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Transcriptions of the Naranarayana dasa Naranarayana: It was a very powerful period of this Krishna Consciousness Movement, and you've heard every day astonishing stories of how Srila Prabhupada was able to make an impossible situation into a glorious result. You have heard all the stories of persons that came. You've heard how we doubted, how we squabbled, how we worked, how we suffered, all of the things which we did you've heard about it. But we have to ask ourselves, what is this about? Why are we here? Srila Prabhupada was able to live amongst us without being affected by the three modes of nature. Thakura Bhaktivinoda describes in his Jaiva Dharma that when you see a kanistha-adhikari, you see that he is chanting the mahamantra, Hare Krishna mantra, he is chanting it intermittently. Sometimes he is chanting, and sometimes he is not chanting. Then the madhyam-adhikari, Thakura Bhaktivinoda goes on to describe that the madhyam-adhikari or medium adhikari, he is incessantly chanting. This is called nirantara, or he is never not chanting, he is always chanting. That is why he is described like a coconut inside of a coconut shell. But the uttama-adhikari like Srila Prabhupada, he is described most astonishingly. Because there's many, many, many thousands of descriptions of kanistha, madhyam and uttama-adhikari; but I like this one recently learned by Thakura Bhaktivinoda's view, and that is the uttama-adhikari, by seeing his face, his countenance, by his body, by his motion, by his action, his gesture, as the Gita says, "How does he stand? How does he sit?" By seeing this pure devotee, you can hear the mahamantra by seeing him. So all of us who have seen the murti of Prabhupada, the picture of Prabhupada, the video of Prabhupada, heard the lecture of Prabhupada on CDs, and who have actually met Srila Prabhupada, had darshan of Srila Prabhupada or met anyone who has met Srila Prabhupada, we can understand that he was, when you saw him, you saw the mahamantra, you saw the Hare Krishna mantra, there is no difference. So it is that power of uttama-adhikari that brings us all here today. That is why we are here. We are here because of Srila Prabhupada. My daughter, my sons, they are the heirs to that association, but they are getting their association from Prabhupada through his vani and they are reading his books and hearing his lectures and getting that powerful connection with Srila Prabhupada. I want to tell some anecdotes from this time, if I may. But before that, would you kindly agree to join in a little bit of the style of Prabhupada kirtan. [kirtan] [break] Kuvaleshaya: …in the fulfillment to one of Srila Prabhupada's instructions to my father, and that was to take your guitar and chant all around the world. Naranarayana: Nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale, srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine. Namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine, nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine. Hare Krishna. Brahmananda and I came out here to the land. We were designated with the task of putting up of the first pandal. The first pandal was about this size here, and it was going crossways to where the temple is now coming off of the Gandhi Gram Road. We came out to the land and put up the pandal, and you heard yesterday, I believe, or the day before how the Deities were brought by taxi in the laps of the pujaris. That's how urgent and determined Srila Prabhupada was to take this land as soon as possible and transform it into, as he would describe it, an embassy from Vaikuntha. When I first came to Akash Ganga, I saw the Deity Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari standing there in the Akash Ganga building; and then we saw the same Deity standing in this big pandal we had rented in Bombay. We put up a big sound system, we bought the sound system instead of renting it, and we had speakers everywhere. It was very effective, and Prabhupada spoke to so many people. People just flocked to Juhu. In those days…now Juhu is crowded but you'd never expect how few people were there in Juhu at that time, and yet the whole place was continuously filled with people who came by taxi, by private car, by train, by every sort of means and who lived nearby and were actually here already. Then that pandal program was over and we returned the pandal to the man who rented it to us, the company that rented it to us. Then Dinadayadri, my first wife, Dinadayadri, the mother of my son Narottam… I went to Bhulesvar Market and bought big bolts of cloth of red and one of yellow, and I came back from Bhulesvar on the train at rush hour. In those days we didn't have a lot of money for trains even, you can imagine. Now everyone has taxi, private car, everything is so