Finding My Perfect Master

Giriraj Swami: On the way here, I asked Sesa Prabhu on what subject I should speak. And he suggested this especially because it is my first time here, and because I had personal association with Srila Prabhupada, I could speak about my experiences with Srila Prabhupada. In fact, I would say that my determination to come here was cemented on Srila Prabhupada’s Disappearance Day in Vrindavan. Because on his Disappearance Day, well beginning the day before but within twenty-four hours, three different devotees suggested that I must visit Alachua. And the first time, then the second time I said, “Oh, twice.” And then the third time, “This is definitely a message to me.” And it happened, it happened and so I am here.

Now, I am not sure where I will begin but we will all find out soon enough. But yes, I was born in Chicago, Illinois. And then eventually I went to a college near Boston University. At a certain stage I began looking for perfection and my concept of what perfection was changed with time. At the same time, I wanted to do good for others. So in high school I was the President of something like the Future Doctors’ Association because I thought that doing good for others, the best way to do good for others would be to become a doctor and help them in terms of the body. And my uncle was a doctor and a very fine man and I really wanted to emulate him. So then I went to University near Boston, and I had friends. And one of my closer friends would sometimes just go into his room and close the door, just go into his room and lie on his bed and close the door. He wouldn’t want to see anyone, he wouldn’t want to go to classes, he wouldn’t want to do anything. And I tried to extend myself to him as a friend but he didn’t respond. So then I thought that things are more complicated than I had considered. And I realized that the suffering a person can experience in the mind can be even greater than the suffering experienced in the body. So then I decided to become a psychology major. And fortunately, the Department of Psychology at Brandeis University then, the Chairman was Abraham Maslow and the department was under Maslow’s guidance or influence.

It was trying to develop a third force in psychology because up until then there were two main schools—the Behaviorists who studied stimulus and response, the famous experiment of Pavlov’s dog. So you have been spared that exposure to that famous experiment. They experimented on dogs but mainly they experimented on rats. And then the other school was Freud’s Psychoanalytic School which studied, you could say, diseased people. So Maslow’s idea was, one school studies rats and the other school studies sick people. So we should have a school that studies healthy people. And he developed a theory, it had some good points to it—a hierarchy of needs; that people have basic needs on the most animal level for food and shelter and survival. And then when the most basic needs are met, they have needs for social acceptance and such things. But then above all of those needs he said people have a need for self-actualization, for self-realization to realize their full potential. And he did a study on people whom he considered self-actualized. And there were many, but one common factor was that they would have, was what he called peak experiences which is this feeling of oneness and harmony with the world, with creation, with the universe. So I entered the department. But then after a while I saw that the professors themselves, the psychologists themselves had as many problems as ordinary people. They were really no different from anyone else. They would also fight over the budget of the department and fight over appointments in the department. And Professor Maslow himself is actually a very good man. But he told a story to us in one of his classes, that one day he woke up and he was trembling and sweating. He was exhibiting all these different symptoms and he didn’t know what they were. So he phoned one of his colleagues and told him what he was experiencing. And his colleague told him that “You are having an anxiety attack.” And Professor Maslow to his credit, he was an honest person in a way, he told us that he had written chapters in books about anxiety attacks. But when he himself was having one, he couldn’t recognize it. So I realized the difference between theory and realization.

So as many of us in my generation, I began searching and reading books about eastern philosophy and mysticism. And from the books I got the idea that I needed a guru. If I really wanted to be successful in spiritual realization, I needed a guru. And then my quest became to find a guru. There were many around. And the psychology department itself invited quite a few. One, he had orange flowing robes and long hair and beard and beatific smile and a twinkle in his eyes. And so he came. I didn’t follow or I don’t know if I didn’t follow it or I didn’t remember it, but one part that really struck me is that he was saying that by yoga you can gain control of your involuntary muscles, and you can actually command your intestines or colon. What was it? Ascending colon or intestine advance! And then it goes up then transverse colon or intestine advance! and it goes across. Then descending colon advance! Then it goes down and then finally it comes out. So in a way I was impressed, but in a way I was thinking, Where is this all leading? But I was eager. So after the lecture I approached some of his disciples, because he was going straight to the airport to go back to New York. So I said, “I would like to ride in the car with the swami.” They said, “Well you can’t do that but you can ride with some of the disciples and we will take you to the airport.” So I got in the car and there were two others in the back seat and they were talking about all the different types of food they missed since joining the ashram. So I thought, This doesn’t seem right. But they have just been with the swami, the swami has just given a lecture and they are thinking about all the types of food they were missing since they joined. I thought, Anyway, they are just the students. We can’t really tell from the students. Let me see the Swami. So when I got to the airport there was the swami, again, the picture of Indian spirituality with his flowing robes and long hair and beard, very warmly and tightly embracing, I guess, well a lady disciple or admirer, and I thought, This is not my perfect master.

