Reading from “Dancing White Elephants”—Delhi and Vrindavan

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna dear devotees. As far as possible, I request you to put on your cameras so I can see your moon-like faces and it is more personal. Thank you. So, we shall continue reading from my forthcoming book Dancing White Elephants—Traveling with Srila Prabhupada in India—August 1970 to March 1973. Last time, we read Chapter Two about Amritsar and today we will read Chapter Three, Delhi, October 13th to December 3rd.

[READING from Dancing White Elephants]

So, my dear devotees, this was Chapter Four, Delhi, October 13th to December 3rd. So, my dear devotees, thank you for listening so patiently and attentively. And now, if any of you have any questions or comments, you can raise your hand, your physical hand or your virtual hand, and we will discuss further. And again, as far as possible, I request you all to put on your cameras, so we can see your moon-like faces, and it will be a more personal experience. Yes, Krishna Jiveeni devi dasi.

Devotee: Hare Krishna guru Maharaja. Daṇḍavat praṇāma. Please accept my humble obedience. All glories to you and Srila Prabhupada. Thank you, Maharaja. Although there were connectivity issues, it was so enlivening to hear whole your reading. I humbly request that we also get an audiobook in addition to the physical book. I think that would be amazing because when you read it, there is so much emotion in it, and it is almost like we can listen and there is a movie in our mind when you are reading. So, I think in addition to the physical book, an audiobook would be amazing and preserved for eternity.

I had one question, Maharaja. It moved me to tears when you made the realization about serving under such austere conditions, even without adequate meals. You said that gave you a glimpse of what Srila Prabhupada must have felt when he went from Vrindavan to Delhi. Were there moments with Srila Prabhupada where you all had a chance to ask about that period? Because Srila Prabhupada was very private, many things came out later, all the suffering that he endured. Were there times that you were all able to ask what kept him going during those times, or how he sustained his faith when anyone else would have just given up?

Giriraj Swami: Well, Srila Prabhupada had implicit faith in the order of his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Thakura told him, “If you ever get money, print books.” So, he took the publication and distribution of books to be of utmost importance, so he would make trips from Vrindavan to Delhi to go to the printer. He would do everything, he would buy the paper, he would transport the paper to the printers. But he was surrendered to the service of his guru Maharaja, and he did whatever it took to fulfill his spiritual master’s desires, even though it wasn’t easy.

Devotee: Thank you, Maharaja. If others are waiting for a question, I will wait my turn. I have one more question, so whenever it is my turn, I can ask them.

Giriraj Swami: Okay, we will go to the others, and then we will come back to you. Hare Krishna. So, Chandraka Priya.

Devotee: Hare Krishna guru Maharaja. Please accept my humble obedience. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and all glories to your divine grace. Thank you very much for the wonderful reading. You all were so fortunate to hear some of it, and it looked like you all cooperated so well, despite all the austerities that were there. You worked nicely together in the service of Srila Prabhupada. I was just wondering; how can we also do that? Because sometimes we see that when we try to work in a team, some devotees can be disrespectful, and you don’t know how to deal with that.

Giriraj Swami: We always kept the goal in mind, which was to serve Srila Prabhupada and please him. I was fortunate; I was always happy with all the other devotees with whom I worked, and we just didn’t consider individual differences to be of any great significance. What was really important was, Srila Prabhupada’s service and pleasure, and I was always very happy with the devotees with whom I worked in those days. In Juhu, there were some difficult personalities amongst the devotees, but even then, we tolerated for the sake of Srila Prabhupada’s service. Avadhūta Nitai dasa.

Devotee: Hare Krishna. Guru Maharaja, my question is that when we go to saṅkīrtana, distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books, what should be our emphasis to distribute Prabhupada’s books like, Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, or distribute the books like Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta and extension of Līlāmṛta book, like your books? Should we emphasize more on distributing the Līlāmṛta—life of Srila Prabhupada’s or giving Bhagavad-gītā?