opulent, it is just like being in a heavenly planet. But in those days, we didn't even have the money for the train. So what we would do is we would get onto the train and we'd go to the next stop, we'd get off. We'd walk a few cars, get on the train and get back on. In this way, the conductor never quite caught up with us. But I was always coming with some big bag or gamelas or with powras or something for the project here, and this time with the big bolts of cloth. Dinadayadri had a very, very elegant sewing machine from Detroit, Michigan, USA, that she brought with her, and this sewing machine was surrounded by rickshaws and cows. It looked like a spaceship from outer space, it was so high tech, and she used this high tech sewing machine under a palm tree and sewed all this cloth into big strips. I had no money even for helpers, for any labor. So I took myself a crowbar, a piece of iron, and I was digging holes. I watched the workers before, and I dug the holes by hand with my own hands this deep, blisters coming. I bought bamboo and I put the bamboo and packed in the dirt, and then I bought rasi and it really...you have to have tough hands for rasi. I took the rasi and I put together the whole structure myself, and then I took the cloth that she sewed and we put it there. And we had a little tiny stage. The Deity altar was about the same size around as that silver platform for the speakers, just a little platform off the ground, bamboo poles, a little bit of cloth, pandal roof, and there They were standing, the same Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari. Then after that we had a little problem that somebody…the pujari was always supposed to stay awake all night, but one time the pujari fell asleep and in the morning the crowns were missing. Somebody had slipped under the canvas and taken away the crowns. So at that point, we brought the Deities into our famous hut that we lived in. What nobody said about the hut is there was a narrow distance between the canvas top and the chittai roof. The rats, you know how they are, they're rodents so they have to nibble things to keep their teeth short. So the rats were compulsive nibblers, and they don't think ahead when they nibble. They just nibble whatever they want. If they nibble here, they nibble there. So they were always nibbling at chittai because it's bamboo and it has a lot of silica and it's really good for gnawing if you're a rodent. So they would gnaw holes in the roof of the chittai in that hut. So then at night after the heat went down…they were, I guess, like everyone else sleeping all day…after the heat went down, the rats became very active, they became frisky, and they'd go galloping back and forth the entire length of the building on the chittai. But because they had gnawed holes through the chittai and because, I guess, they don't see well in the dark and because they were totally excited to be up and running at night galloping around nocturnally, the rats would go galloping along and all of a sudden with a horrible shriek one of them would go through the hole and land on somebody's face. So this was the hazard of sleeping in that building. I was thinking of putting up a sign saying, "Beware of falling rats." But that's not what I came here to talk about. We came to talk about Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari, and They were situated in the end of the room, fortunately the end of the room that was free from rats, and that's where They were worshiped. After that, Surabhi prabhu put up a structure…Jagat Pursua was the pujari…made of asbestos roofing and steel pieces and whatnot, and that's the one that the police famously tried to tear down and Maithili famously…I heard that she held onto one of the poles and the police were pulling on her legs. She was a very healthy woman. And so she was there sideways with police pulling her and she was holding onto the pole like this with her three braids flying, and they were pulling and pulling and they couldn't get her to let go. But anyhow, this is the pastimes of Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari. Then, can you imagine, I have not been here in all of these years. The last I saw the Deities were out there in the field before the police were going to tear down that shelter. The same Deities, can you imagine how it was, it was like Akrura coming to Vrindavan. Can you imagine what it was like to come into this temple a few days ago and see the same Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari on a throne with apples and grapes and flowers magnificently situated in a temple, in a palace of marble. The same Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari that rode sideways in the taxi, that were living in Akash Ganga, that had Their crowns stolen. It was almost like the Pandavas in the forest or like Rama