So then, I was also reading about Zen and I heard that there was an enlightened Zen master in Rochester, New York, who had studied from a certified enlightened master in Japan, and he was certified to be enlightened by his certified enlightened master in Japan. And he had a pretty popular book which I read. And so I went. And I was greeted at the door by some of the students. It seemed somber, sort of dark and the mood seemed a little dark. But okay. So he was having a weekend retreat. So the session began and we all we had to sit around the perimeter of the room, facing the wall with our legs crossed and our backs erect. And we were given a type of meditation, mental exercise. And then the master would walk around with a stick and if he saw that any student was not being attentive, he would strike the person with the stick. So that was austere but I was eager, I was ready to try anything and I was ready to make sacrifices. So then there was a lunch break. And they had these wooden tables with benches. And so yes, I sat at the table with the master. So I guess one of the students was complaining to the master that the master had gotten angry with him. And then the master said, “Yes, actually I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have.” So I thought this doesn’t sound right. But then I read in the Zen books that enlightened souls can resemble ordinary people, so I thought maybe this is part of it. He is just acting like an ordinary person but maybe he is actually enlightened. So anyway, I sort of endured the weekend and I didn’t think he was my perfect master but I wasn’t completely sure.

Then back at Brandeis, the Psychology Department invited another spiritual leader from India. And he was there the whole day. There was a morning session, and a lunch break and then an afternoon session. And so I told one of my professors who had invited him that I wanted to meet him during the lunch break. And my professor said, “Why do you want to meet him?” I said, “Well, I am looking for a guru and I want to see if he might be my guru.” He said, “Oh, he doesn’t accept disciples. He doesn’t even accept money. If you offer him money he doesn’t accept it.” And then I thought, If he has knowledge that could actually help someone, if he has skills that could actually help someone and he is not helping them because he wants to be renounced, show that he is renounced, he is not my perfect master. So it is quite a list. I will have to skip over a couple, very interesting but we just can’t discuss each and every one. So then I heard that there was a psychology professor at Antioch University in Ohio who was supposed to be enlightened. So I thought, Okay, I will go there. So I went, drove all the way from Brandeis a thousand miles, got there Friday afternoon, and I left right after my last class and rushed to his office with great expectations. His secretary was sitting there at her desk. I said, “I want to meet professor so-and-so.” She said, “He is out playing golf.” I didn’t say anything but she must have seen from my facial expression and she said, “Well, that is his Zen.” And I thought, He is not my perfect master.

So I was becoming quite hopeless because I was going to so many and in each case I felt this is not my perfect master, this is not my perfect master. And somehow, I even had a mental image of what my guru looked like. And he didn’t have hair. And all the other gurus had lots of hair. And so that made me think it is hopeless, I became despondent. And I had also read that you don’t actually choose your guru but your guru is already there, something like that. He finds you or he is already there.

So then, one day I had invited some friends over to my apartment. I was already vegetarian so we had pasta and soup and salad, and then we were going to go to a movie at Harvard Square. But on campus I have noticed there were posters of a Lecture—Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, Swami AC Bhaktivedanta. But I had become pretty hopeless but somehow that poster kept coming into my mind. So I told my friends that there is a lecture on campus tonight, I think I want to go to the lecture. “Oh no, we have already planned to go to the movies.” And I was the type of person the docile type of person, I didn’t want to displease anyone. So I tried to go along with the plan but something in my heart kept saying, “you have to go to the lecture”. So I said, “Well actually let us go to the lecture and then we can go to the movie.” A lot of complaining. And I agreed; every time I agreed to stick to the plan of going to the movie but then something inside me just kept impelling me and finally it became overwhelming. And one of my friends, in particular a lady friend was, I would say, inordinately upset, she was inordinately upset. And she said, “Why do you always have to be running after these swamis and yogis? Why can’t we be like other people?” She was really upset, really upset. So I said, “Okay, this will be the last one I ever go to.”

