20141027 Śrīla Prabhupāda Kathā Day 2

Śrīla Prabhupāda Kathā Day 2

Date:

Monday, October 27, 2014

Collection:

Inspiration series - 2014

Audio player:

20141027_Srila_Prabhupada_Katha_Day_002_@New_Delhi mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande sri gurum dina tarinam paramānanda-mādhavam Sri Caitanya Iswaram. So today we are continuing with the pastimes of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. This section is for looking for a guru. So on the day of ratha yatra I have decided to try out Krishna consciousness, and Jayananada Maha... Prabhu, he shaved me up on ratha yatra morning leaving a big sikha. So on the ratha yatra day I was pulling the ratha yatra cart. After the ratha yatra was over and we distributed the feast to all the people. So then I was thinking that I wanted to go and meet the guru because they told me that maybe he will go to India and he was very old and sickly. He will not come back. This is the last chance to see him but the Temple President, he approached me, “You see Srila Prabhupada, he speaks with Indian accent and most people don’t understand him, so you should help us to stay here and distribute books and parapherlenia and that will be devotional service. So I was confused what to do. One of Prabhupada’s secretary came up, he told me just offer the President a free ticket to Srila Prabhupada, and you will see the reaction. And I asked him that, “do you like to see Srila Prabhupada. Do you like a free ticket?” “Oh yes, sure, sure, sure, sure.” So he was exposed. So I didn’t have much time to meet all the devotees. Then I met Garga Muni. Like that ah... and Tamal Krishna Maharaj and Vishnujan Maharaj and many other devotees were dancing in front of Lord Jagannath. There was the deity of Lord Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra. So I caught a flight to New York, and I briefly visited the 20... what’s that... 26th second avenue. Then I went to Montereol. So actually I visited all the temples in ISKCON AT THE TME which is very hard to do now, because we have now 500 temples or more. That time we had only three. So I was in the Montreol Temple, and I heard that night Srila Prabhupada would come and give class. So I was still in the front and ah... ready to hear Srila Prahupada. His presence was so intense and ah... at that time I would see peoples aura. So I saw that Srila Prabahupada had white, yellow aura, and filled up the whole room. Later someone asked, “Prabhupada this devotee had the vision of the aura.” I can’t remember, “maybe I asked.”, in any case Srila Prabhupada said, “he will get worried.” (laughter). So he gave a very nice class. I didn’t have any trouble in understanding him. He had a accent but since I went to Brown University which is no England, they also have accent. So at the end of the class he asked, “Who is this”, and pointed to me, and Garga Muni had also come from San Franscisco. “Oh! That’s bhakta Jay and tomorrow Brahmananda is coming. So you all come for lunch.” So Srila Prabhuada said, “you all come for lunch.” Then first Srila Prabhupada talked to me and asked, “What was your plan.” “Well I thought that I would go to India to find a master but I already found you here.” Then Srila Prabhupada said, “Well I will send you to India. You stay with me for some time and I will train you up, then I sent you to India.” Then Garga Muni and Brahmananda came. I was very thin and they were very healthy. So all I remember was rice and curry sauce and some pakoras, and they are eating and eating and eating. I was already full. Srila Prabhupada was saying, “Take more, Take more.” But they were not shy to eat more. I was already up to the neck. We called that kantha bhojan, filled to the neck. So then ah... Prabhupada had me to assist Govinda Dasi and her husband or his secretaries. So they could go shopping and Prabhupada took his rest, I was Guru’s seat. Like baby sitting, guru sitting. If Srila Prabhupada by any chance, he rings any bell then I will run to him. Otherwise I will be in the temple, and doing some service there. So then Janardhna was the first president and he was a grihasta. So he would send me to clean their flats, and Prabhupada heard that this is not for brahmacharis to go and clean their flat, and ah... I heard although I didn’t see it that Srila Prabhupada gave him Kamasutra. So after some time, I don’t know but he was a professor in the university and ah... Hansaduta and Hemavati, and then Hansaduta became the President. So he was a good cook. Prabhupada would teach how to cook and he would cook some dal and the dal was cooked, and he put’s on the pan some spice, they call it a sauce or something, and then he dips it sh... and the whole temple become filled with that smoke, and everything goes ha... ha.. ha.. Srila Prabhupada says, “That’s good for you, that is purifying.” So I wa.. would also put the burning saunsh... And everyday I would go and sit outside Prabhupada’s quarters and Govinda Dasi and her husband would got for shopping. One time Prabhupada, he wanted to teach me how to die his clothes and ah... he had the gerua