in exile, what these Deities endured in order to come here; and like Rama when He came back to Ayodhya, glorified once again in the palace that is His natural abode. So I want to offer my respectful obeisances to Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari and all of the great saintly personalities, yourselves, who are worshiping these Deities and demonstrating to the world how great is God, how great is Krishna. What Prabhupada had said at that time is that…I have heard that he said, "I did not think we could get this land." You've heard a lot of stories this way and that way about not getting this land. He said, "I did not think that we could get this land." But he said, "I thought if I bring Krishna here…" This is in a lecture on a tape. He said, "I asked Krishna, please sit tight. Please sit tight. I thought if Krishna agrees to stay here, then somehow this temple will be built." There have been stories told about how Krishna was promised a temple and that's why He stayed, and that is a very beautiful thing why Prabhupada would offer such a wonderful thing to this Deity. But we have to remember that the Deity already has Krsnaloka and He has Vaikuntha, He has got millions and countless millions of Vaikuntha planets. Was He tempted by a beautiful temple, or was He tempted by the pure unalloyed love of God of His pure devotee who said, "Please sit tight." Prabhupada has often said that the Mayavadi, he wants to become like Krishna, he wants to become one with God, but the Vaisnava has no such aspirations. He said he wants to become greater than God. How you can become greater than God? Like Mother Yasoda created the possibility for herself and her life of being able to tie Krishna to a grinding mortar. And why God will allow? Because of love. How else will Krishna allow Himself to be tied up to a grinding mortar than that it is out of love for a person who has created for herself the role, body, form and pastimes of mother. Her desire, her use of free will has created for herself the swarupa of mother, and He by reciprocation takes on the swarupa of child. Prabhupada described that Yamunacarya would say, "There are those who worship Visnu and those who worship Krishna and those who worship demigods and those who worship Siva. I for my part," he said, "I worship Nanda Maharaja." Why? "Because he is so great that he can make the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Universal Form revealed to Arjuna and the Lord Nrsinghadeva who destroyed Hiranyakasipu, that same Krishna, he can make Him take the form of a baby and crawl in the dust of his courtyard." So that is the greatness of a pure devotee. So we can see when Prabhupada asked, "Please sit tight. My dear Lord Krishna, please sit tight," He is still sitting tight right near where we are. So now to finish with, I would like to tell a couple of very intimate pastimes, in a sense intimate. They occurred right in that building right there. This building upstairs was named Acharya and that was a family of airline pilots, or he was an airline pilot, down below also Acharya, and Mr. Acharya's house is where Srila Prabhupada first stayed. So on the first day that Srila Prabhupada came here…and I want to offer my deep thanks to all of the persons who had lived here, whether they are still here or not, who gave us shelter at that time. I stayed on the end building and because I wanted to get up for mangal arati, I had a long string tied to my toe and it went out through the window; and my wife, Dinadayadri, would step into the garden and yank…we kept it buried under the leaves so that no one would just take the string. And so she'd come and pull on the string and my foot would go like that, I'd wake up, then I'd get up for mangal arati. So when Srila Prabhupada first came to this spot…he came and, as you know by seeing him personally who have or by seeing him in videos, he always had this wedge or triangle of devotees standing behind him because everyone wanted to hear in case he said something and we wanted to see what he was doing. So Srila Prabhupada came swooping up. Let's say this is Prabhupada's cane. Prabhupada came swooping up to the Acharyas' house, and at that time it didn't have the stone work around it, it was just open like it was a porch and all the Acharyas were standing on either side. It looked very grand, they were standing there like that as though they were Jaya and Vijaya at Vaikuntha. And Prabhupada came swooping up and stood on the porch, and he stood like this. He stood and he turned elegantly and said, "Finally I am taking shelter of the Acharyas." So there were so many activities there, and I used to somehow or other spend time with Srila Prabhupada in his room and he would be chanting japa and I'd be chanting japa in the Acharyas' house. I would be chanting and he would be chanting, and