So we went to the campus and it was late because of all the arguing. And it was the last kirtan, I didn’t know what the schedule was but it was a kirtan at the end. He was also invited by the same professor in the Psychology Department. The hall was like bare bricks but modern, sort of tasteful in a modern way, but the sound was just reverberating off the wall. And it was so powerful. And students from the audience, one by one they were just jumping up and running forward to the stage and climbing up on the stage and joining the kirtan, dancing with the devotees in the kirtan. And I also felt like doing that. So I stood up and then I looked at. . . I thought, if I did that, that would be the end of it. But I stood up and sort of swaying. And then at the end one of the devotees announced, because the temple didn’t have a car then. The movement, although it was so dynamic but it was quite poor, it didn’t have much money or facility. So they announced, “If anyone is going to Boston or Cambridge please see the devotees in the lobby because we need a lift.” So I had my red rambler station wagon and so I went out. The first devotee I met, first devotee I ever spoke to personally was Bharadraj Prabhu and he was so high and he was just saying when Krishna was speaking the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna He showed him His universal form. And it was more effulgent than hundreds of suns. And Arjuna’s knees were shaking and he said, “Please show me your four-handed form.” And he is just like going on and on. “Wow, that is so amazing.” So then I said, “I am going to Harvard Square, I can take the devotees with me.” So they all piled in. I don’t know how they fit, I really don’t, literally. But so I was in the front seat with Jahnava. Does she still live in Alachua?

Devotees: Yes.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, with Jahnava and that lady who was so upset. And then I don’t know they just all piled in. And then in the very far back in the compartment was my best friend Gary and Satsvarupa and some others. So they were arguing and Gary was saying, “Ultimately everything is void.” And Satsvarupa was saying, “There is no void in the creation of God.” And they were just going back and forth, and I thought, This is so silly. And so I thought I had the answer, so I turned around and I quoted something I had read in one of the books that: “It is not void and it is not not void. But to give it a name we call it the void.” And that brilliant pronouncement had absolutely no effect; here I had just bestowed upon them this most effulgent gem of knowledge, and they totally disregarded it. But okay. So then I started to just to speak with Jahnava and I told her that I am really searching. And that I had read Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda. She said, “Oh Yogananda! He is just a shopkeeper. Whatever you want he has it in stock. You want yoga, he has yoga; you want jnana, he has jnana. Whatever you want he keeps it in stock. Have you ever been to his ashram in California?” “No.” “There is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi and the plaque says, “a worker for world peace.” He wasn’t a worker for world peace! He was a politician who wanted to get the British out of India. He doesn’t even know who Mahatma Gandhi was.” I thought, Wow! She is really powerful. And so then I asked about Zen and she said that, “This world is just like images on a screen, on a movie screen. It actually has no reality. But if you draw your consciousness back from those images you see there is a light. And if you follow that light back it comes to a point, but behind the point there is a bulb and a machine and a person.” I thought, wow! I thought that was a better explanation of Zen than any explanation I had read in any Zen book. And it went further, I thought wow! But then I thought, She is just a young girl, she couldn’t be speaking this powerfully on her own strength. She must be getting her strength from someone else, the guru, she must be getting because it was too much. She had tremendous force of authority in what she said. It was like perfect knowledge, everything about it was perfect. But she was just a young girl which wasn’t her fault but it just struck me, “Where is this coming from? Where is she getting this? It must be coming from the guru.”

