up his false hopes to enjoy the material world and surrenders to Krishna. Now both of these examples, I am quite sure, run very contrary to your plans for yourselves. In fact, you might even be thinking if this is the future that awaits me in the Krishna consciousness movement, maybe I am in the wrong movement. So I will give you a third example that might be a little more palatable and then I will analyze the relative merits of the different examples.

So the example is of Dr. N.D. Desai who was eventually initiated as Srinathji dasa. Dr Desai’s father, D.D. Desai was a member of parliament in India and a very shrewd businessman. And he built up a very big business. And one day while he was in Malaysia he died suddenly and the body was brought back. And I took part in the funeral procession and so on. And I had friends who were very high in the business circles in Bombay, so they told me what the talk was in the business circles. The talk was that Mr. D.D Desai was a very shrewd businessman and he built up a very big business enterprise in specialty oils and cables. But Dr. N.D. Desai, his son was a “Pollyanna”, a simple, innocent person who probably wouldn’t be able to maintain the business. And Dr Desai was a devotee, he became a devotee, and he became quite a serious devotee. And he would get up early every morning, he would do puja and say prayers similar to what we do in the temple and ISKCON temples. And he would chant his rounds very seriously.

Once I visited his home early in the morning. He was sitting on his sofa, not like western sofa but like Indian, a carved wood and silk, and chanting very seriously. And sometime thereafter he brought out a new line, Sema Bolts, and it was a major advertising campaign around Bombay. And there was something about those billboards, they were very attractive. There was just something about them, very attractive. And I had this thought that Krishna in the heart was giving him intelligence how to execute his business. And he even told me that he gets most of his good insights into how to execute his business from getting up early in the morning and doing his puja and chanting his rounds. And I also thought that Krishna in the heart was inspiring people to appreciate his product and buy it and it became a huge success. One after the other he was opening up new businesses that were very successful and his father’s business multiplied. It became ten times more than it was when his father was alive, and now it may be twenty times, fifty times.

So this example is the example that most people like; that you can be Krishna conscious and wealthy, happy, and healthy and it was very good. I would invite people I was cultivating to Srinathji’s house for prasāda and say, “Wow, become Krishna conscious, you live in this palace, have so much money”. So that is an example. And Srinathji dasa has done tremendous service. But still if we compare that service to what Srila Prabhupada did or Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura did, it is not of the same magnitude. Now this is a very delicate topic because in the early days of the Krishna consciousness movement young people joined. If they were studying, they might have given up their studies, if they had a job, they might have given up their job and they dedicated themselves fully to the mission. But then after some time they might have got married, had children, felt that life in the temple was not sustainable, moved out of the temple, had to earn and might have felt they weren’t so prepared to earn because they gave up their education or work at an early stage, and maybe even felt they were starting late and competing with people who were younger. So from a certain point of view, they were in a difficult situation. And so, the general, I am not completely sure but I think, generally now we are cautious about people giving up their education and careers. You should think about it, “Are you able to live as a brahmachari for your whole life and if you marry what are you going to do, how will you maintain yourself and so on.”

But our subject here as devised by Sruti dharma Prabhu and Sahil Agarwal is preaching that the members of the Pandava Sena should dedicate themselves more fully to preaching. And that can be done in any situation. I didn’t give the example of Bhaktivinoda Thakura. He was a very prominent person in the world, a magistrate, he had many children, but he also preached. He would, I think, maybe sleep a few hours at night and he would get up, he would write books, he would do his worship, he would chant and then he would go to his office, magistrate’s office and he did so many things due to his intense devotion and enthusiasm and discipline you could say. But the discipline was a manifestation of his devotion. He did a huge amount. Even though for most of his life he was in grihastha ashram, he was called the seventh Gosvami. So we have so many examples of acharyas that we can follow. But the key in each case is, you could say, intensity. And there is a verse in the second Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,

akāmaḥ sarva-kāmo vā

mokṣa-kāma udāra-dhīḥ

tīvreṇa bhakti-yogena

yajeta puruṣaṁ param

Which means that whether one has no desires, whether one is desirous of many material things, or whether one desires liberation from material bondage, one should worship the Supreme Lord Krishna by bhakti-yoga. And the word tivrena means with great intensity. So it doesn’t matter what your condition is, what your mood is, what your desires are, if you worship Krishna in bhakti-yoga with intensity you can achieve the supreme destination. So that is important. And for that intensity to develop you need to associate with pure devotees who are intense in their practice of Krishna consciousness. Once Srila Prabhupada said, “Krishna consciousness is 90 percent association.” Association is so important. And you are fortunate you have this association, and it is good and it can become thicker and sweeter. Srila Prabhupada gave the example of boiling the milk. Milk is good but if you boil it then the water evaporates and the milk gets thicker. And then you can have kheer, malai, and all sorts of nice things.

