THE HARE KRISHNA The Birth of Krishna Consciousness in America 1966-1969 Hayagriva dasa PALACE PRESS CONTENTS Note Preface Part I: New York, 1966 • Visitor from Calcutta • Transcendental Invitations • Who Is Crazy? • Second Avenue Fire Sacrifice • The Hare Krishna Explosion • Back to Godhead Part II: San Francisco, 1967 • Swami in Hippieland • Flowers for Lord Jagannatha • Mad After Krishna • Soul Struck • San Francisco Rathayatra • Passage to India Part III: New Vrindaban, 1968-1969 • Enter, Srila Prabhupada • New Vrindaban, West Virginia • Seven Temples on Seven Hills • Krishna, The Flower-bearing Spring • The Guru and The Poet • Paramhansa in the Hills FOREWORD Hayagriva Dasa was Prabhupada's first professor-disciple. Prabhupada used to call him "Professor Howard Wheeler" even after Hayagriva received his spiritual name. Prabhupada was also very pleased to utilize Hayagriva's literary abilities for spreading Krishna consciousness. It seemed that just when Prabhupada needed him, Krishna supplied a devotee like Hayagriva to begin the editing of Prabhupada's voluminous Bhagavad-gita and SrimadBhagavatam manuscripts. And it was Hayagriva whom Prabhupada made the first co-editor of Back To Godhead magazine in 1966. At first, I envied Hayagriva's literary talents, but Hayagriva gave me a good lesson, for which I am always grateful. Although I was involved in writing even before I met Srila Prabhupada, when I became his disciple, I thought that all writing should be given up. I thought that writing was a manifestation of false ego. I remember one day telling this to Hayagriva Prabhu in the storefront. He just laughed in his loud voice and said that as far as he was concerned, he was going to write for Krishna! At first, I walked away with my own opinion-1 would renounce writing-but Hayagriva's statement began to make good sense. Now I know that if we have some inclination to serve, whether by writing, or by some other useful talent, it should never be renounced but used in the service of Krishna. To become successful in pure devotional service is a difficult job, as we are all experiencing. Over the years, Hayagriva has experienced his own difficulties, but he has always remained faithful to Prabhupada, and I am very happy to see his book, The Hare Krishna Explosion, coming out from New Vrindaban, where Hayagriva is enthusiastically serving Prabhupada, and assisting his lifelong dear friend, Srila Bhaktipada. This book contains the same exciting literary talent which I saw in Hayagriva from the beginning, in his first Back To Godhead essays and poems. In this book, Hayagriva has captured the exciting spirit of the wonderful, innocent days of the Krishna consciousness movement as it expanded personally from His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the source of all good things in the Krishna consciousness movement. Hayagriva's book focuses on the person Srila Prabhupada, and on direct experiences with him, by an honest, adoring disciple. The details of 26 Second Avenue in 1966, particularly of the first initiation, are known only to a few persons. There are no letters, and we· have to rely on a few people's memory. Hayagriva's memory is especially sharp, and also he is very literary. Sometimes, when he says something, it seems so perfect, the phrasing so exact, that I cannot for the life of me think of a better way to say it. The personality of Srila Prabhupada is certainly evoked in these pages. The style-present tense, written in the first person, series of literary scenes separated by asterisks, lightning-quick characterizations, sentence fragments, etc. -is very readable and quite in the modern idiom. I think that The Hare Krishna Explosion will be able to convince neutral readers to become attracted to Prabhupada and to see the wonderful genuine human beginnings of this great spiritual movement. Certainly Srila Prabhupada is great enough to have many books written about him, just as Lord Chaitanya's followers wrote many about Him. As one critic of biography said, the reason for writing biography is that one cannot bear to see the memory of a great person forgotten. The attitude Hayagriva has taken is truly a Vaishnava one. He is not writing from a commercial point of view, otherwise it would have been done differently. The motive is devotion. Devotees, as well as the growing numbers of persons becoming interested in Krishna consciousness, will derive genuine benefit from this book, and will become more affectionately attached to Prabhupada and ISKCON. The Hare Krishna Explosion is distinct from the Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta, and has its own unique place in the growing literature about Prabhupada by Prabhupada's disciples. Srila Prabhupada was always pleased to see Hayagriva at work, editing and writing, and so he