Pita Dasji's story

[Jagat]

Dear Prabhus,

Pita Dasji has been favoring us with his story on the Dharma Mela. I thought that I would cross post it here for everyone's enjoyment. I hope you're OK with this, Pita Prabhu.

---

Dear Prabhujis,

Hare Krishna! Please accept my humble obeisances! All Glories to Shree Shree Guru and Gouranga!

I first heard the devotees clanking their kartals on Board Street in Philadelphia. My friends and I were invited to the Love Feast. We made it to the temple late Ekadasi during the Jhulan Yatra of Shree Shree Radha Krishna, accompanied by our dates and intoxicated. We swung Their Lordships, but were so stoned we didn’t even see them on the swing We took prasad of stir fried green pepper and tapioca puris and our taste buds exploded.

We were given the Holy Name by Nayanabhiram Prabhu who told to just chant this Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare mantra and never stop. We became even more intoxicated on the Holy Name than the pot and when we got back to our dormitory, we excitedly told everyone that the Maha Mantra makes you higher than reefers. They told us we were fools and that we should never go back to that place again. “If you didn’t give them your address, you’re still safe,” was their advice.

Time went by and I would see the devotees more and more whenever I went into town, but I never wanted to speak with them. My friends would always buy their books and give them to me. “Look at this art, it’s fantastic,” they would say and I had to agree. The books would then get lost somewhere in my messy pile of possessions. When I did pick them up, I noticed that they always smelled of incense.

I would admire Shree Krishna and remember what was the devotees told me, that when Krishna plays His flute, the rocks melt and the birds fall from the trees in ecstasy. I could understand that these pictures of te cowherd boys running with Krishna through the groves of Vrindavan and Shree Shree Radha Krishna with their confidential maidservants were coming directly from Goloka. Gradually I had collected many such paintings and would continuously admire them.

Time passed and I fell into a group of friends who were taking great amounts of drugs and mixing them with the occult to control each other. I gradually recognized what nonsense this was and so I left their association. Then I looked to the devotees as better friends. Rabindra Swarup Prabhuji spoke to me from time to time when I came to the Philly temple, where I often stayed overnight.

I was so crazy that most of the devotees considered me a lost cause. They would go into the basement under the temple room and bang on the floor under me with hammer where I would sit in the yogic lotus position. But Rabindra would continue to show mercy towards me, feeding me Lord Jagannath’s Maha Prasad.

One day, Rabindra gave me a flower and ask me to offer it to Srila Prabhupada one day, but I had reservations. Why should I offer a flower to a man? I thought. But then I thought he is helping me and all I’m doing here is showing appreciation. When I bowed down to His Divine Grace for the first time, I just became so happy -- my bad times in life disappeared and became only bad memories to be forgotten.

I then traveled to a few temples to see if the mood was the same everywhere. I wanted to meet many devotees, but I didn’t see enough to really become a part of it. At the same time I certainly didn’t see much in life outside the temple that was at all interesting, as Krishna had given me a small transcendental taste.

My goal was to meet His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada personally. So in Miami after hearing Vishnujan Swami’s kirtans, I decided to join his band of kirtaniyas, but by mistake joined the Miami Temple, which wasn’t such a bad experience at all. Narahari and Raghava engaged me in many services to Their Lordships Goura Nitai, who were very kind to me. There was always service to do among the pots and pans of the Miami temple kitchen.

That year Vishnujan Swami spent a few months in Miami and when he decided to travel I had to go with them. I left the temple to join the Radha Damodar traveling sankirtan party. There I met Brahma Dasji, who is part of this forum. He had a bus full of merry bhaktas. There were many different buses and many devotees on each bus. We distributed lots of Srila Prabhupada’s books. Each day we would hear Srimad Bhagavatam and take prasad and then go out to places where we distributed our books. Many kinds of places -- parking lots, bowling alleys, drive-in theaters, streetlights – basically, we went anywhere we could.

Then came the chance to met Srila Prabhupada in Atlanta. I was personally introduced to him and my wish had come true. I saw Srila Prabhupada again after that time in the same year, when we were back in Philadelphia for the Rathayatra. It was an overcast day, but when His Divine Grace arrived, exited his car and walked towards the cart, the sun came out and seemed to shine on him like a spotlight.

Srila Prabhupada told us how Lord Jagannath took on his fantastic form. After hearing His own pastimes with Radha described by Rohini to Rukmini, Krishna was stunned in remembrance of His eternal relationship and thus took the form of Jagannath Swami.

We then visited New Vrindavan where we stayed for a few weeks working in the fields. The mood here was very rural and the devotees didn’t seem to have the same interest in Krishna consciousness as in the other temples. They were just as interested in communal life and farming, it seemed. So I left with a very nice godbrother, Vanudara Prabhu and we hitchhiked to San Diego together.

In the San Diego temple we were asked to silkscreen women’s breasts on T-shirts. What is this? We were told, “Oh, it’s okay. We sell them to head shops and it brings money to the temple. Jayatirtha has told us we could do it.” I refused and left very shortly to New Dwaraka, the L.A. temple. It was there that I finally found very nice service that kept me very happily engaged.

Somehow I was able to get authorized to leave the San Diego temple allowed to go up to New Dwarka.

It was my greatest desire in those days to join with the artists who were painting for Srila Prabhupada’s books but this was never to happen. Instead I was made into an apprentice to the best artist that ever served in ISKCON, Bharadraj Prabhu. He was also a wonderful kirtan bhajan leader.