So Srila Prabhupada received the instruction to preach at the very first meeting with his spiritual master. And just see, Srila Prabhupada was newly married, he had his promising career. And straight away Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura instructed him to preach. And Srila Prabhupada’s life ran its course. He had children, then his business and so on. As he tells the story, because he was newly married, he felt that he had to continue with his family responsibilities and he wanted to earn money to use for the cause of Krishna consciousness. But then he said, “That was my mistake. I should have taken it up immediately.” But better late than never. But it is also Prabhupada’s, it is very hard to know the mind of the acharya, you can’t actually know, but that is what he said. But from another point of view, everything Prabhupada did, it was perfect and it was all orchestrated by Krishna. So he came to New York, began the movement from New York, San Francisco, Boston, Montreal, and the three couples came to London and gradually the movement spread throughout the world. And therefore, we are here. And where would we be if we were not here? Might not be a very pretty place. So we should feel grateful to Srila Prabhupada and indebted to him and we should want to repay our debt. And as he said, “The way to repay your debt to the spiritual master, although you can never repay your debt, but you can try by preaching vigorously. Prabhupada said, “If you want to try to repay your debt to me, you should preach vigorously like I am doing.”

Now to preach you have to have conviction, to preach properly you have to be convinced that the only way to be happy is to be Krishna conscious. You can have that conviction in a theoretical way by understanding the philosophy, but you can have the realization when you actually experience the happiness of Krishna consciousness. And that is important. Today I visited the Bhaktivedanta Manor School and there was a sign board: “Chanting Hare Krishna makes you feel happy, peaceful” . . .  A whole list of wonderful effects of chanting Hare Krishna. And that is all true if you chant properly. But there is another type of chanting, inattentive chanting that doesn’t bring those results. In fact, when we had this japa workshop in Letchmore Heath two years ago, we had the participants tell us how they felt after a good chanting session. It was happy, enlivened, inspired, enthusiastic. And then how did they feel when they didn’t really have a good chanting session? Depressed, discouraged, frustrated, loss of self-esteem, and so on. So looking at that list in the school room I thought, Yes, that is true if it is done properly. And it should be, there is no reason why it shouldn’t be. But there could also be another list. So to be convinced that only by Krishna consciousness can one become happy, to be really convinced one should experience the happiness of Krishna consciousness. And that will come through good association and the proper execution of the practices of Krishna consciousness.

When I read the purport about going door-to-door with the knowledge of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, teachings of Lord Chaitanya, I thought of our godbrother Vaisesika dasa. He literally goes door to door on a regular basis. And on the request of senior devotees, he is writing a book about book distribution. So when I stayed with him in San Jose we spoke about the book. And he described the different sections and he said the first section or one of the sections was on the Importance of sadhana. And he was saying that the book distribution or the desire to preach is the overflow of the bliss that one experiences through one’s sadhana. So that is a very important point. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura also said that the best goṣṭhyānandī (preacher) is a bhajanānandī who preaches, someone who relishes ānanda. Ānanda means happiness. Bhajanānandī, one who relishes the bhajana, the practices of Krishna consciousness. So we need both. We want to relish and then share. And that is the mood of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and our guru-paramparā. So we want to have good chanting and dancing and feasting and philosophy and spreading, wanting to bring people, and of course good relationships, loving relationships among the devotees are also very important. You want to bring people to that association. And when they see that association, they want to become part of it. So yes, this is like a complete package that Srila Prabhupada has given us and we just have to take advantage.

Part of the description of what my subject was supposed to be, or my talk was supposed to be, was some stories about Srila Prabhupada related to preaching. Well again reading the purport, Srila Prabhupada quotes the verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (6.17.28):

nārāyaṇa-parāḥ sarve

na kutaścana bibhyati

svargāpavarga-narakeṣv

api tulyārtha-darśinaḥ

That a devotee is equal in any situation. He may be in heaven or hell or liberated but for him it is all the same because he has taken shelter of Krishna. As Srila Prabhupada said in another purport that it is because the devotee doesn’t live in heaven or hell, but he lives with Krishna.

