“This Is My Heart” Patita Uddharana Dasa, Editor / Compiler
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“This Is My Heart” Patita Uddharana dasa, Editor / Compiler “This Is My Heart” Remembrances of ISKCON Press …and other relevant stories Manhattan / Boston / Brooklyn 1968-1971 1 Essays by the Assembled Devotees “This Is My Heart” Remembrances of ISKCON Press …and other relevant stories Manhattan / Boston / Brooklyn 1968-1971 Patita Uddharana Dasa Vaishnava Astrologer and Author of: 2 -The Bhrigu Project (5 volumes) (with Abhaya Mudra Dasi), -Shri Chanakya-niti with extensive Commentary, -Motorcycle Yoga (Royal Enflied Books) (as Miles Davis), -What Is Your Rashi? (Sagar Publications Delhi) (as Miles Davis), -This Is My Heart (Archives free download) (Editor / Compiler), -Shri Pushpanjali –A Triumph over Impersonalism -Vraja Mandala Darshan – Touring the Land of Krishna -Horoscope for Disaster (ms.) -Bharata Darshan (ms.) ―I am very pleased also to note your appreciation for our Bhagavad-gita As It Is, and I want that all of my students will understand this book very nicely. This will be a great asset to our preaching activities.‖ (-Shrila Prabhupada, letter to Patita Uddharana, 31 May 1969) For my eternal companion in devotional service to Shri Guru and Gauranga Shrimati Abhaya Mudra Devi Dasi A veritable representative of Goddess Lakshmi in Krishna’s service without whose help this book would not have been possible ―We are supposed to take our husband or our wife as our eternal companion or assistant in Krishna conscious service, and there is promise never to separate.‖ (Shrila Prabhupada, letter 4 January 1973) (Shri Narada tells King Yudhishthira:) ―The woman who engages in the service of her 3 husband, following strictly in the footsteps of the goddess of fortune, surely returns home, back to Godhead, with her devotee husband, and lives very happily in the Vaikuṇṭha planets.‖ “Shrila Prabhupada” by Abhaya Mudra Dasi “Offer my blessings to all the workers of ISKCON Press because that is my life.” (-Shrila Prabhupada, letter 19 December 1970) 4 Table of Contents Introduction ―Books Any Man Would Be Proud to Have‖ …….... 8 Shrila Prabhupada on Printing ………………………………….. 16 The Business of ISKCON Press (Rameshwara dasa) …………… 28 Prabhupada Instructs the Artists ………………………………… 43 Prabhupada Visits Boston December 1969 (Nityananda dasa)….. 50 Shrila Prabhupada‘s Boston Initiation Lecture .…………………. 69 History of ISKCON Press (Swarupa dasa) Introduction ………………………………………………. 83 1. The Big Mridanga ………………………………………. 84 2. The Washington Peace Rally ………………… ………… 86 3. Saving the World from Godlessness ……………………… 89 4. The Cast of Characters ……………………………………. 92 5. Why the Press Moved from Boston Back to New York …… 95 6. ―North, East, South and West‖… ………………………..... 97 7. 32 Tiffany Place, Brooklyn ……………………………… 101 The MacMillan Miracle (Satyaraja dasa) ……………………… 105 George Harrison and the Krishna Book (Shyamasundara)……….. 111 Reminiscences of a Pandit (Pradyumna dasa) ……………………. 119 Thus Spake Krishna‘s Artists: (Govinda, Jadurani, Baradwaja, Pushkar, Bhargava) ………… 127 From Proofreader to Devotee (Mahamaya dasi) ………………….. 135 How I Met Swami Bhaktivedanta (Madhusudana dasa) ………….. 144 Two Poems from the Early Days (Patita Uddharana dasa)………... 146 I Just Want the Truth (Patita Uddharana dasa) ……..…………… 153 Letter from a Bookbinder (Patita Uddharana dasa) ……………….. 163 His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada: Wedding Ceremony and Lecture Boston, 6 May 1969 …….........168 In2MeC (Diary Entries of HH Suhotra Maharaja) 1. How I Almost Missed My Initiation ……………………........ 180 2. Meeting David Allen …………………………………………. 184 3 Why Don‘t You Write? . ……………………………………..... 188 5 4. ―My Name is Prabhupada dasa‖ ……………………………… 189 Letter from a Friend (Prabhupada dasa) .……………………….…… 206 The Story of Kushakratha Das (Pushkar Das Adhikary) ……..….…. 210 Crazy Peter (Giriraja Swami) ……………………………………….. 219 Prabhupada‘s Lecture at M.I.T. …………………………………..…. 221 Shrila Prabhupada's Indexer (Satyaraja dasa) ………………………. 236 ISKCON Press Bulletin Board (Patita Uddharana dasa) ……………. 256 The Letter that Saddened Shrila Prabhupada (Govinda dasi) ……….. 264 The First of Many Lessons (Rameshwara dasa) …………………….. 267 ―You Will Take Stones to Eat?‖ (Hari Sauri dasa) .