Bharadraj and Adideva Prabhus had just returned from a long stay in Shree Dham Mayapur where they had learned the local Bengali art of doll making under Srila Prabhupada’s direction. Actually they were not dolls as we understand them, but figures made of straw and mud mixed with cow dung and rice husks.

Srila Prabhupada wanted an exhibition of these dolls that were to be the sculptural counterparts of the paintings. These were to be exhibitions to teach Krishna consciousness. This was something that his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Prabhupada had pioneered.

Saraswati Thakur would spend all of the money his sannyasis collected and put it into these doll exhibitions. When the sannyasis asked His Divine Grace where all the money they had just given him had gone, he would say, “Oh, I spent that money on dolls. Go out and collect more.”

Our Srila Prabhupada told us this story himself when he visited our studio in 1976.
We worked at least eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, for two years to complete an exhibition of the introduction to Bhagavad Gita. We were grateful to be so nicely engaged in serving Srila Prabhupada in a way that he had personally requested us and wanted so much to see it happen.

Some others, however, came and sneered at us, telling us we were in Maya, using all the society’s money to make such a useless thing as a doll exhibition, even they were well aware who had ordered and wanted it. This was the same person who had been with Vishnujan Swami when I joined the Radha Damodar party.

His opinion was completely in opposition to Srila Prabhupada’s and I later saw how he has created more chaos in our society than I could ever calculate and he continues to do so from the sidelines, without restriction.
I want to avoid as much as possible the bad guys and go over the wonderful experiences, as there is more than enough to tell about them. Over time, the bad elements will fade and their offences will be burned up.

New Dwarka was, as Srila Prabhupada called it, our western world headquarters. There was the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust with its studio of devotee artists, the archives department, the different translation department, where books were translated into Spanish and German. The book distribution departments which we all time to time help to distribute.

The temple Deity department and the devotees whom took care of their Lordships. There was also a sound studio Golden Avatar and the incense company, Spiritual Sky. In the three years I was there, the fourth to the ninth cantos of Srimad Bhagavatam and the complete Chaitanya Charitamrita were printed.

As we worked in the studio making our exhibition, some devotees would be engaged in reading the Srimad Bhagavatam to us. We had all of Srila Prabhupadas books read to us during those doll studio days.

Mangal arati was the high point of the day and I personally hated to miss them. New Dwarka also had a great selection of kirtan leaders. Kirtan with a hundred or more devotees was always very exciting. Rising up after cold showers and in clean cloth to see Shree Shree Rukmini Dwarkadish each day, I soon noticed they were smiling. Their Lordships were real and they were the center of our meditation as well our whole goal in service. The devotees all loved Rukmini and Dwarkadish and I soon became infected with their love.

In New Dwarka there were always many festivals we celebrated that I have never seen celebrated anywhere in ISKCON, like the cleansing of the Gundicha Temple. One day after we read the lila in the Chaitanya Charitamrita, as the time was approaching, we all decided to cleanse the temple.

The whole community came with buckets and we washed the temple room with a river of water pouring out. I remember our godbrother Guru Das taking a very big part but others, like always, criticized us and said we were Sahajiyas and that was the last Gundicha Cleansing festival in New Dwarka.

It was in New Dwarka that I first heard many devotees the senior disciples of Srila Prabhupada preach Krishna Consciousness. I enjoyed very much hearing the classes of Hridayananda Maharaj, Nara Narayan Prabhu, Ramesvara, Jadurani Prabhu, Dravida Prabhu, Veda Vyas Prabhu, Jayadwaita Swami, and host of others too numerous to mention.

The atmosphere was nice, but it became even nicer when Srila Prabhupada personally came. Preparations were made for weeks in advance. Recently, during Gour Purnima this year, I saw Bhakti Tirtha Swami. He kept saying that he wanted to instil the devotees under his care with the "Prabhupada is coming mood." He was also thinking that this was the best of attitudes, but is it really possible to instil it today? Bhakti Tirtha Swami thinks so. I thought it was a nice idea and a sweet memory.

Srila Prabhupada did come while I was in New Dwarka, and he stayed at least a week. His Divine Grace came to our doll studio as I have said before.

One of the things he did on that visit was to request certain devotees to stop reading his Chaitanya Charitamrita together in isolation. There was a group of devotees who got the idea that if they just read the parts of the Chaitanya Charitamrita that described Radha Krishna’s pastimes, they could become gopis in their next lives. For a few weeks they had been meeting after evening classes and reading these portions in the BBT offices. In ISKCON gossip, they became known as “The Gopi Bhava Club.”

Srila Prabhupada was quite upset with them and told them to stop. Like many of these ISKCON heresy tales, the same person I mentioned above for opposing the doll exhibition took a major part in stirring up this witch-hunt and finding the culprits.
He has been behind all the heresies in ISKCON and at the same time is their source and their cause. We need not say his name, as it is too sweet to use in relationship to himself, in my humble feelings.


[This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 07-04-2001).]

[Bhaktavasya]

[quote]Originally posted by Jagat:


[b]Dear Prabhus,

Pita Dasji has been favoring us with his story on the Dharma Mela. I thought that I would cross post it here for everyone's enjoyment. I hope you're OK with this, Pita Prabhu.

---

Dear Prabhujis,

Hare Krishna! Please accept my humble obeisances! All Glories to Shree Shree Guru and Gouranga!

"In the San Diego temple we were asked to silkscreen women’s breasts on T-shirts. What is this? We were told, “Oh, it’s okay. We sell them to head shops and it brings money to the temple. Jayatirtha has told us we could do it.” I refused and left very shortly to New Dwaraka, the L.A. temple. It was there that I finally found very nice service that kept me very happily engaged.