So once some devotees approached Srila Prabhupada to discuss his schedule of preaching programs and said, “Should we do this? Should we do that? Would you like to do this? Would you like to do that?” And Srila Prabhupada said, “I am like a cow, wherever you take me I will give milk.” That is the same idea, the same in every situation. And another time they were asking him, again trying to plan the schedule, and one of the disciples asked, “What would be convenient?” And Prabhupada said, “When you preach you can’t think of your convenience. When you preach there are many inconveniences. It is not the right question to ask.” But that is what a preacher is, that is what a servant of guru and Gauranga does. He accepts a lot of inconveniences. And in discussing this difference between bhajanānandī and goṣṭhyānandī Prabhupada makes the point that bhajanānandī may not want to face all the difficulties in involvement in preaching. But that is on a certain level. We have our saṅga groups and it is all pretty convenient, easy, and congenial so we don’t have to worry about that too much. But when you really go out to a new place, although there are a lot of challenges, the mercy you get is also extraordinary.

Another incident that came to mind was when we were with Srila Prabhupada in Amritsar, in Punjab. Prabhupada had been invited to a Vedant Sammelan. And so there was a morning and evening session in the pandal. But apart from the Vedant Sammelan, Srila Prabhupada received many invitations every day to go to people’s homes, to their societies, to their temples. And Prabhupada was accepting many engagements every day. And Guru dasa Prabhu was the senior man on the party approached Srila Prabhupada on behalf of the disciples saying, “We can’t keep up with you. We have to chant our rounds, we have to do our laundry and we have dysentery, we have to be careful of what we eat, and we can’t keep up with you.” So Srila Prabhupada said, “Okay, I will accept only two engagements per day.”

So he minimized the number of engagements. And for a while it was going on like that but then he started to accept more. And then one day he had seven engagements. And the way it worked is generally the host would bring a car for Srila Prabhupada and the rest of us would go by rickshaw. And so generally the car got there faster than the rickshaws. So I remember each program I was falling a little bit further behind. And then by about the fifth program I was getting there just as Prabhupada was getting ready to leave and go to the next program. And then the seventh program, I am not even sure what it was but the people were very devotional. I could just feel it in the atmosphere, and I could sense it by the way Srila Prabhupada was speaking to them, they were very devotional.

And Srila Prabhupada was speaking in Hindi. Often, he would speak in English so that his disciples could understand him. But in this case, he was speaking in Hindi. And I think because he knew they were really eager to hear, and they could only understand Hindi. And by some mystical arrangement of Krishna, I could pretty much understand what Srila Prabhupada was saying even though I didn’t know Hindi. Of course, he would quote verses that I was familiar with so that helped. Of course, I don’t really know if I understood it properly, but I thought I was understanding and it was wonderful. So then at the end of that program Srila Prabhupada got in his car, went back to the ashram where we were being hosted—the Vedanta ashram. And we followed by rickshaw, got there a little later. And when we got back, I saw that the light was on in Srila Prabhupada’s room. I thought, Wow. I thought after such a long day Prabhupada would be taking rest. So we weren’t supposed to, I didn’t think it was right to peek inside, but I was just so curious to know what Prabhupada was doing. It was probably eleven or eleven-thirty at night. So I crouched and snuck up to the window and then peeped in. And he was sitting on his asana with his bolster, leaning against the wall, relaxed, playing the tape recording of the talk that he had just given. And then I thought, Wow! He is really relishing. And like he said, “He doesn’t speak, Krishna speaks.” And he is speaking about Krishna, so it is Krishna anyway you look at it, he was relishing Krishna, associating with Krishna. So he had that enthusiasm.

And on another occasion later in late 1976, some life member friends from Pune, they had a house in a hill station in Panchgani which is a neighboring town to Mahabaleshwar, hill station in Maharashtra, they say the Kashmir of Maharashtra. And they say that Kashmir is the Switzerland of India. So anyway, we went to their house in Pune, met up with them and then we drove to Panchgani, Mahabaleshwar. And after lunch Srila Prabhupada took a little nap. And they are brothers, three brothers and their wives- the Malhotras. So they went out. They wanted to go into the town, I don’t know, maybe do some shopping. And so Prabhupada and the few disciples who were with him stayed back. And at a certain point after his nap Srila Prabhupada came out into the drawing room and sat down on the sofa and he wanted to preach. So we saw Prabhupada sitting there so we came out and he just started to preach, just wanted to talk about Krishna, wanted to preach. And after some time eventually the brothers and their wives came back and then they sat down and there was more discussion. He just wanted to preach; whoever it was. And one of Prabhupada’s servants told me that sometimes Prabhupada would be alone in the room and Prabhupada would call him in and just start to preach, just wanted to preach to someone. So that is our life.