So we got to Harvard Square and I let the devotees out. And then I realized I don’t have the address, I don’t have the phone number, I don’t know how to get in touch with them. So I stopped the car and jumped out and ran after the devotees. And the last one, it means the one walking the most slowly was named Patita Pavan dasa, he is in the San Francisco area, not Patita Dharan dasa who also sometimes takes the name Patita Pavan. And so I caught up to him. And he was also on such a high level, it is like every single one of them was extraordinary. And he said, “You see all these people, they are like sleep walkers, they are walking down the street but they don’t know who they are or where they are going.” Oh my God! It is like everything, that every single devotee said was so profound. And I was just listening and I was fascinated by everything he was saying. And then suddenly my focus on his words was broken by the sound of loud horns honking. I forgot, I left my car parked at the turnaround at Harvard Square and all the traffic is backed up. So I said, “Quick, quick, quick. Give me the address, give me! I have to be able to find you.” So I got it and jumped in the car and moved it. And then I went to the temple. And the temple was packed. It was a small storefront but it was packed. And Srila Prabhupada was speaking in quite a thick accent. And I wasn’t familiar with the accent. And I wasn’t familiar with the philosophy, it was different from the other ones. But he did say one thing that caught my attention. He said, “Out of many thousands of men one will seek perfection.” I thought, that is me! He is talking about me.

So then the talk ended and he called for questions and one person asked about maya, that if everything comes from Krishna, does maya also come from Krishna? And Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, it is like everything comes from the sun, the cloud also comes from the sun but the sun is always above the cloud. The cloud can cover our vision but it never covers the sun.” So then I asked my question and I said, “There is so many different swamis and yogis. And each one is recommending a different method of self-realization. And each says that his is best, so how do I know which is actually best?” And then Srila Prabhupada asked me a question, so intelligent, he asked me a question, “What is your goal?” Because I was asking what is the best means. But his question was what is your goal, depending on the end, then you select what is the best means. And he said, “Do you want to become God or do you want to serve God? He said, “If you want to become God, it means that you are not God now. So how can not-God become God?” He said, “God is God. God is always God. He doesn’t have to become God by practicing yoga or meditation.” And then he said, “Krishna is God. He is God when He is playing on the lap of mother Yasoda, He is God when He is speaking the Bhagavad-gītā to Arjuna, He is always God. He doesn’t become God.” And then he said that, “If you want to serve God and you plant the seed of service to God and water it by chanting, then God will give all the sunlight and air and everything you need to make your service grow. But if you want to become God you are only cheating yourself because why should God help the competition?” He said, “You can become godly but you cannot become God.”

Now at that stage, I had the feeling that Srila Prabhupada was looking straight into me. He knew everything about me, he was seeing through me, through the walls of the temple room, down the road to Waltham Massachusetts into my apartment, into my bathroom where on the wall I had affixed a sign that I had hand written in very ornate lettering with different colors. And the sign read: “You are God.” Just in case I forgot, so I had a sign to remind me. So I could feel it that Prabhupada was just like he was there, he was looking at that sign and knew everything. Then in the end he said, “So, do you want to serve God or you want to become God?” So by then I knew that to want to become God, it was futile. So I said, “I want to serve God.” But I knew he knew everything, I couldn’t cheat him, so I said, “I want to serve God. But actually, I realized I wanted to become God.” And he said, “Yes.”

So then I knew I found my perfect master. And then I offered obeisances, I bowed my head to the floor and I stayed down in obeisances for quite a long time, partly out of surrender and partly because I felt that I had been exposed in front of everyone in the room for having this abominable desire to want to be God, which means really to take the place of God. And I thought if I got up everyone would be staring and glaring and be like, “You wanted to become God!” So I kept my head down for quite a while. But then I heard sounds that indicated the atmosphere was changing, that prasāda was being distributed. It is a light mood, happy mood. I thought, Oh okay, it is safe. So I got up and I looked around. And no one was really glaring at me or frowning. They were smiling and happy and I was happy too.

So then they served me the prasāda that was so colorful, I have never seen a plate with so many different colors and textures. And I picked up something, I put it in my mouth, my teeth went through it, it had like a hard surface on the outside and soft and juicy on the inside—I think it was a pakora, like wow! It exploded with flavor, one after the other. Everything was just amazing. So then I began to come every day. And Srila Prabhupada’s program was every alternate day—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he would speak in the temple, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday he would speak outside, usually at one of the Universities. And then Sunday would be the Sunday Love Feast at the temple. And the devotees saw that I was coming every day and I had a car, they didn’t, even for Srila Prabhupada, I guess they would have to hire a taxi, so they asked if I could drive. “Yes, I would be happy to.” So the first night I drove him he was giving a lecture at Harvard Divinity School. And so we drove there late afternoon and we got there. And the students were quite sharp, they thought they were very smart. And so afterwards a lot of hands shot up. And one of the students said, “You are talking so much about chanting, chanting, but what does the chanting actually do for people?” Then he started talking about the Russian revolution that really did something to help people, to change the lives of people. “What is the chanting going to do?” So he said, “The people in Russia, are they happy?” “No.” Prabhupada said, “Then what is the use? Even if for some time its better it will get worse.” So he said, “Okay.”