Somehow I was able to get authorized to leave the San Diego temple allowed to go up to New Dwarka."

Pita, perhaps you were misinfomed about Jayatirtha 'authorizing' the San Diego devotees to 'silkscreen women's breasts on t-shirts', as he went from being temple president of New Dwarka to temple president of the manor, in England after Ramesvara took over the LA temple. As a matter of fact, I'd never heard the story of t-shirts with female breasts on them being sold in head shops (has anyone else?). Once Ramesvara took over it was he who was in charge (someone correct me if I'm wrong) and became the GBC 'authority' for San Diego.

[Jagat]

I remember Srila Prabhupada in New Dwarka preaching to us on deviation, or changing the teachings of Krishna Consciousness to suit ourselves, or as one devotee would say, explaining the Bhagavad Gita “as I would like it to be,” not “as it is.”

I remember this point as Srila Prabhupada stressed it in every class. In one class he told us, “Jumping, jumping, jumping over the head of the Spiritual Master just like monkeys; you will all become monkeys in your next life. That is what happens to disciples who deviate from the instructions of the spiritual master. They become monkeys in Vrindavan. There are already enough monkeys in Vrindavan."

On my last visit to Shree Vrindavan Dham, I couldn’t help but notice the overpopulation of monkeys there these days and had to think, “Have that many of my godbrothers passed away already?”

Each day Srila Prabhupada would go on his morning walk, but only a few devotees would be able to go with him. When Srila Prabhupada saw an old man jogging. he said, “For a young man this is life, but for an older man it means a quicker death because he is using up all his breaths.” Then Srila Prabhupada told us that at the time of birth, according to our karma, we are given a certain number of breaths. When we die, it appears to be from illness or any number of other things, but actually it means that we have simply used up all our allotted breathes. He explained that according to this principle, the yogis have been able to extend their lives through breath control.

When bringing up these points, Srila Prabhupada would often preach about the worthlessness of a long life without Krishna consciousness, and he would give the redwood tree as an example of living so long without understanding the meaning of life.

“What is the meaning of human life?” We would hear Srila Prabhupada ask us. "To know love and serve God Krishna there is no other purpose."

We were told that on his walk Srila Prabhupada saw a retired man making some putts with his clubs on the grass in Santa Monica Park near the ocean.

“What is he doing?” Srila Prabhupada asked the devotees.

“Well, Srila Prabhupada, he is playing golf.”

Srila Prabhupada asked, “What is its purpose?”

The devotees replied, “To get the ball from one place to another.”

Srila Prabhupada then gave his sour face look and said, “What a worthless waste of time! Old age is meant for spending our time in remembering Krishna and he is using it to push a ball!”

New Dwarka in those days presented us with the appearance of a shooting star by the name of Ramesvara Prabhu. When I first came to New Dwarka, he was just another BBT brahmachari and was always seen with his godbrother partner Radhavallabha.

As we took morning prasad, Ramesvara started to give us his talks with inside information on Srila Prabhupada’s whereabouts, ISKCON policy, book distribution, always hyping up the prabhus. I mean, the guy had it in the sales department.

I remember one of his statements going something like this: “Lord Chaitanya is the most merciful and munificent incarnation ever. He has descended just to give us Love of Krishna and I’m going to take full advantage.” As he made this statement, he would almost squirm about, twisting his body. Each day he would do another performance that would outdo the last. I use to think someone would ask him to stop, but he was inspiring so he was encouraged.

Ramesvara was on fire for many years. At morning prasad, he would jumping in to give a few messages and he had sankirtan scores right after Tulasi puja. He would jump up and give us his one-man ishtagoshti for about 20 minutes, always looking like he expected a senior devotee like Nara Narayan to tell him to sit down and shut up, and always doing his body squirm to emphasize points. He was good and he did get us going. In those days, I enjoyed his pep talks.

Then Ramesvara was put in charge of the BBT; and after a short time, made a sannyasi; then after that, GBC of New Dwarka; and after that, a Divine Grace with his own Vyasasan -- all within four years. A mouse-cat-dog-tiger-mouse. So sad, so very sad. We also wanted to see him get the full mercy of Lord Chaitanya

Toward the last days Srila Prabhupada was with us, in 1977, Srila Prabhupada would have one GBC stay with him as secretary each month. Ramesvara left and took his turn in about February of 1977. Satsvarupa followed him, and then the person who stayed till Srila Prabhupada's departure, because he wouldn’t let any other GBC replace him.

We all heard about this from Ramesvara’s purports after Tulasi Puja. As soon as Srila Prabhupada became ill, we all knew about it, as Ramesvara told us almost everything he knew in his 20 minutes news flashes from the ISKCON grapevine, which was almost as fast as today’s Internet.

When Ramesvara was secretary, he made notes of his time with Srila Prabhupada and would let us hear them in his nectar reports after Tulasi worship.

Srila Prabhupada would order Ramesvara to eat from his plate after only taking a few things and tell him to fill up to his neck.

He told us of how disappointed Srila Prabhupada was with his godbrothers and made a statement which he told us came from Prabhupada about them assisting him in his preaching, "If passing air would save your life, they would not do so."

As long as one was fully engaged in service New Dwarka was a wonderful place and if not, it would quickly become not so transcendental. As one devotee Bhakta George complains, what it is now, it always was for the idle. Service is being blessed; losing service is being cursed.

There always was and still is an eternal Watseka Mela going on in front of the temple apartments, sometimes in full view of Their Lordships. I was just there in May of this year and the Watseka Mela main topic now is: "His Holiness Narayan Maharaj: Do you or do you not approve of him?"