one day I had one of these impulses which I immediately would regret to ask Prabhupada a question. The purpose of this question, I should say, and I'd asked him a similar question in London before, here is an uttama-adhikari and here I am, not worthy to touch the toe of the kanistha-adhikari, and I am wondering because I'm from a low birth, I am asking myself what is this process? What is the result of this process of Krishna consciousness? What happens when you chant Hare Krishna? Is it like the Christian idea that you die and no matter what you do, as long as you are baptized you go to heaven and sit there on a cloud playing a sitar or a vina or something of that sort? Or is there more to this process than that? I suspected the latter, that there was more to this process than that, not just die and go to heaven but actually this is a process of becoming nikunja-yuno rati-keli-siddhyai, that we become the assistant to Srila Prabhupada, who is assisting the gopis, that this means that we need to develop so many devotional qualities and expertness, superexcellent expertise in assisting the spiritual master in such a way that Krishna is pleased by him and he is pleased by us. So I asked him this question, this sort of heavy question. I said, "Srila Prabhupada, it seems so difficult. I find it so difficult to become a pure devotee like you." Because I wanted to always keep that idea - here I am, there he is. I said, "It's so difficult to become a pure devotee like you," and Prabhupada looked at me. He was chanting, he had his hand in his bead bag, I had my hand in my bead bag, he was sitting about that far and I'm sitting over here. And Prabhupada looks at me with complete astonishment. He has his hand in his bead bag, he looks at me and he said…he puts his hand almost involuntarily in the air like this, he said, "Difficult?" he said looking at me. "Difficult?" he said. "It's easy." Yeah, that's the way I reacted too. "Difficult? It's easy" to be a pure devotee like him. And then all this teaching that he had given us began to flood back on me and I said, "Oh, yes, it is difficult for the crooked but easy for the sincere." I said, "Yes." And later on I heard him say on a tape, "All we have to do is agree with Krishna." I said, oh, I agree with Krishna. I've been here for 30 years for goodness sake. Of course, I agree with Krishna. Then I said, wait a minute. If I agreed with Krishna, why am I not an uttama-adhikari? That proves I have still room for learning to agree with Krishna. So that is what he said, and so that was one of my powerful moments of life. Then another time I was sitting chanting japa with Srila Prabhupada, he was chanting japa, I was nearby. And all of a sudden out of the blue, without any question being asked, Srila Prabhupada shot his hand into the air again with the bead bag and he cried out…right in that room right there. I took my children over there to stand on the very spot where this conversation took place. His hand shot out and he said, "Krishna consciousness is the art of living." Now, no matter how you look at that, it is an amazing statement. Krishna consciousness is the art of living. We know one example of when Krishna danced on the head of Kaliya. This dancing was described as the dancing of a dancing master, but we understand also that Kaliya was using his best intelligence not to be stepped on. So how it was possible for Krishna to dance on the head of Kaliya while Kaliya is trying very hard to avoid being stepped on and yet have it turn out like the highest form of bharat-natyam is very hard to comprehend. But that is perhaps quintessentially the art of living. So Srila Prabhupada said, "Krishna consciousness is the art of living." So now the hut, back to the hut. It was built really right about here, we're sort of sitting in it right now. In that hut it was very hot because the roof was very low, and during the day it was baking. There was a young man named Chayavana, who later on became a sannyasi and went to Africa; and this Chayavana dasa, he was in charge and Mr. Sethi was going to build it. I saw the design, and I saw that it was a very low roof. So I took Chayavana out on a walk and I showed him some houses nearby and I said, "Look at these houses, they have very high peak roof," and they also had chittai walls but millionaire houses, very rich people's house but it was chittai and a very high roof with ventilators so the air could go out, and I pointed out that inside it was very cool. And I pointed out, "Why not design the roof a little more high, and that way the heat will rise and it'll be cool inside." Then Chayavana turned on me and he was very angry. He said, "You nonsense! Prabhupada has put me in charge, not you." You can't argue with that one, right? He said, "He put me in charge, not you. I do not appreciate your