stone, that’s the orange the earth. You had to rub that together and come out in the bath tab, but the bath tub is so big. You need a smaller container, like a bucket or something. So I was trying to make that gerua, saffron colour, rubbing the stones together. This is a kind of like kaccha stone. If you rub it too much it makes some white spots. So ISKCON was the first to use the pakka colour, because we were not qualified to make this kaccha colour. I remember we had to mix pitch and tangarin which was available in the supermarket, but this time I was trying to use the gerua mati. Then the secretary said he went to see Prabhupada down in the basement, and one big rat came out and jumped up. Prabhupada said, “Hare Rama, Hare Rama.” (laughter) Everyday there was some little thing happening. I don’t remember all the things. Once Srila Prabhupada was ringing the bell. I came in and he had the cockroach between his fingers. He motioned to me to open the window, and he said, “I am giving you the whole world to enjoy. Enjoy! Sh.... and threw the cockroach out. Then he closed the window. He said, “Every insect, they think the whole world is theirs to enjoy. All flies flying they land in the house, they think that this is my house. I will enjoy it.” One day Srila Prabhupada rang his bell, and he called me and he said, “If I get a rose every that will increase my longevity, can you get me a rose everyday? Why not ?” Then when the secretary came back I had my mission to get a rose, and saw... dialled up one of the temple and I dialled up looking up into the forest for the flowerist, and then Hamsaduta came, asking me, “What are you doing?”, maybe I was too proud. I told him that Srila Prabhupada said, “I should get him a rose. I will decide who will get a rose around here, I am the president here, I will come and report to you for the duty but he asked me to get a rose and no doing, listen I don’t care what you say, I want to get a rose.” I saw my ears were burning, I went out walking down the path and ah... I was wondering why the president has to be so unreasonable, and then I realized that I had noted down the address of the florist, I haven’t, and the road came to 25.40 junction, and which way I should go left or right, then I saw that in the left there was a florist, and I thought, “just go and get a flower, get a rose.” I went in, opened the door. The florist said, “What took you so long, I have been waiting for you.” So he handed me the rose. Then I went back to Srila Prabhupada’s flat, bowed down and gave him the rose. So he smelled it, ah... thak you. But what went behind the rose he didn’t know, maybe knew. So Srila Prabhupada would go for morning walk, and he said if you see a healthy person ask him where he does his shopping. Meanwhile a taxi driver stopped and he was very healthy, Srila Prabhupada said, “ask him where does he do his shopping.” He gave a ah... grocery shop. Name of the grocery shop is agp or aga, something like that. So Srila Prabhupada would be very spontaneous. So one time he sat down on a branch and then he was... he was just sitting there quit and ah...Prabhupada looked very intense like he was praying to Krishna or something and had tears in his eyes. His flat was half way between the Macgill University and the temple. Macgill university was the university that BhaktiVinod had sent one of his book to. That time the book was still in the library, I don’t know if it is there now, it is scanned and is available on the internet, I mean from Bidwan Prabhu. And then ah... Prabhupada was reading some article. One scientist from Mcgill, and he said how he is a open heart surgeon. So he has to operate a male patient, any patient, any... And some of the patient would die just while he was operating. So he said that there was kind of a light, will be going out of the eyes and it will be gone, so he called it a ticker. Then Prabhupada commented how this is a soul and that when the soul is in the body, the body is alive, when the soul leaves the body the body is dead. Like this Prabhupada would teach us. Like this Prabhupada would teach us a very practical example. So I think I will continue tomorrow. Devotee: Any questions regarding this, Bidwan Prabhu, to verify anything. Which year was this Gurumaharaj JPS: 68 Devotee: I think it will be somewhere earlier. JPS: yea somewhere Devotee: Somewhere 1968 Devotee: and how many months? JPS: maybe august, right after Rath yatra in San Franscisco. JPS: After the rath yatra is San Franscisco, then I came to Montreol. It was a late summer, and early fall. Any questions? Devotee: Do you remember who was the secretary at that time of Srila Prabhupada? JPS: Well I was more interacting with Govinda Dasi. I think her husband was Gaur Sunder Das or both. She was the cook and also the secretary, and he was the secretary Devotee: Shyam Rasika is asking if Srila Prabhupada came for the San Franscisco Rath Yatra? JPS: Next year, in 1969, I missed Devotee: Thak you everyone. We will continue tomorrow at the same time, Indian time, IST

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das