These great purges, like those in China during the Cultural Revolution, which at first were followed by the people so reverently, in the end are not as important as they seem.

There are always lots of topics flying around on Watseka Ave. It’s like that park in London where people stand on soapboxes and preach their philosophy. This goes on eternally on Watseka. Many new revolutionaries have been born or sprung up on that holy avenue.

There was and still is the very far out and extraordinary devotee, Nara Narayan Vishwakarma Prabhu, whose input came in spurts from time to time in my days there, it’s still the same today.

One day, in one of Ramesvara’s after Tulasi puja talks, we heard of the recent pastimes of Jayananda and how he was snuck out of a NYC hospital and taken to some place in Mexico for treatment and that he may come to New Dwarka. Very soon though Jayananda was there and the whole community met him.

Ramesvara was very kind and served Jayananda with all respect and so did we all, understanding Jayananda to be a genuine saint.

Though his body was in the final stages of Leukemia and his skin yellowed by the illness, Jayananda didn’t want to just sit and wait for death to overtake him. He cornered Ramesvara and told him it was a disgrace that we had such nice Jagannath Deities in New Dwarka, but still had no Rathayatra.

Jayananda wanted the devotees to drive him around to see what would be a good route for such a festival. They first took him to Venice beach. When he saw the wide concrete walk there, he told them that the Rathayatra had to be held there. Jayananda personally went to all the city officials in his wheelchair and got all the permits for the festival.

He then instructed a crew of devotees how to build the cart and observed them doing so until he was too sick to leave his room. One day, Mukunda Maharaj took me to met Jayananda. Jayananda was staying with Mukunda at his office in the downstairs apartments.

The day after I was introduced to Jayananda, I saw him sitting in his wheelchair outside his room and went over to sit with him. We just sat together, not really speaking as he was a bit contemplative.

The only thing Jayananda said to me was, "I’m very happy I will be living my body before Srila Prabhupada, because I don’t want to see ISKCON after His Divine Grace leaves."

I was thinking then, “What is this? What is he saying to me? Will I see ISKCON after Srila Prabhupada leaves? What has he revealed to me?” Now of course his words have much more meaning to me than they did then.

Jayananda understood what was going on within the hearts of many persons in ISKCON and without Srila Prabhupada to check them, he knew they would create all kinds of havoc that they have.

This Dharma Mela is like a small temple. We can call ourselves a small society of devotees and we can either bring peace in our midst or chaos. Everyone should respect everyone else. Younger devotees should respect the older devotees and if anyone says he or she is more advanced, then they should be chastised by all of us.

If someone preaches apasampradaya teachings, he needs to be exposed and this is done to protect the sincere followers, not for some ego magnification.

It is better to reveal one’s identity or at least stick to one and tell us about yourself. If you like personalism, then be personal with us.

To be impersonal is to be afraid of your spiritual identify and relationships. This was also learned in ashram life -- great tolerance.

We should be very happy to hear from the older devotees and if we heard something that seems to be questionable, then we should request them to restate it and present it for our understanding.

If we are new to Krishna Consciousness, we first just hear. I some time wonder how many are just readers out there and never speak up?

Please speak up let us know you are there, we are ready to serve you in your spiritual search. We are not looking for any thing from you but your attention and reactions.

We are very happy to also preach to the walls if necessary and do so all the time because we are Srila Prabhupada’s disciples and that’s what we do. Birds fly and devotees preach Krishna Consciousness.

[This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 07-06-2001).]

[Jagat]

Prabhupada visits the diorama studio

Bharadraj Prabhu told us about Srila Prabhupada’s idea of what the exhibition should be and the real situation: that many of the movement's leaders were not willing to surrender to Srila Prabhupada’s desires to make it a reality.

Srila Prabhupada wanted the Doll Exhibition in Los Angeles city. His idea was to create something like what Universal City became years later, with a permanent exhibition on the introduction to Bhagavad Gita. His Divine Grace said people would throng to such an exhibit.

Jayatirtha was the main person who supported the project and I suspect that we were able to at least finish it because of him. Today it is hidden away in distant portion of the New Dwaraka Community.

If the leaders who were controlling the money flow to the project had done what Srila Prabhupada instructed, the exhibition might have become as popular as Universal City and a great preaching asset.

As time in ISKCON passed, we would see these young men taking over Srila Prabhupada’s temples and applying karmi learned understanding of market economy into effect instead of the instructions given to us by Srila Prabhupada. Everything was based on money and getting it. Love and trust and pleasing Srila Prabhupada seemed not to be an important goal in ISKCON almost the moment Srila Prabhupada left His lotus form. It was preached that His Divine Grace would never leave but the actions of the society were, “He is gone and it’s ours now. This is your area and that is mine.”

It took me some time to firmly understand that this really was the mentality of the leadership. ISKCON was presenting the most sublime information that has ever entered into the western world, but the dissemination has been so poor.

As we finished up the exhibition our group of artists had less and less to do. We were asked by Srila Prabhupada to make deities for worship in the new temple in the Fiji Islands, Shree Krishna Kaliya temple. I was put to work making Their Lordships’ lotus bases.

After this we also made the Shree Pancha Tattva deities for the Laguna Beach Temple and Pandu Prabhu did a wonderful mural behind them of Shree Dham Mayapur landscape.

We then started to produce the murtis of Srila Prabhupada done by Lochan Prabhu, which are in almost every ISKCON temple today.

When Srila Prabhupada visited our studio, all the small scale-sized mark-ups of the exhibition were placed in the studio to show him. As he saw each small exhibition His Divine Grace would make his comments. When seeing the changing bodies diorama, Srila Prabhupada quoted the verse and said from boyhood to youth to old age the body changes but the soul does not.