comment. You showed me this but I have a design, we're going to use that, Prabhupada approved it." So I said, "OK." But here I am, newcomer to this wonderful land of India and I am in a state of culture shock, and my sanity now is in question because I see Prabhupada did approve it. And I thought, "How it's possible? I don't understand why we're not putting a high roof on this house." Later on, by the way, two days ago I came to the realization, I think I figured it out. Srila Prabhupada knew how hot it was here in Bombay, and he wanted us to be very active. So by putting the low roof, during the day it would be impossible to sleep inside. Before that I could never understand. I said, "Well, Prabhupada is the external representative of Supersoul. He is as good as saksad-dharitvena samasta-sastraih. You cannot distinguish him from Krishna except then when you closely see, he is the eternal servant of Krishna, the most dearmost servant. Why would he design a roof like that?" And I did not question, but I questioned myself. So questioning myself to the point almost of insanity at that point, I was almost cracked up on this, I came to Srila Prabhupada shaking with tears coming from my eyes. And he was…in that building where the kitchen is now, it used to be a sunken living room area and Prabhupada was sitting down there and he had his little desk. I came in and I knew I was going to regret doing this, but I did it anyhow. I always went ahead no matter now much I knew I was going to regret it. I came in and I saw Srila Prabhupada and I said, "Srila Prabhupada, could I ask you a question?" Srila Prabhupada was obviously busy doing something else, so I felt really badly. He said, "Yes." And so I said, "I want to apologize, Srila Prabhupada, for being such a bad disciple." Tears are streaming, streaming, drenching the cheeks. "I want to apologize, I am such a bad disciple because I was thinking, I offered my advice, my expertise, my background in building, engineering and whatnot, I'm offering this and it isn't wanted." And I said, "If it's not wanted, then what am I here for? I thought I came to bring my material talents to serve Krishna with, and my material talents are just being…" Sorry, get out of here, it is great offense, says Chayavana. So I'm sitting there feeling like a great offender. I believed Chayavana, that he was undoubtedly right. I said, "I have committed a great offense and I don't even know what it is, I don't know what I've done wrong, but I apologize," to Prabhupada. I'm a little hearing impaired and Prabhupada spoke and he said something I couldn't understand, he said, "Raa raa," I couldn't understand what he said. I looked at him and I realized, oh, no, what a situation I'm in. I'm sitting here in front of Prabhupada, I asked him a question, he answered and I don't know what he said. Now what do I do? So I said, "Srila Prabhupada, I want to apologize for being a useless and worthless disciple. My idea is to serve you, but I have failed." And Prabhupada said, "They criticized (inaudible)." I heard the word "criticize." No! Prabhupada, I'm not criticizing anyone, I'm apologizing! I was so desperate at that point. I said, how did I do this to myself? How did I do this to Prabhupada? I'm just making a complete disaster. I said, "I am not criticizing. I am apologizing." And then Prabhupada sat up and looked at me and his eyes were gigantic laser beams, like headlights on a train. He looked at me and he said, "They criticized Krishna and Lord Caitanya, what to speak of you and me?" When he said that, my sniveling, bent over, weepy existence, which was really I could see then founded in self-pity and feeling that I wanted to do something and couldn't do it for Prabhupada and wondered why, then I saw Prabhupada sitting there almost as though he were a martyr. And I thought, what is it like to be Srila Prabhupada? First of all he gets to go to New York and be surrounded by atheists, and then he gets to be surrounded by his disciples who are so rambunctious, full of ideas, rushing here, rushing there, while he sits, while he chants, while he survives even his own disciples. He loves his disciples, but is this fun? So he said, "They criticized Krishna and Lord Caitanya, what to speak of you and me?" And then I began to understand what it was to have a mission. For me, I wanted a job, I wanted to build something. Prabhupada had a mission, and he sacrificed everything for that mission. He was in Radha-Damodara Temple sitting next to the Rupa Goswami's samadhi and bhajan kutir. He was old man with heart attack. He goes to Sumati Morarji who is right over there, her house, and says, "Please, Mataji, give me a ticket to America." She said, "You're in Vrindavan, you don't want to do that." Everybody in Vrindavan says, "We try to get to Vrindavan, not leave Vrindavan." Gargamuni