1. Association (Good and Bad) 2. Attachment
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
1. Association (Good and bad) Racitambara dasi: The first time I saw Srila Prabhupada was in the L.A. airport. I think it must have been about 200 devotees went to greet him. We were a huge crowd and the loud kirtan and everyone was pushing forward, and there was a space above the partition where the passengers were coming out and you were able to see if it was a tall person. I remember a Stetson hat came by and something else came by, and then we could understand…“Is that…? No, that’s not Prabhupada.” We kept pushing forward more and more and the kirtan was bigger and bigger; and then I felt someone pushing behind me and I thought that’s odd because I’m at the back of the crowd, I was a very new devotee. So then I turned to look and there were two businessmen behind me, mid-20’s, suits and briefcases and everything else, but they were looking and looking to see who we were waiting for. Then suddenly we saw a danda raised above the partition and we knew, “Oh, Prabhupada must be coming.” So then Prabhupada came out and we all paid our obeisances and there was the most amazing feeling like a tidal wave rushing through me from the very depths of my being and pouring out, and I cried and cried and cried. Then finally when I stood up to go and follow the devotees who were following Srila Prabhupada, I turned and these two businessmen were standing there with tears pouring down their faces. That was such an amazing experience to see how they were touched just by a moment’s association with Srila Prabhupada. 2. Attachment Bahulasva das: Different people are coming to visit Prabhupada, so everybody is bringing Prabhupada something. So the first person comes in and gives Prabhupada a nice gold Omega watch, a real gold watch. Prabhupada says, “Thank you very much,” puts it on, takes the watch he had on and gives it to whoever was there. Then another person comes in, gives Prabhupada a gold Rolex watch that must have been at least thirty-five hundred bucks. So he takes off the gold Omega, gives that away to somebody, puts the gold Rolex watch on, “Thank you very much.” Then another person comes in and gives Prabhupada a Seiko, the cheapest of all three of them, maybe it was a hundred dollar watch. Prabhupada says, “Oh,” takes the gold Rolex, gives that away, puts the Seiko on, “Thank you very much.” You could see Prabhupada was simply accepting on behalf of Krishna. Nothing like, “Oh, wow, save this one for me, put it in my drawer,” nothing like this. Just “Whatever you are giving, I am taking on Krishna’s behalf.” You would see that in Prabhupada all the time. No mundane attachment. 3. Back to Godhead Narada Muni: I remember Srila Prabhupada once was asked the process for the disciple going back to Godhead. Srila Prabhupada said that the spiritual master had purchased your ticket. It's like if you want to get on a train you have to show your ticket. Srila Prabhupada said, "I have purchased your ticket. You simply have to get on board and you have to stay on the train till we get to the destination." So this is the meaning of jagat guru. Srila Prabhupada actually has the ability to purchase the ticket for everyone because he's the full manifestation of Krishna in the form of the spiritual master, speaking only what Krishna says. 4. Bogus Religionists Rupa Vilasa das: There was a discussion. Prabhupada was talking about Vedanta, and he was saying that the Mayavadis couldn’t understand Vedanta. Then he began to question us: why couldn’t they understand? He was specifically mentioning Ramakrishna and other famous Mayavadis. He said, “Why couldn’t he understand?” So then Brahmananda replied, “Naham prakasah sarvasya yoga-maya,” that verse from Bhagavad-gita, and Prabhupada wasn’t satisfied with that answer. Then someone else gave another answer, but he wasn’t satisfied with that either. Then finally Dayananda sat bolt upright and he said, “They cannot understand because they haven’t got Bhaktivedanta.” So Prabhupada smiled and said, “Here is the answer.” And it was such a nice answer on two levels: one, that they didn’t have Prabhupada; and on the other level, they didn’t have any bhakti. So how could they understand the end of truth? So Prabhupada was really happy with that answer, and I remember I felt like all of us were slightly envious that Dayananda had come up with this fabulous answer. 5. Book Distribution Ramesvara das: Prabhupada had become very disturbed. He had learned that his manuscripts that he had written through amazing sacrifice of sleep, he stayed up at night and dictated his books, they had been sent in to our New York BBT office and they had not done the production. He had written so many books with commentaries, and they were just lying there. So Prabhupada had flown into Los Angeles, and it was a very tense beach walk. He was discussing how important it was to publish these books and how upset he was that they were lying there, and he was demanding that they be published right away. He then asked, “How long will it take?” So Radha- vallabha from New York was there because he had been the production manager. So we pulled ourselves back and we discussed, “How long will it take you to get me the books so I can send them to the printer?” And he told me that he thought we could do one book every two months. At this point, we were doing one book every four to six months. So we went back into the walk, we caught up again and we told Prabhupada, “We think we can do one book every two months.” So Prabhupada turned around and said, “I want all 17 books done in two months.” I just blurted out, “Srila Prabhupada, that’s impossible.” At that point, Prabhupada stopped walking and he had a cane and he planted it in the sand, and he turned around and looked at me very gravely and said, “Impossible is a word in a fool’s dictionary.” And there was complete silence. We were all stunned. We were just completely stunned. Here is Prabhupada, perfectly in touch with Krishna, telling us that this can be done. It seemed to defy the physical laws as we knew it. So after some very long moments of silence, Prabhupada started walking immediately and the senior devotees, they just turned and started staring at me like, “So what are you going to do?” So this was a matter of just absolute blind faith. Either you believed or you did not believe. It was that type of moment where you commit, never mind what your intelligence is telling you is possible. So Radha-vallabha and I fell back again and we started talking, “We have to do this, this can be done,” and all of a sudden we started coming up with ideas that we hadn’t thought of. And we started getting ideas of different parallel production lines and turning the production lines into 24-hour production lines with two or three shifts and recruiting devotees from all over to help us with this and on and on and on. And this was all happening in the span of just a few minutes that we were being flooded with these ideas, and we both realized that in order to do this we all had to be together in one central place. And it seemed more logical to do it in Los Angeles – we have the housing for everybody and we can expand easily. So then we caught up to the walk and we said to Srila Prabhupada, “If we are going to do this, we have to move the entire BBT division from New York to Los Angeles – the art department, the production, everything.” And Srila Prabhupada approved that. He said, “Fine. Do it immediately.” And we started. 6. Brahmacharya Udayananda: I was on the Radha-Damodar party for a little over two years, and occasionally we met Prabhupada in different places—Chicago, Atlanta, Ratha-yatra in San Francisco—and he would speak to us. In a personal darshan in Atlanta, Prabhupada stressed the importance of brahmacharya in spiritual life. He encouraged us to remain brahmacharis and he said, "If you stay brahmachari then you have a 75 percent chance of going back to Godhead in this very life, but if you take up the grihastha ashram, 25 percent. Therefore, try to see all women as mataji, as mother, and address them as, 'my dear mataji.' Mataji is a respectful term that means you love and respect that person just as you love and respect your own mother. A mataji is one of the gurus—the Bhagavatam says you should not become father or mother unless you can save your dependents from repeated birth and death. So if you address all women as matajis, you will not look at them as objects of sense gratification." 7. Chanting , Chanting Offenselessly, Holy Name Harivilas: Another time we were in a car going to the temple from the airport when I told Prabhupada that we were thinking about renting a store and calling it "Krishna Shop." Prabhupada said, "No. Call it 'Hare Krishna Shop.' Let them say'Hare Krishna' once in their life." Then he told a story from the Puranas about a man who was charged by a wild boar.