It was often like that when Prabhupada would be in Bombay, I would go out in the day and meet people, and then in the evening give him a report. So once I came back. I was very enlivened and enthusiastic, and I said, “Srila Prabhupada, I really like this preaching.” He said, “Not like this preaching, but this preaching is our life.” And there is so many practical examples of advice he gave me. There was one man who was avoiding me. We knew who the big people were and we were systematically pursuing them. And this one, he had a shipping company, a very big shipping company. Somehow, he was avoiding me. We had many ways of getting in, but we could never get through to him. Sometimes if you could get into the office, not the office building but like his personal chamber, they would be polite enough but not him; just could not get through. But somehow, I found out where he lived. So I met him, and he seemed a little proud. He said, “What can I do for you?” So I didn’t like his mood so I said, “Well, I have come to do something for you.” He said, “Well what can you do for me?” And I said, “Well, I have come to engage you in Krishna’s service.”

So anyway, he took I think an advertisement, I was collecting advertisements for a souvenir. But when I went back and gave the report to Srila Prabhupada he said, “When you preach you have to be very humble. And if you go to people and tell them, ‘Everything belongs to Krishna and you are a thief. And I have come to get Krishna’s stolen property and return it to Krishna’, they won’t like it. But if you say I have come to your doorstep as a beggar; ‘Oh! A beggar has come,’ okay, give him something.” And I didn’t make the connection at the time but now I am making the connection. Once I saw Srila Prabhupada do that himself. We were with him in Indore. It was like that from Amritsar. Guru dasa and Yamuna and three others of us got down in Delhi. Prabhupada told us, “See what you can do.” And then from Delhi we went to Indore for the Gita-jayanti conference. But the same thing apart from that program which was morning and evening Prabhupada received so many invitations. So one day we went to someone connected with the royal family. And the more senior devotees Prabhupada sent them out, and chose me and some more junior devotees, but none of us could really make life members yet. So Prabhupada himself showed them. He told us, “Just show them the books and tell them about the activity. Show them the books and they will become life members.” So Prabhupada showed him the books. And he said, “Swamiji, we already have these books in Hindi. We don’t need these books.” And Prabhupada became very stern. He said, “I have not come here to sell you some books. I have come as a beggar at your doorstep.” “Oh yes Swamiji. Yes, yes. I will become your member.” Yes, he did that.

So then after the man became a life member, he took us into his dining room. It is like a banquet hall, a beautiful big carved wood banquet table and nice upholstered chairs. And Prabhupada was sitting at the head of the table because I was the most senior in that particular group, I was to his right-hand side. And then there were other devotees. And then they brought in this fantastic feast. It looked fantastic, but we had a lot of dysentery in those days. So every feast was fraught with conflicting emotions. It is like that, “wow, it looks so good, but am I going to be able to digest it?” But anyway, it was really well prepared, pure ghee and just the sight of it was very attractive, so many different colors and textures. So then at the end the man’s father, he was probably an eighty-year-old man, and they had everything, savories and just all sorts of delicacies. Then he came around with rasagullās, there was already a rasagullā on each plate, so he wanted me to take seconds and I didn’t want to because I was sitting right next to Srila Prabhupada. I was a brahmachari, trying to be a staunch brahmachari. I didn’t want Prabhupada to think that I am a sense gratifier. So the man’s father, he kept insisting. He really wanted me to take one more. And I kept refusing. . .and he was getting upset. And then Prabhupada glanced at me with so much love and affection and mercy and he smiled and said, “You can take another rasagullā to make an old man happy.” “Okay.”

So there are so many experiences, wonderful experiences. It is an adventure; preaching is an adventure. Yes, and especially in those early days, some very wild adventures. There was one, I wasn’t there, but Tamal Krishna Goswami and Gargamuni met a man, I think in Bihar, well that particular trip they also went to Indore, not sure exactly where it took place. And they ended up in Bihar. But there was a man who is really rich, but really proud. He was proud. He wasn’t really very devotional. But somewhat in those days people were a little more cultured in India, they had more etiquette. So he could see that these devotees were really zealous, and they really wanted to make him a life member. And they would do anything to make him a life member. And they might have even said, “What do we have to do?” Because he wasn’t agreeing. They said, “What do we have to do to make you a life member?” So he had ordered Limcas for them, the Indian version of 7-Up. So he said, “If each of you pour your Limca over your head I will become your life member.” And they did it, they did it and he became a life member. So you have to be humble to preach like Prabhupada said.

All right, thank you very much. Hare Krishna!