will also be pleased to see this book. I hope he will bless Hayagriva Prabhu to write more and more Krishna conscious literatures. Satsvarupa dasa Goswami ISKCON Puerto Rico October, 1984 The Birth of Krishna Consciousness in America 1966 - 1969 By Hayagriva das tad viddhi pranipatena pariprashnena sevaya upadekshyanti te jnanam jnaninas tattva-darshinah Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth. ( Bhagavad-gita ) Note The first draft of The Hare Krishna Explosion was written in July, 1969, just after Srila Prabhupada's first visit to New Vrindaban. At that time, I realized that the details of the beginnings of the Krishna Consciousness Movement had best be recorded while events were still fresh. Working from notebooks, diaries and memory, I compiled the first draft within a month. Then the manuscript remained packed away, until Srila Prabhupada left this mortal world in November, 1977. During those interim years, both the manuscript and my mind had accumulated some dust, but convinced of the value of anything dealing with Srila Prabhupada, I began again, and completed the second draft in 1979. For the next five years, as the Hare Krishna Movement continued to expand, I kept polishing and expanding the manuscript. Clearly, the Hare Krishna explosion was not about to fizzle. "Just as Krishna is always expanding," Srila Prabhupada had said, "anything related to Krishna is also expanding." In 1966, unknown to us, Prabhupada had truly launched a dynamic world religion. Now, on the eve of the Twentieth Anniversary of Prabhupada's International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and the Five Hundredth Anniversary of the appearance of Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, The Hare Krishna Explosion —by the grace of Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga—is finally ready. In this endeavor, the Palace Press staff at New Vrindaban has been of inestimable help: Sriman Sundarakara dasa, production manager; Srimati Ragamathani dasi, composing; and Srimati Tulasi-devi dasi, layout. Without their selfless assistance, the dust would still be accumulating. Hayagriva Dasa Shila Ropananam Ceremony Radha Vrinadban Chandra's Great Temple of Understanding New Vrindaban May 31, 1985 Preface Although at first we called him "Swamiji," we eventually changed to the more respectful "Prabhupada," a Sanskrit word meaning "one who takes shelter at the lotus feet of Krishna." "This is the proper form of addressing the spiritual master," he humbly suggested one day. Somehow the strange word rang true, and from then on it was always "Prabhupada," a word that conjured for us the omnipotent Lord Sri Krishna Himself. "Guru and Krishna are like two rails of the same track," he said, "always side by side. By the grace of Krishna, you get guru . And by the grace of guru , you get Krishna." Who was this great master called Srila Prabhupada, and what was he like? To answer this is to answer the question Arjuna asked Lord Krishna millenia ago: sthita-prajnasya ka bhasa samadhi-sthasya kesava sthita-dhih kim prabhaseta kim asita vrajeta kim "What are the symptoms of one whose consciousness is merged in Transcendence? How does he speak, and what is his language? How does he sit, and how does he walk?" Prabhupada's real identity defied analysis. I was surprised to learn that he had once been a pharmacist with a wife and children. Because worldy motives and passion never touched him, it was difficult to imagine him as a householder, as anything but the saffron-clad spiritual master, the paramhansa floating over the world like a swan over water. "If you are drowning in the middle of the ocean," he said, "and someone throws you a rope, you do not stop to enquire, 'Oh dear sir, why are you throwing me this rope? What is your name? What country are you from? Why are you here?' No. The drowning man grabs the rope for dear life." Since we were all drowning, few of us asked those questions. We grabbed the rope any way we could, assured of some ultimate victory in Vikuntha, a faraway spiritual universe. In the closing words of Bhagavad-gita : yatra yogeshvarah krishno yatra partho dhanur-dharah tatra srir vijayo bhutir dhruva nitir matir mama "And wherever there is Krishna, the master of all mystics, and whever there is Arjuna, the supreme archer, there will also certainly be opulence, victory, extraordinary power and morality." And wherever there is Srila Prabhupada, there will certainly be Lord Krishna. Chapter 1 Visitor From Calcutta I first see him just after crossing the Bowery at Houston Street. As he passes before the iron-mesh fence of a playground, I distinctly glimpse the aura of saintliness. I watch him through the rushing traffic and stumbling derelicts. He strolls almost jauntily down the sidewalk. He is an old man whom age has never touched.