In2-MeC

Kolhapur, Maharastra
9 January 2003

THE SECOND TIME I MET SRILA PRABHUPADA

I met Srila Prabhupada again on the heels of my first encounter with him. Now, while watching Siddhanta Prabhu's "Srila Prabhupada Memories" video series, I've noted that several Godbrothers report that, like me, they were shy and hesitant the first time they met His Divine Grace. After being enthused by the mercy of the initial contact, some got a little too emboldened and tried to "force" a follow-up meeting with Prabhupada on one pretext or other. Every Godbrother whom I know of with a story like this said the second time around Srila Prabhupada shut him down, either by chastisement or dismissiveness (the transcendental "cold shoulder" treatment). My second attempt to serve Prabhupada was similarly too ambitious. But Prabhupada corrected me in a different way.

You'll recall from the previous journal entry that after His Divine Grace gently lifted this skittish little worm of a self into the light, up from out of my thick shell of defensive self-absorption, I found myself in ecstasy. "Liberation means joyful. " But liberation shouldn't mean that I then think I am the enjoyer.

Well, that's what happened next. Now wait a sec. . . no, truth be told, it wasn't quite like that. I didn't deliberately work out in my head a plan to try to take advantage of my new-found Relationship with Srila Prabhupada. But that's what the sudden burst of enthusiasm that dwelled up in my heart led me into. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" and all that. No, it wasn't like that either. I was still on the road to Srila Prabhupada. But along that road await heavy lessons for a disciple to learn.

Anyway, after Prabhupada exited the temple room I rushed out of the side door, leapt down the back stairs and burst into the kitchen. Within moments I had put together another fruit plate, this one featuring fresh New England blueberries, succulent pieces of green and orange melon, and a couple lumps of sugared butter in little cupcake paper holders. I raced back up the stairs with the plate in my hands and tapped at the door of Srila Prabhupada's quarters, located just across the hall from the side entrance to the temple.

Let's consider a moment what I was doing. My bringing that fruit plate to Prabhupada's room was more service to me than service to His Divine Grace. After all, not ten minutes earlier Srila Prabhupada had taken fruit. Just a little bit, true, but he could have taken more if he wanted. So why barge in his room with yet another plate of fruit? This illustrates what I mean about trying to take advantage of the relationship with the spiritual master.

The door opened just enough to reveal Satsvarupa Prabhu sitting on the floor inside. He looked up at me doubtfully. Whispering urgently, I told him "I've brought prasadam for Srila Prabhupada. " His eyes widened, then he turned away. I heard him ask something to Srila Prabhupada. In a moment the door swung open and I strode through.

Into the spiritual sky. I paid my dandavats and looked up in amazement.

Srila Prabhupada's room, as I recall, was painted white with blue trim. Mostly it seemed white. The floor, covered with spotless cotton sheets, was certainly all white. So Srila Prabhupada's transcendental effulgence in the midst of this color scheme had an almost blinding effect on the eye. It really seemed to me that the air in there sparkled, as if the molecules of oxygen were surcharged to a sublime glow by Prabhupada's presence.

Prabhupada sat against white bolsters behind a low table. Arrayed in a half circle around him were about a dozen of his eldest disciples, some of whom I'd only heard about--for example Karandhara Prabhu from Los Angeles, who'd arrived with Prabhupada. They looked as though they were drinking their spiritual master's divine form through their eyes.

In my new boldness I stepped up to serve Srila Prabhupada, but he motioned me to distribute the fruit to the devotees. The purport: I should not try to enjoy my relationship with the spiritual master. I should serve him by serving his servants.

But shortly, one of the disciples, Karunamoya Prabhu, spoke up. "Srila Prabhupada, he brought you a New England delicacy called blueberries. Please try them. " Prabhupada nodded to me and held out his hand. The purport: by the mercy of the spiritual master's servants, I may get a chance to serve His Divine Grace directly. I should not aspire for more than this.

I placed some blueberries in his truly lotuslike palm; but before tasting them, Prabhupada noticed the butter. He directed me to dab some of it onto the berries in his hand. Then he took, nodding his head appreciatively from side to side. Purport: Srila Prabhupada is independent, so he may call on me to personally serve him at any time. But I must learn to remain humble.

I distributed the rest of the prasadam to the devotees, offered my obeisances, and silently withdrew.

It would be nice to be able to conclude here that I learned an important lesson from my first two meetings with Srila Prabhupada, and could thereafter move beyond my insecurities onto the steady platform of fixed devotion. But less than 48 hours later my propensity for self-doubt caused me to almost miss my initiation.
That's a story for another time.

A Godbrother speaking at the Krsna Balarama Mandira 2002 Srila Prabhupada Tirobhava observance said that the reminiscences of Prabhupada's disciples of their times with His Divine Grace are not nostalgia. Well, I'm doubtful if that entirely applies to me. No, I understand what he meant and do agree philosophically. But I belong to the kapha-prakrti type, according to Ayurvedic personality classification. We are prone to sentimentalism, looking backward, depression. I find myself often indulging in wishful thinking about the past. That's nostalgia, or something close to it.

In 1951, Harper's, a New York literary magazine, published a short story by Seymour Freedgood called "Grandma and the Hindu Monk. " It was about a sadhu from East Bengal who comes to live in a rooming house run by a Jewish family in a suburb of New York City (on Long Island, I think). The sadhu wears saffron robes, is a strict vegetarian, preaches from the Bhagavad-gita, keeps a Tulasi plant, and chants Krsna's name to the beat of a small drum.

I first read "Grandma and the Hindu Monk" in a paperback collection of 20th Century American fiction that I found in the Mayapur library (of all places!). That was six or eight years ago. Later I made a photocopy of the same story from an original Harper's 51/1 issue in the archives of the Los Angeles Public Library. Re-reading that awakened a nostalgic flood of interest in the America of the late '40's and early '50's--the period when most of Srila Prabhupada's disciples were taking their births.

This short story about a Bengali Vaishnava who comes to chant and preach in New York suggests that a chthonic anticipation for Krsna consciousness was stirring deep in the American psyche as early as 14 years before Srila Prabhupada's arrival.

It interests me that the same year Srila Prabhupada published the first issue of Back to Godhead in Calcutta, with its lead article on the problem of war, the so-called Beat Movement was gelling among certain disaffected New York intellectuals who were alienated by the war-plagued Western civilization. Among these founder-acaryas of the Beats was Allen Ginsberg, who would later render important service to Srila Prabhupada in the late 1960's. Another original Beat was John Clellon Holmes, who wrote a newspaper article in the early '50's titled "This is the Beat Generation. " He described the Beats as being opposite to the scientific materialists who had tried to banish God from human experience. The Beats were looking for God in everything.

What if Srila Prabhupada had come to New York in 1945 instead of 1965? (Don't take this "what if" too seriously, gentle reader. It is just a thought experiment. ) There already were people around then who would have certainly come forward to hear him. Poets, students, speculators, welfare workers, dopeheads and dropouts who very well might have followed him with the same sense of eager spiritual adventure as did his disciples of the 1960s. Imagine if ISKCON today was 57 years old, and had been personally guided by Srila Prabhupada for the first of its 37 years (from 1945 until November 1977)?

Just wishful thinking. Sorry.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

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