Then another one said something like, “You say we should repeat Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, but couldn’t you just repeat anything and it would have the same result? Couldn’t you just repeat one two three, one two three, one two three, one two three and have the same result?” Prabhupada said, “Well, of course that is not possible. But you can try counting and after you get tired of counting you can try chanting.” So it is like one after the other he was just giving the perfect answer and every time the audience was getting more and more impressed. So then one of them asked, “Have you seen God? And Prabhupada said, “If I tell you falsely that I have seen God, will you believe me?” He said, “No!” He said, “What is the use of asking this question?”

Anyway, so the meeting ended and I was in a state of euphoria, I was just mingling around the students because they were stunned by how brilliant Srila Prabhupada was. And then suddenly one of the devotees came running up to me and then sort of affectionately speaking the way Prabhupada would speak. She said, “So, where is the driver?” “Oh my God! I have to drive Srila Prabhupada. I totally forgot.” So I rushed to the entrance and brought up the car and got in the car. And on the way I found my way pretty easily because it was daylight but I wasn’t exactly sure how to get back. But I had a general idea like we have to go this way, that way. I was going. . .  hoping that we would find our way back. But as time went on, I got the sinking feeling that we were really lost. So I asked the other devotees, “Does anyone know the way back?” No one knew the way back. And then Srila Prabhupada, he was sitting next to me in the front seat said, “Is not the driver supposed to know the way?” So I didn’t know I was the driver, I just thought I was being a good guy and coming with the car. I was the driver and I had duties and responsibility. Oh my God! It is like I am off to a bad start here. So anyway gradually, we eventually found our way back. And then when we got to the temple I jumped out and ran around to open Srila Prabhupada’s door. And I said, “Swamiji, I am really sorry that I got us lost.” And he smiled at me with such compassion and love and compassion. And he said, “That is all right.” And that really touched me because here was someone who is obviously on an extraordinarily high spiritual level, I never met anyone, anything like him spiritually. And he was so brilliant, he could dispose of these challenges from these smart students like nothing, like child’s play. I knew if he wanted to he could tear me to pieces, he could completely dismantle me but he was so kind and compassionate, he just overlooked that fault. And I thought this is really nice and he is on such a high platform and has so much knowledge and intelligence but he is very kind and compassionate.

So again, there were many programs and each one was wonderful and memorable. But I will just skip to one which I believe was at Boston College. And it was in a lecture hall, a large classroom, a small lecture hall. And there were chairs and it was pretty full with students and staff. And then there was an open area at the front for the devotees to dance. And then Srila Prabhupada had a dais and I guess devotees had brought it, sort of like a vyāsāsana for him, and a lectern. And I would really love the questions and answers because so often someone would ask more or less the same question as someone else but Srila Prabhupada would give a completely different answer depending on who the audience was. And then after everything there was the kirtan. And so the devotees were dancing in a circle at the front. And I was dancing with them. And as I was chanting and dancing, I started to feel this love for all the people in the room—students, professors, administrators. Yes, I was just looking at them going around in the circle looking at them and just feeling love for them. And then that sense of love, that feeling of love, it expanded, went beyond the walls of the classroom, and to Boston, Massachusetts, United States, Pacific Ocean, space, the universe. I never experienced anything like that, maybe this was a peak experience. And I was so overcome, I never really approached Prabhupada personally, although I would ask questions at the end of the lectures. I was so overwhelmed, I just came very close to him and he was sitting here and I was lower because he was on a raised platform. I just said, “Prabhupada, that was wonderful, l this chanting is wonderful.” And he looked at me again, with that love and compassion, and he started to chuckle. It was hardly audible but his whole chest was heaving and under his breath, he was chuckling. And I knew he wasn’t laughing at me. I knew it was ecstasy; I knew he was feeling ecstasy. He just looked at me with that compassion and love and smiled, “Thank you very much.” So I thought everything about Krishna consciousness is perfect.