Giriraj Swami: They are all good. I remember when the Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta first came out in Bombay, so many people came to my office and told me that, having read Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta and understanding more about Srila Prabhupada, they felt more inspired and encouraged to read Srila Prabhupada’s books. His Holiness Mukunda Gosvami commented that although the Six Gosvamis wrote so many books, but Srila Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami’s book about the Six Gosvamis, and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta is more important. So, he was making the point that books about Srila Prabhupada can be important as well. Just like books by Srila Prabhupada. I would say, it depends on who the person is. You might get an intuition of what kind of book would be most helpful for that particular person. It might be reading about Prabhupada’s book or reading a book about Prabhupada. But whatever it is, book distribution is very pleasing to Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada wrote me, “Go on increasing books and go on increasing my pleasure.” And when he wrote it, I took it, “Go on increasing books in distributing books, and go on increasing my pleasure.” But when I think about it now, sometimes they take it, “Go on increasing books, writing books, and go on increasing my pleasure.”

All right, anything else? You seem to be frozen and muted. Okay, we will move on to Nitai Gaurasundara dasa, our host.

Devotee: Thank you Maharaja for your continued mercy. So, we are eagerly waiting for your book and I love the idea of having this audiobook. It will be wonderful. I hope that happens soon as soon as the book is released.

Giriraj Swami: Yes that is a good idea.

Host: So, this will be your last program for some time till you come back from India.

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Host: When you will be coming back from India Maharaja?

Giriraj Swami: Next March. As soon as I come back, I will look forward to having my fourth Monday of the week with you again.

Host: Thank you very much but we will keep in touch with your videos lectures. We will keep on hearing those. So shall we go back to Krishna Jeevani?

Devotee: Thank you Maharaja, thank you, thank you for the opportunity. I was wondering about you mentioned about Krishna magic. How it must have felt being misunderstood, people actively trying to sabotage the devotees to go from that to having a picture taken with a very prominent person. And you use the word Krishna magic and I am sure it felt like perhaps all the hard work was pain fruit and that you are turning the corner. But then we see in your life that while the devotees were able to make inroads there, you still had to deal with Mr. N back in Mumbai, in Bombay. Which of the moods were more predominant? Was it, we followed Srila Prabhupada’s instructions and look at it we were able to make inroads and that is the faith that kept going or was it sometimes how come so many good things are happening but this one person is like torturing us? So how did you balance that? It seems like a roller coaster of emotions in two different places.

Giriraj Swami: Well, there is famous for killing how many months is floors are expanded by his disposing the demons. So Mr. Nair was a big demon, by Srila Prabhupada dealing with him successfully, actually Srila Prabhupada’s glories increased. Yes, when we got the news that Mr. Nair died, we told Srila Prabhupada, who is in New Zealand and when he got the news, he pulled his hands and said, “Thank you Krishna, I was praying for this. Mr. Nair caused too much difficulty to the devotees and to the deities.” So then he wrote us a letter to some of his followers in Bombay that, “I have received news that Mr. Nair is dead.” And when we heard that Mr. Nair was dead, we were jubilant. But then again, I was thinking ‘Is that proper? We are supposed to saintly persons, are we supposed to be happy when someone dies?’ But in his response, Srila Prabhupada quoted Prahlada Maharaja that, “Even a saintly person takes pleasure when a snake or a scorpion is killed.” And he said, “Mr. Nair was a big snake.” So our feeling happy upon his death was bona fide, approved by Prahlada Maharaja and Srila Prabhupada.

All right. So if there are no more questions or comments, there is a question from the live audience here. So he was asking if Mrs. Nair is still alive? No, she passed away. But she in a way surrendered to Srila Prabhupada and she regretted her husband’s misbehaving. All right.

Host: Maharaja, can we show that video?

Giriraj Swami: Yes. I would love to see that video and I would love for our other participants to see it.

Host: So our administrator of this web, he is starting. Thank you.

[A video clip is played]

Host: Maharaja, we hope you like the video?

Giriraj Swami: I loved it. It is very inspiring.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja. I was watching this video and the tears were dancing through my eyes. Thank you, Maharaja. Thank you so much.

Giriraj Swami: So then let us conclude with Vaishnava praṇāma.

Let us offer our respectful obeisances unto all the Vaishnava devotees of the Lord. They are just like desire trees who can fulfill the desires of everyone, and they are full of compassion for the fallen conditioned souls.

vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca 

patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