“This is a universal problem, not a Christian one or a Muslim one. We all have this problem. So this is a science not a religion. We are showing how to stop this cycle of birth and death.”

Srila Prabhupada’s murti was placed in the far back of the studio and the murti was made to move its head up and look out a window. The exhibition was of Srila Prabhupada in his small room at Radha Damodara temple in Vrindavan, and from his room you could see the samadhi of Srila Rupa Goswami. It is within these rooms Srila Prabhupada wrote his Bhagavad Gita translations "As It is" and so the murti was made to move its head as if to look at Srila Rupa Goswami’s Samadhi.

Lochan Prabhu had placed it behind some partitions and when His Divine Grace first saw it, his expression was of total satisfaction and happiness. When the murti began to move his happiness seemed to increase by 100%. There is a photo of this in the archives.

Lochan then told Srila Prabhupada that we could make murtis of himself and place them on his Vyasasans and Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, this is good. Then I will never leave. I will always be with you.”

These few moments were one of the nicest memories I have of my time in His Divine Grace’s ISKCON.

We then showed Srila Prabhupada the work areas where the dresses were made and Srila Prabhupada saw some small angels on the wall in different sizes as they were to be placed into the universal form exhibition. “Who are they?” Srila Prabhupada asked. “They are Gandharvas, Srila Prabhupada.” His Divine Grace said, “No, Gandharvas do not have wings. They do not need wings to fly. Only Garuda has wings. He is unique in this.”

Wow! We got the information - angels have no wings! And those were the highlights of Srila Prabhupada’s tour of our studio.

[Jagat]

On my way to India

As the exhibition finished up, I was looking for more service to do. I wanted to leave and go to be with Srila Prabhupada in Vrindaban somehow. I learned the way one was given permission by a devotee Abhinanda Prabhu, which I have already written about before I was able to get the permission granted and after about five weeks was off to India.

It was arranged that I was to return to Radha Damodar party for collection of my fare to India and I was to go to Lousiville Kentucky and stay with Kavi Chandra Swami who managed a small preaching center in that place.

Kavi Chandra Maharaja was a wonderful person to be around He sent me out to the main street lights with sticks of incense and I approached cars asking them to take a stick of air fresher and please give a donation.

I would also give them a Back to Godhead or if they gave me a bill, a small book like "Krishna the Resevoir of Pleasure"or "Raja Vidya, the King of Knowledge," or "Easy Journey to Other Planets." These small books were distributed profusely by the devotees for years and years.

I remember when I was in Art School, one of our roommates home one night with "Easy Journey to Other Planets." He was all excited and showed me the book as he went into to his room. “Look at this book I just got!!” he told me. “Isn’t that fantastic !!! Leave me alone because I’m going to take an easy journey to other planets!” and he shut the door to his room.

After about an hour he returned to my room and threw Srila Prabhupada’s book at me and said, “It didn’t take me anywhere. You can have it. Maybe it will work for you.”

Well since then, and that was in the year 1971, we have been proceeding to all kinds of interesting places either directly or indirectly assisting Srila Prabhupada's mission, but yes, we are still here on this planet, at least for today.

Kavi Chandra Maharaja helped me in keeping track of the money I collected and one day he told me you now have enough money to buy a ticket to India. He gave me all the money and sent me off to NYC.

Just before that though, we were sent to assist Shravanananda Das, as he was preaching to the Indian community in a nearby place and we went for the kirtans. On hearing I was about to travel to India, one very nice Indian lady, a Miss Usha Gupta, gave me 100$ to help me out. I was very happy of course.

We proceeded to NYC and took shelter of Radha Govinda at Their Manhattan address. I spent about a week at the New York temple getting my passport and visas and then took a very cheap flight to London. We stayed at the Bury Place temple under the protection of Shree Shree Radha London Isvara.

This temple was donated to Srila Prabhupada by George Harrison. It was a 4 or 5 story row house down the street from the London Museum. As I told the devotees I was only there to purchase ticket to India, they told me the price was about 250 quid. “What? Quid?”

“Yes, about 260 dollars one way. But you will be cheated, so I will take you.” This very nice devotee took me to at least 20 travel agents in the Piccadilly area and got me the cheapest ticket we could find.

The atmosphere in the temple was always one of a large family I was told of a story by the London devotees.

Once there was this Indian gentleman who would come and sit very quietly in the back of the temple everyday for the morning greeting of the Deities.

No one gave him much attention. When it came time for prasad he would insist on serving all the devotees and taking prasad only after all the devotees had taken their fill. He would also insist on washing up the prasad area the pots and pans in Shree Shree Radha London Isvara’s kitchen. Then he would leave and come back the next day.

Each day he would do the same thing and this went on for about a week at the end of that time he introduced himself to the devotees. He was Dr Kapoor, the godbrother of Srila Prabhupada. He was in London on a visit was very happy to be able to see the temple, serve the devotees and Their Lordships.

I was quite taken aback. One should be very careful, I thought, how one treats the worshipers in the temple. They are the guests of the deities and we are their humble servants. We are distributing Their Lordships’ prasad on behalf of Srila Prabhupada’s Srila Guru Maharaj.

Soon I was on my way to India in shaved head and bramachari dress. I arrived in England in western clothes, but left in devotee dress. The plane set down in Kuwait and we spend a few hours among the Arab Kuwaitis, with each one addressing me with “Salam aleikum. How come you are dressed like a Hindu?” They were mild, but very surprised that a Westerner had become a Hindu. How strange. How odd. Why, why, why?