So then one day everyone at the temple was getting busy and I said, “What is happening?” And they said, “Well we are taking Srila Prabhupada to the airport, he is going to Columbus.” And I didn’t know that Prabhupada would ever leave, I didn’t know that. “You mean he is going?” They said, “Yes, he has other centers. He is going to Columbus and then he is going to Los Angeles. Do you want to come with us to the airport? I said, “Yes.” So we went to the airport and at the airport I saw all the devotees were crying. So I thought, Yes, everything about Krishna consciousness is perfect but maybe this is the one thing that is not perfect that the spiritual master has to leave. So I asked Arundhati who I would also sometimes ask questions to, and I asked, “What is happening? Everyone is crying.” And she said that Srila Prabhupada said that on the absolute platform meeting and separation are the same, both are occasions of transcendental ecstasy. So I thought that was a perfect answer, but I wasn’t sure how practical it was, I just wasn’t sure but it was a perfect answer. And then Prabhupada boarded the aircraft and no one left and they are just waiting. “What is happening?” And they said that Srila Prabhupada said that when the spiritual master leaves the disciples should stay and watch until the airplane disappears in the sky, just like the gopīs were looking at Krishna’s chariot when He left Vrindavan until they could no longer see the dust from the chariot. He said you should keep looking at the sky until you can no longer see the exhaust from the airplane. So everyone stayed and then we went back.

So I moved into the temple but still that doubt is there. And then one day we were doing hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana outside the Copley Square subway station. And I was playing kartals and suddenly I felt Srila Prabhupada’s presence and it was so tangible. It was like his presence descended on me and I started to cry, I just felt Srila Prabhupada’s presence. And then I thought of what Arundhati had said that on the absolute platform meeting and separation are the same, both are occasions of transcendental ecstasy. So from then on my main purpose was to bring people to Srila Prabhupada. That was my whole focus—to bring people to Srila Prabhupada so they could get the same benefit that I got. And even after Srila Prabhupada left physically, of course that was a very difficult time in a way, it was a difficult time, but that statement and that experience of Prabhupada’s presence even in separation convinced me that one can feel Srila Prabhupada’s presence at any time. And therefore, I can continue to introduce people to Srila Prabhupada and they can get the same benefit by following his instructions; by following the process he gave us.

And so here we are, that was 1969, forty-three years later—I still feel the same way. Yes, not to just introduce people to Srila Prabhupada, yes introduce them to Srila Prabhupada but help them to come closer. In my own spiritual life, different devotees helped me in my relationship with Srila Prabhupada, helped me come closer. They still do, so many of my godbrothers and godsisters and other devotees, they do help me with my service which means they help me in my relationship with Srila Prabhupada. And so that is what I liked to do when Srila Prabhupada was present and that is what I still like to do. “Like” isn’t the right word because once I came into Srila Prabhupada’s room at Juhu and I was all flushed from going to downtown Bombay and meeting people. And I said, “Srila Prabhupada, I like this preaching.” He said, “Not I ‘like’ this preaching, preaching is my life.” So that wasn’t the right word. Yes, I guess that is my life, to bring people to Srila Prabhupada.

Hare Krishna!

So are there any questions or comments? Yes?

Devotee: [Unintelligible 01:04:55–01:05:08]

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, yes. Well, do people call you Keish? Okay, is there an alternative?

Devotee: Kishore.