said, "You go to Vrindavan when you have nowhere else to go." And then he explained. If you have somewhere else to go, then you'll go there. You go to Vrindavan when you have nowhere else to go. So Prabhupada was in Vrindavan and he really had nowhere else to go, but his spiritual master gave him this instruction and he went. And within four years of going there, while people are weeping and pitying and saying, "Oh, he's gone nuts. Why is he doing this?" And Sumati Morarji says, "Oh, Swami, just go back to Vrindavan." And he insisted and she said, "I don't want to be responsible for the outcome of this, but I'll give you the ticket." So he goes. Four years later he comes back like a gigantic raja on a chariot surrounded by us American white elephants with mrdangas and kartals, and we come and we sleep on the floor and we live just whatever comes our way. Then that is how his triumph was present. So the last thing I would like to say is back in London before I came to India, I also had one of those tempting moments where I knocked on Srila Prabhupada's door in the London temple in Bury Place. This one is a joke on me, so you can all laugh when you want to. What happened is that I knocked on Srila Prabhupada's door and Srila Prabhupada said, "Yes?" I opened the door and I came in, and I sat in the corner crunched up because it dawned on me I'd done the wrong thing again. There Srila Prabhupada was having his own private time and he was chanting japa, and he was marching back and marching forth. The room was very small but when Srila Prabhupada walked in it, it seemed huge. So he'd walk this way, then he'd walk that way, this way and then that way. So he looked at me, almost annoyed, and he looks at me like "What do you want?" He didn't say anything. I said, "Srila Prabhupada, is it possible that someday that I, Naranarayana dasa, this person here, that someday this me could actually become a pure devotee like you?" Now, remember I started out by talking about the kanistha, the madhyam and the uttama-adhikari. Each and every one of you is going to become an uttama-adhikari. It's not a question of whether you are going to become an uttama-adhikari, it's a question of when. As you are continuing to take up the chanting of the Holy Name of Krishna and listen carefully to Prabhupada, how he chanted, how he iterated his language in his mantra, you are going to become from kanistha to madhyam to uttama-adhikari, each and every person here. Will it take one lifetime, 10 lifetimes, 20 lifetimes, a thousand lifetimes? That's up to you and it's up to Krishna, but there is no question. Because when Prabhupada talked with Allen Ginsberg in Columbus, Ohio, Allen was asking about the Golden Age of Kali, and at the end Prabhupada said, "In the end there will be no fruit-bearing trees. The fruit will be skin and seed and no fruit. There will be no vegetation, only carnivorous animals. And the people who exist there will be cannibals and will actually only raise children to eat them." It's a gruesome idea of Kali-yuga. "And then Kalki will come and kill them all." And Allen is sort of terrified because he's thinking about the Age of Aquarius and things getting better and better, and he's sitting there sort of shocked and he said, "B-b-b-but Swamiji, where will your disciples be?" And Prabhupada sat back grandly and looked at Allen down his nose like this and said, "My disciples will have all gone back to Godhead." So what I'm saying, you are all uttama-adhikaris right now, separated only by time, by lifetime. So I'm in the room there talking to Prabhupada. I said, "How could I become a pure devotee. Is it possible I could become a pure devotee just like you?" Prabhupada went and he chanted, "Hare Krishna!" Every time he came to the wall, he would (chants japa), "Hare Krishna!" He comes to the wall, turn around, (chants japa) "Hare Krishna!" It's a very small room, but he made it seem huge. So on one turn he came, he looked at me and he said…I'm in the corner crawled up like that…he said, "Why not? You are in the process." Do you hear what he just said? "Why not? You are in the process." The same goes for you, all of us. "Why not? You are in the process." Then he goes back (chants japa). I'm sitting there like this, "Why not? I'm in the process." It's one of those things where I still regretted coming in, but I certainly didn't regret hearing him say that. So he marches back and forth a few more times, then he looks at me and… He said, "Why not? You are in the process," he looked at me like this. Then he was looking at me this way when he came this way, "But it may take some time." So the question of taking time, actually we have plenty of time, we're eternal. So we need not worry about the outcome. The outcome is guaranteed. If we make a huge mistake in this lifetime, do you know what it is? It's a huge mistake in this lifetime. And next lifetime we continue from where we started making that mistake, doing penance for the mistake. Even if I go to hell, I know exactly what to do. As they put on the torture and whips and red hot iron and hooks and all of that, what will I do, having met Prabhupada? Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna! Krishna Krishna! Hare Hare! Hare Rama! Hare Rama! Rama Rama! Hare Hare! Thank you very much. Sridhar Swami: You've got some more anecdotes, right? Naranarayana: More anecdotes? There was a time when we took…the Deity must be asking through Maharaja because I intended to say it. You were there, Yadubara, also and all of us, Mahamsa, Surabhi, Kausalya. There was a time when we took Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari to a program. It was like a pandal program, and They were on a temporary stand, a temporary platform, wood. It was a little shaky but that didn't matter because no one was shaking it, and They stood there. During that time, there was a whole program, full program, and someone put on a play. I don't remember who was in the play. Were you in the play? About Krishna has a headache. Do you remember that? Yes, you remember the play. There was a play when Krishna has a headache. Acyutananda. And in that play there were so many actors, actresses, and the plot began to develop about how Krishna had a headache and only the dust from the pure devotee's feet could solve that, to cure it. And they went to here and there, to each entity, and nobody would give the dust from their feet to cure Krishna's headache. So finally, of course, as you know the story goes, when they came to the gopis… I'm sitting right behind Srila Prabhupada, and he's sitting in the front row, and I'm watching Srila Prabhupada watching the play. He looked so involved. He was watching each part as though he'd never heard the…he told us the story, but it was as though he had never heard the story before. And he's sitting there watching and when people say, "No, I will not give the…" he almost winces or reacts. And then when it comes to the gopis and they ask, "Will you give the dust from your feet to cure Krishna's headache?" The gopis said, "Oh, yes," and Prabhupada, you could see his shoulder's jump and he pulls forward. And then when they bring the dust to Krishna, Prabhupada stands up, it was almost like…how can I say this without it being wrong. It's just like the naturalness of the way a child watches something like a play or television or something of that sort. So at that moment, Srila Prabhupada, he is so involved just like the way a child watches a show, his mouth is open, his eyes are open. And when that happens and the gopis agree, tears start coming down his eyes. And I'm amazed. It's as though he is actually…we are seeing our godbrothers and godsisters making a play, Prabhupada is seeing Radha-Krishna and the gopis and Narada Muni all involved there. When the play was over, it ended with a…we had a big kirtan and everybody is enchanted in the whole pandal program. It's a bigger crowd then this, and everybody is chanting and chanting. And Prabhupada, as though he is not even able to notice what he is doing, he moves, he rushes up towards the stage. Do you remember that, Yadubara? He's sitting like that and he starts moving towards the stage. He comes up to the stage and begins to chant. And as he chants, we are looking around there. Now, remember we've all been living in that hut, and there's a certain degree of tension living in unbearable heat all crowded together; and we do not have the dharma or the nice manners or etiquette the way you all in India do to be able to live nicely with one another and be very courteous and polite. So when something irritates people from our side of the world, they usually move to another part of the country. But you can't do that in the hut. So we'd move to a different corner of the hut. But the tensions were definitely there. So everyone had their own agenda, and everybody was a little edgy. We all liked each other, we were all committed to the mission, but it was tense, it was hard, we were suffering. And when Americans suffer, they usually make other people suffer too. Haven't you noticed? Ask anyone in the Middle East. So what happened is that Prabhupada rushed up and began dancing and chanting. Now, Srila Prabhupada had several ways of dancing. In the early days, people used to call the step…we used to call Prabhupada "Swamiji" before we called him Prabhupada starting in 1969, '68 or '69. Anyhow, he would chant like this, and this is the way you see in the picture of the Panca Tattva of Lord Caitanya and His comrades, the Panca Tattva, they are dancing and chanting like that. And you can imagine with their long arms, it creates so many configurations of ecstatic combination and permutations