The waiting room was just that, a large square room with maybe five hundred men in white robes with loops around their heads on one side and about the same amount of women all dressed in black woollen robes. And in the middle, a bald-headed saffron-dressed Pita Das.

It was comforting to get back onto that plane. There must have been other Westerners, but I certainly can’t remember any now.

As the sun rose, we arrived in India. And as the morning light started to make the object of Bombay visible, I could see that a huge number of people were already up and about. It seemed the whole city was early risers, but I couldn’t understand then that this was just a small minority of a giant population that infested this living space then known as Bombay.

When the sun had completely risen, I arrived at our ISKCON Temple, Hare Krishna Land, and the taxi took me to the back of the property. I gave the driver a 20 rupee note for a ten rupee fare and he laughed and thanked me for my tip. I was told later that it was a very good tip, but it didn’t matter. I was finally there.

The sound of sellers and crows cawing is what I first remember. My first thought was that I had come all this way to stay at a construction site within a huge slum.

This material image very quickly faded as I met the first devotees and was warmly welcomed. I was told to come quickly to see greet Srila Prabhupada as His Divine Grace was preparing to leave for Vrindaban.

I don’t want to describe this part of my story again, as seeing Srila Prabhupada then was quite painful. It was a very sad experience; it was as if we were saying goodbye to His Divine Grace. We felt that Srila Prabhupada was to leave us. We didn’t understand then that Srila Prabhupada was such a great yogi, such a great devotee, that he would enter our hearts and never leave us. We had so little faith.

We chased Srila Prabhupada’s car down the road until we could run no longer. I became very depressed. It seemed that my newly found spiritual life was falling apart, but very soon the reassurances of the devotees and the nice service I was given, raised my spirits and enlivened me again. The service I was given was a fine one: I joined the Bhaktivendanta Book Trust library party.

I had come to be with Srila Prabhupada, but to do this I was first given a service to do in an Indian temple.

On my first day I meet Garga Muni Swami who was in charge of the party. He was very kind to all of us and all of the devotees on the party liked and respected him as they all told me Garga Muni always takes care of us. I was happy to be with him.

On my first meeting with Garga Muni Maharaja, he told me: “These temples are maya for you brahmacharis. So I want you to fill the vans full of books and go out at once to the libraries and sell them. You never need to return except to get more books.”

He then told me that just a few days before, he had prepared a large map of India with different colored pins representing the numbers of full sets of Srila Prabhupada’s books that had been distributed. He had taken it to show Srila Prabhupada. When Srila Prabhupada understood how many books the chart represented, he starting to cry, thanking Garga Muni.

With a heavy heart, Garga Muni also confided that Srila Prabhupada had gone to Vrindaban to leave his body. “I cannot stay in ISKCON without Srila Prabhupada,” he said.

The sum total of his greeting was thus: “Happy that you made it here. I’m leaving the temple. I’ll let you in on a secret: the essence is to stay away from the temples and just travel preach and distribute Srila Prabhupada’s books far and wide.”

Many things happened that first day. The devotees almost went on strike, wanting to leave Bombay en masse to go to Vrindaban. “We should all go. Why are we staying here?”

And Gopal Krishna tried to convince us to just carry on, that to serve Srila Prabhupada’s mission was higher than associating with Srila Prabhupada personally. So we mostly went back to our service.

In few days, Garga Muni left and didn’t return. Palika Dasi took over the management of the party as she had been Garga Muni’s secretary. She sent us what we needed on the road. I was placed with a group of devotees and we drove north in to Gujarat and started the library work.

[Jagat]

About one week after arriving in India, we were out distributing His Divine Grace’s books, all the time praying for Lord Nrisingha Deva to, if He wished, please save Srila Prabhupada, to please keep him with us.

As the sankirtan began we learned how to approach the librarians and present Srila Prabhupada’s complete works to them, which we called a “Standing Order.” It was a wonderful service and we managed to sell so many of Srila Prabhupada’s books.

The group of devotees I was with became my best friends and they are still the main prabhujis with whom I am closest. The benefit these prabhus have given me in friendship and association really seems to be eternal. I pay my obeisances to all of them.

Matunga Prabhu now lives with his sweet wife in Malibu and he has a very nice family that he has led in Krishna consciousness.

Birsingha Prabhu took sannyas a few years back and is now known as Narasingha Maharaj. Narasingha Maharaj has not changed a bit over the years always fixed in distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books. A few years back I ran into him on a very hot (and I mean hot!) Bangkok afternoon. There was Maharaj in sannyas dress, carrying a large book bag and going from shop to shop. He is still doing the same and recently asked me to join him to start preaching in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. He is not called Narasingha Maharaja for nothing. He is fearless to go anywhere to serve His Divine Grace and give Srila Prabhupada in book form.

I also recently saw another library party godbrother, Abhinanda Prabhu, who is now back in Shree Vrindavan Dham with our old leader, Garga Muni. Mahaman Prabhu is temple president of Shree Shree Krishna Balaram Mandir and Bhima, also one of our library party godbrothers, is president of Hare Krishna Land, Mumbai.

There were also Maha Vishnu Maharaj and Prabhavishnu Maharaj, who together have made such a wonderful temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, for Srila Prabhupada that after one visits there one thinks that here, the old mood has never been affected. This is because of Mahavishnu and Prabhavishnu Maharaj’s great service to Srila Prabhupada for so many years. The small group of devotees there show all the good qualities of fine Vaishnavas.

Before re-entering Shree Vrindavan Dham, I enjoy visiting this temple first, staying there for at least a week’s time in order to wash off the Chinese dust and the materialism I have had to associate with while there.