Giriraj Swami: Kishore? Kishore has asked a very nice question but it does place us a bit ahead of ourselves in the chronology. But still Kasesika Prabhu, on the way over he was talking about they were hearing how Srila Prabhupada kept piling more and more responsibility on me and yes, he was just wondering about that. So I thought that tomorrow evening I could speak about that. But yes, at the end of Srila Prabhupada’s time with us just before going to Vrindavan, he had come to Juhu in the hopes of seeing the temple open but the temple wasn’t quite ready. And in the end Srila Prabhupada decided to go to Vrindavan. But Srila Prabhupada had a very staunch householder devotee named P.L. Sethi. He was never initiated. And Mr. Sethi, before he met Srila Prabhupada was a follower of a guru in Vrindavan who had an organization called the Radha Madhava Prem Sudha Saṅkīrtana Mandala, a beautiful name—Radha Madhava, Prem—love, Sudha means nectar, then Saṅkīrtana Mandala—association. And they were all householders. And they would meet every week or month, I think every week, at one of the grihasthas homes, and they would have twelve hours continuous hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana, Hare Krishna maha-mantra. And that was from six in the morning till six in the evening. And then from six to eight they would sing Braj songs. So Mr. Sethi had the idea that they could instead of doing it at one of the householders homes they could do it at the temple. So we arranged it. Another thing about this question and answer is, I think it will run past when the deity is open. So anyway, we will keep going. It might be one of those cliff hangers where you have to tune into the next show to find out what happens.

So they came and Srila Prabhupada was very ill and he couldn’t really move very easily. So they were doing the kirtan and then at a certain stage they just really wanted some reciprocation from Srila Prabhupada. But he couldn’t come down and they couldn’t go up. The elevator wasn’t even working. He was upstairs in the tower but it wasn’t really finished, the construction. So at one stage they just came out of the little temple and were chanting under his window, looking up and chanting. And then Mr. Sethi, maybe Mr. Sethi and Tamal Krishna Goswami, they helped Srila Prabhupada to come to the balcony. He looked down on them and they just went wild. They were in so much ecstasy and they were just chanting and dancing. And then Prabhupada went back inside and then they went back into the temple. And then they all said that the climax of the whole program was at the end of the Braj songs one lady would sing this song,

jaya radhe jaya radhe radhe jaya radhe jaya sri-radhe
jaya krishna jaya krishna krishna jaya krishna jaya sri-krishna

So she sang that song and Mr. Sethi was upstairs with Srila Prabhupada. And later he told us that when she was singing that song, he had tears running down his cheeks. So the next morning Srila Prabhupada called me to his room and he said that kirtan was wonderful. He said, “You should invite them all to come and live on Hare Krishna land. And you tell them we will maintain them, we will give them a place to stay and we will give them prasāda and all they have to do is chant Hare Krishna like they did yesterday from morning to night. So I thought, They have families, they have homes, they have children, their children go to school. I didn’t see how it would work; I just didn’t see how it would work. So I said, “I can do that Srila Prabhupada” but then I explained what the difficulties I foresaw would be. He said, “Okay, then our devotees, from six in the morning till six in the evening, nothing but hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana.” So then I thought and I knew how much Prabhupada wanted the Juhu temple and we were busy from morning to night, so I said, “Well Srila Prabhupada we can do that but then what about the Juhu project? How will we open the temple? So then he said, “All right, then just Sunday, all day Sunday.” And by that time, I was so relieved. I immediately agreed, “Yes, we can do that, we can do that.” And then afterwards when I told Tamal Krishna Goswami he said, “Srila Prabhupada did transcendental bargaining with you.” If he would have started with twelve hours one day a week, “Oh that is too much.” He would have gone for four hours. But because he started at twelve hours every day plus inviting thirty householder families to live on Hare Krishna land! Because by the time he said one day, Sunday, twelve hours, it was such a relief—“we could do that.” So that became our regular program. And I was the temple president. There were problems, there were a lot of problems and it was mystical because every Sunday through that kirtan, it is like all the problems were solved. Either the devotees realized it wasn’t a problem after all or the circumstances changed and the problem went away or something happened. It was mystical.

So Monday, Tuesday if they came I tried to solve the problem. But Wednesday, I said, “Well just give me some time.” But all the time I was saying we will just wait for the twelve-hour kirtan and it will be solved. So most of the week was like that; Thursday, Friday, Saturday, “I just need to think about this, give me until Monday.” And it was like a charm. Every problem was solved miraculously through that kirtan. So that does remind me of something. There is so many stories, I can’t tell them all but yes, Prabhupada wrote one letter, something like, if you just do saṅkīrtana all of your problems will be solved materially and spiritually. And that seemed to be proven true by that experience. And miraculously we didn’t even go over time, really, we are just in time. So thank you very much. We will be having a program tomorrow evening at one of the devotees’ homes and then Sunday—Sunday Love Feast.