………………… 271 The Purport behind the Purport (Shrutakirti das) …………………… 272 Nectar with a Touch of Printer’s Ink With the kind permission of the many generous contributors this work has been donated to the Bhaktivedanta Archives, Sandy Ridge, NC, for free download and for the posterity and benefit of all future devotees of ISKCON. To: Their Graces at Shri Bhaktivedanta Archives 2015 Dandavats Eknath dasa Prabhu and Nitya Tripta Mataji, May His Divine Grace, our beloved Guru Maharaja whose lotus feet alone must be served, continue to shower his divine benedictions upon us and upon ours, upon our better halves who are veritable incarnations of Lakshmi, and upon our other family members. Which includes families we have been born into in lives past as per the authority of the prayers of Shri Prahlada and the Bhaktivedanta Purports thereupon. Jai to you both. Prabhu, This Is My Heart (attached) is ready to go into the Archives if your goodness will be kind enough to accept this humble offering for the sake of Shrila Prabhupada's divine dispensation of joyful Krishna consciousness. I will 6 share with you privately the letters from the devotee authors who have kindly allowed their historical works to be included herein. A big thanks to all of these exalted Vaishnavas for allowing their brilliantly scribed offerings to Guru Maharaja find their places here in the literary history of the Gaudiyas and ISKCON Press! Please accept in that light this humble effort of compiling the finest eye witness accounts to an important era that Shrila Prabhupada named by saying of the press, “This is my heart.” Therefore, this book is an offering from us to the lotus feet of the archives of which you both represent so nicely. Once I hear from you I will be ready to send it. Please let me have both of your thoughts on these matters.Thanks again for being there for the coming Golden Age. Your work is so very important. Always the insignificant servant at your feet by the grace of Guru Maharaja,praying for the best for you also Patita Uddharana dasa Dear Patita Uddharana Prabhu, Obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.Thank you for your kind blessings and well-wishes. Yes we will be happy to store ―This is My Heart‖. Thank you for the offer. I'd love to read it and we are looking forward to receiving the book. Please extend our obeisances and respect to Mother Abhaya Mudra. Jaya Radhe! Thank you. Your servant, Ekanatha dasa 7 Introduction “These Are Books Any Man Would Be Proud to Have” When the first hard bound books, Shri Ishopanishad, came out of ISKCON Press, we bookbinders—Vaikunthanatha and I—sent copies to Shrila Prabhupada. From Los Angeles in a letter dated 9 May 1970 His Divine Grace replied: My Dear Patita Uddharana, Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 24th April, 1970, along with the typical examples of hardbound editions of Shri Isopanisad, and thank you so much for them. This binding work is so nicely made. You have done it very well, and I am completely satisfied. I very much appreciate your efforts in our ISKCON bindery, and if such binding is done we will have sure success with our books. So you can bind our books in this way, and although it may go slowly just now it is being done very nicely. Then in future you may be able to do our binding here instead of in Japan. You write to say that these are some nice typical examples of your binding work, so it is a great credit because these books any man would be proud to have. I beg to thank you once again for your kind appreciations and excellent work. Hope this will meet you in good health. Your ever well-wisher, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami ACBS:db When Shrila Prabhupada visited ISKCON Press in late December of 1969, he stayed in a tiny room in the temple. A friend of the movement had rented the penthouse suite in Boston‘s finest hotel, The Four Seasons, for His Divine Grace. But Prabhupada objected, ―Oh, I will not stay in a hotel.‖ Quoting one of 8 the millions of verses at his command, he instructed the devotees, ―The country is in mode of goodness, the city is in the mode of passion, but a hotel is a brothel.‖ The work force of assembled devotees was a motley crew that hung together based only upon our collective faith in the message of Shrila Prabhupada. Basically we were a kaleidoscope that had very little in common—except that each of us was convinced that only the message of our spiritual master could save the world from the false values and deception that plagued its every corner. We had absolute faith that our Guru Maharaja was the direct representative of Shri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and we desired nothing other than to spread the news of his divine message through the medium of his printed words. As Shrila Prabhupada sauntered like a great king into the pressroom and for the first time saw the Chief 29 offset, he affectionately pointed to the machine and said, ―This is my heart.‖ I was standing just behind His Divine Grace and witnessed that every devotee in the room was affected by that simple declaration. Our Guru Maharaja impressed upon us the importance of his ―Big Mridanga‖ and each one of us felt honored that we were involved in such an important project as ISKCON Press. To compare the press to his heart was tantamount to preparing this machine to God Himself. And that is because the message carried by ISKCON Press through the medium of the Lord‘s pure devotee was indeed non-different from Krishna. The tour of ISKCON Press is recorded in Shri Prabhupada-lilamrita by Satswarupa dasa Goswami: A hundred devotees, straining to see and hear Prabhupāda's responses, followed him as he went downstairs.