Then there is Chanura Prabhu, my dearest friend, whom we would jokingly call Frenchie when we first met. Chanura hails from France and in those days had a very strong French accent. From the day we first met twenty-five years ago to this day we are in almost constant contact. Chanu is now in Korea where he has been for almost as many years as I have been in China.
Then there was Mathura Das. Mathura was also a very sweet associate, always engaged in kirtan and preparing very nice prasad for the devotees to relish. Whoever was fortunate enough to have Mathura on his party knew there would always be nice prasad to honor and sweet kirtan to partake in.

Unfortunately, I have not seen Mathura over the years, but have heard that he is constantly going back and forth from India to the UK looking for nice sadhus to associate with, kirtan to join, and prasad to prepare and distribute.

We also met Satya Narayan Prabhu, but not long after arriving at Hare Krishna Land he was sent to Thailand, Bali and Jakarta to sell to the libraries there. Years later, when Satya Narayan Prabhu and I were both working for Srila Prabhupada’s Charity Trust, he would send me to meet Srila Sridhar Maharaj and later to also meet Srila Narayana Maharaj on "official ISKCON business." He told me, “I want you to meet them so you can have their blessings.” I hold these short meetings very closely to my heart and reflect on them often, like great gifts that never go away.

Satya Narayan emailed me just a few weeks ago that the ceremony for the installation of Srila Ananta Deva has just taken place in Bali where he is sponsoring the construction of one of many temples that our godbrother Gaura Mandal Bhumi is building there. This wonderful devotee Gaura Mandal Bhumi has single-handedly translated all of Srila Prabhupada’s books into the Indonesian language, printed them and there are now over a thousand initiated devotees there. He has been able to build a very nice temple in Bali for only $8,000 because of the Indonesian currency’s devaluation. With the strong American dollar, it goes a very long way.

At the time of our arriving in Bombay, however, no one was in Indonesia preaching Krishna Consciousness. There was only one lady writing to our Indian BBT asking us to come.

We also had the association of Jaya Prabhu, who no one seem to like as he was a bit loud and large but he showed us his love and dedication and we all had to respect him.

Later Sriman Kundali Prabhu also joined our party, coming in just after the Iranian revolution.

I was just like a flea among so many advanced godbrothers and with their advice and association I was shown what devotional service in India was to be like.

Our party was divided into teams of five men each. The team I was on went north into Gujarat. We visited the towns of Baroda, Bharuch, Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar, Somnath, Porbandar, Jamnagar and Dwarka. We also found a place known as Chota Uddaripur.

It was very captivating seeing the people of Gujarat in their daily lives, which in those days rang with the greeting of “Jai Shree Krishna!”

We slept in all kinds of places -- from barns to temples of the Goddess Durga. Sometimes we stayed in guest houses and tourist bungalows (“Gujarati five-star”), but these were very few and far between. We also slept on the porches of rich men’s homes that these pious men offered to us out of charity.

Each morning we would always rise at 5 a.m., have mangal arati and chant our rounds as the Sun rose. We would then prepare kriti fruit and papadams, have Srimad Bhagavatam readings and class, and worship His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada, bowing down to his lotus feet and asking for his mercy on us to continue on.

By Srila Prabhupada’s mercy we were very successful and everyone seemed to want the books we were selling. Almost everyone took a book; we were really distributing.

After travelling for a few weeks I understood that even if all the temples in ISKCON were to go away, one would always able to take shelter in any number of numerous places to preach the glories of Shree Shree Guru and Gauranga.

We visited the places where both Lord Krishna and Lord Balaram left this planet. We saw the place where Srimati Tulasi Devi and Shree Shalagram Shila were married. We visited Muchukunda's cave in Giri Mountain, the same mountain that Krishna and Balaram jumped from. In Somnath we saw a major temple to Lord Shiva, Somnath, and travelled on to Dwarka.

Then one day Mathura and I received a very mystical communication from an old sadhu sitting in the gateway of a Hanumanji temple. "What are you doing here?" he asked us. "Your Guru Maharaj is about to leave his body. Go to him.”

“Yes, you are right.” I said and looked at Mathura. We turned around left that temple and went at once back to the devotees telling them that we had to go at once to be with Srila Prabhupada.

That was two weeks before Srila Prabhupada departed because of the mercy of this sadhu I was able to be with Srila Prabhupada those last few days. These last few days with Srila Prabhupada were very sweet and Srila Prabhupada showed that he was completely transcendental to the material situation.

His Divine Grace showed us how to leave one body, surrounded by his disciples all chanting the Holy Name. The last few sweet memories of his association become sweeter with time and are like a wealth we try to share. Srila Prabhupada’s awareness and intellect were never defeated.

His Divine Grace would often comment on the wonderful nature of the Vrindavan atmosphere. There was a painting of Shree Radha Krishna and one of Shree Krishna Balaram at His lotus feet and Srila Prabhupada would speak about their Lordships.

After Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance, ISKCON changed quickly, but at first we did not notice very much. If you place a frog in a pot of cool water and gradually turn on a flame, it never understands that the heat is cooking him. It will not protest or jump from the pot, and so it was like this with myself after Srila Prabhupada left. I continued on and I am still trying to continue on sweeping my dirty heart, for I know that if I stop I will never be able to cleanse it.

Haribol, Prabhujis! More later.