of subtle expression of bhakti. Then when he would experience more ecstasy, he'd begin to dance and chant like this. If you saw the movie "The Hare Krishna People," that's how he ends. He's standing there like that, and that is when he is showing extraordinary ecstasy. There was even another step beyond that level of ecstasy that Srila Prabhupada would display. When the Deities in New Dwaraka, in Los Angeles, were installed, Tamal Krsna recorded…he was in hysterics. Tamal Krsna I say, he was Tamal Krsna, later Maharaja, that he was calling Brahmananda, and I took the microphone and put the telephone on the microphone so we could all hear. And he was crying out, "Prabhupada is doing the most amazing things! Srila Prabhupada is dancing, but you've never seen him dance! He's dancing four feet in the air, and he's playing mrdanga, and then he falls down on his side, and then he gets up again without rising! He just falls and leaps to his feet again, and he is dancing in such ecstasy installing this Deity!" And he goes on and on and on, and we're listening there in New York. Brahmananda was there, Gargamuni was there, Bali Mardan was there, Jayadvaita was there, and we're hearing this phenomenal account of the greatest ecstasy describable and recorded in the Caitanya-caritamrta by the great saints and souls who are experiencing the maha-bhava. So anyhow, these are the levels. So Prabhupada was dancing up and down like this, but the floor was not so strong and the Deities are on this slightly wavy platform. So the Deities now are dancing. Which Deities are They? Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari. One more time. Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari ki jaya! They are dancing. So I ran behind the Deity and someone else ran behind the other Deity, and I'm holding the Deity and the Deity doesn't want to stop dancing. And Prabhupada is dancing like this, and as he's dancing tears are streaming from his eyes. Yadubara is dancing, tears are streaming from his eyes. Everybody is dancing, all of these tense American boys and girls and Europeans and Indians, everyone together, we were dancing like that. And across, we see across, we cannot imagine at that moment…for me it was like that…we could not imagine how we could have the slightest ill feeling towards one another. All we could see was tears of love of God in the eyes of each person, and we saw Prabhupada in the middle dancing, that wonderful majestic quality that he had. When Prabhupada danced, it was like the law of gravity itself dancing. And he had so much gravitas, so much specific gravity, that around him everyone would dance as well and they would feel para attachment, they'd feel the ecstasy. The Nectar of Devotion describes that you become caught in the moonlike rays of the heart of the pure devotee and you can feel that ecstasy. So there we were dancing and Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari, They were also dancing. So in the end, I would say that was one of the most astonishing pastimes. I thought to tell that story and I actually didn't do it, I forgot to do it, and I was asked to do. So I want to thank you and I want to thank Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari for having induced Sridhar Maharaja to request that pastime because I wanted to tell stories that outlined the progress of Sri Sri Radha-Rasabehari's progress towards the altar where They now reside in palatial grandeur, and that was definitely part of it. They danced when Prabhupada danced. That is the power of the pure devotee. He can even make Krishna dance. Hare Krishna. Shakuntala: I just wanted to take the opportunity to steal the microphone for a second. I just wanted to offer my most heartfelt obeisances to all of you founder devotees who put so much hard work and energy into creating what we see around us and have set such an incredible example. So please accept my obeisances, thank you all so much. And I consider you all my family. I'm here sitting next to my family, but I consider each devotee here my family. Thank you so much. Sridhar Swami: Actually Naranarayana prabhu and his family, they are expert at restoration of devotees' feelings, bhavana, and also restoring wonderful artworks. And I think they're here to help Krishna Chandra restore some paintings, especially Shakuntala also has a degree in art restoration, she's very expert. They took the whole Los Angeles temple, which due to earthquakes and time and everything, all the beautiful original paintings were peeling and falling apart. On their own time, their own energy and inspiration, they restored all the paintings of one of the very first temples in ISKCON, and you can go there today and see the wonderful work that they've done. So this is an intergenerational wonderful devotional service. Haribol. Thank you. |