[Pita das]

Dear Jagat Prabhu,
Hare Krishna!Please acceapt my humble obeisances!All Glories to Shree Shree Guru and Gouranga!
I just found this ,thank you in assiting me to hand out Srila Prabhupada's Gulubjammons to all the assembled bhaktas
your illiterate
Servant
Pita das

------------------
Pita das

[Jagat]

Maybe it was two days after His Divine Grace re-entered Shree Shree Radha and Krishna’s eternal pastimes that I was to understand what our godbrothers were planning.

During the two weeks with Srila Prabhupada His Divine Grace had made it very clear that no one person was to be the Acharya of His ISKCON. I heard Srila Prabhupada tell them: “Of my disciples, no one has my qualities.” When he looked at this or that disciple, he could see some of his qualities and when he looked at them all together certainly there was some percentage, so he had SOME faith that the movement would go on. The test of our love would be shown how well we worked together. This was clearly the main instruction.

The "I am not appointing any one person as acharya" announcement came maybe four days before His Divine Grace’s departure. There were many clearly unhappy godbrothers in the room after that talk. The air was thick with an anti-climactic crescendo. Even I, who was perhaps the least knowledgeable of anyone, could understand this.

We had heard Srila Prabhupada previously tell our godbrothers during many long discussions that if they had philosophical questions about the process of accepting disciples after he had departed, they should approach Sridhar Maharaj and for answers on how to conduct his samadhi arrangements, they should approach Narayan Maharaj.

Then two days after His Divine Grace’s Samadhi there was an ishtagoshti in the temple that was attended by HH Narayan Maharaja and Paramahamsa Akinchana Krishna Das Babaji.

Jayadwaita asked a question of Narayan Maharaja, “How can we understand that our godbrothers are now nikunja-yuno rati-keli-siddhyai, intimately assisting the gopis in the pastimes of Radha Krishna's loving exchanges?”

The answer was that godbrothers who were not accepting disciples would not see this, but that the disciples of these godbrothers had to. In my opinion, this was the exact instant that the flame was lit under the frog.

A few days later, the temple authorities said that those devotees who had not received second intiation would have to accept a godbrother as Guru.

I saw my old friend Jayadwaita on the side of the Krishna Balaram Temple and said, “This is crazy. What’s going on? How could anyone accept any one but Srila Prabhupada? I am His Divine Grace’s initiated disciple (A sacred thread chanted on by Srila Prabhupada had been sent to Ramesvara with my name on it.)

Jayadwaita said to me, “This is the guru parampara.”

“Could you do it?” I asked. “You know them. Now I must leave ISKCON and take shelter of Narayan Maharaj.”

“No, no, you cannot do this. Prabhupada said we must show our love for him by working cooperatively.”

It's very hard from this point not to be political, because from here on, practically day by day, the flame under the frog was turned up more and more. I will try to just recount the sweetest times.

I stayed in Shree Vrindavan Dham for a month after Srila Prabhupada’s Samadhi. I was assigned the libraries in the Mathura District to visit and each day I would hire a rickshaw to take me into Mathura and then drive me back afterwards.

I remember one day as I was leaving a school a lady approached me to please come and speak some good lessons to her daughter. “Please convince her to join your Hare Krishna Hare Rama society.”

I agreed and when we got to their very nice house here was this young lady, born in Mathura and stoned out. She had gone to school in New Delhi and had gotten into pills of some kind and many other kinds of drugs. And this was the only topic she was interested in talking about. What kind of drugs have you taken before?

It was quite useless talking to her, but her mother kept pleading with me to please help her. She would plead with her daughter, “Darling, they were all like you. They were drug users and now they only want Krishna. Please go there.” But the girl had no interest in Vrindavan. As soon as her holiday was over, she was going back to Delhi to party.
As soon as I left that house, my Rickshaw Prabhu and I were back in the Dham.

Off we went to another university, singing Hare Krishna back and forth. If I sang an ISKCON tune, Rickshaw Prabhuji could not follow, but as soon as I remembered a Vrindavan one, we were very happily powered on Harinam all the way back to Raman Reti.

In the evening we would visit the many temples in Shree Vrindavan and hear kirtan going on in so many places. Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhu, who had just arrived in Vrindavan that summer, knew a kirtan routine of the temples. He knew exactly where to be and at what time in the evening to hear the nicest kirtan. He took me to the Radha Raman temple at a certain time when very expert devotee would sing sweet bhajans at the back of the darshan area. We also went to the small Mira Bai temple, all covered in green vines inside, take darshan and hear more sweet nectar of the Holy Name.

That month in Vrindavan I would often walk chanting japa down the cowherd path to the Yamuna. As I walked through the sandy trees and groves of the path, I would always see peacocks amongst the trees on either side of the path. One day I stopped and prayed to one peacock for his blessings to be born in Shree Vrindavan Dham to view the activities of Krishna and Balaram. I considered this peacock must be a great saintly personality and I was sure he did bless me.

After this month in Vraja, our devotee group of book distributors was reformed and sent back across India to Gujarat, this time to Surashtra. We visited places where the people told us white persons hadn’t been there since the British left India and now we had returned in the dress of Sadhus!!!

When we entered a town, it was like we were famous movie stars. A large crowd would surround the van every time we arrived, but when we went for sankirtan on rickshaw, no one took much notice.

Every day it seemed we were in a different town. Some were wonderful and some not so nice, but we spent the same time in each place, as our only business was to distribute Srila Prabhupada’s books and go on to the next town.

Once we visited a very large and newly constructed temple of Lord Shiva. This temple was the main overpowering structure within the whole town and Lord Shiva was known as Somnath, as it was not so far from the famous Somnath temple. We entered Lord Shiva’s Temple and were given water to offer and I commented to one of the pujaris how large the Shiva linga was. It was about five feet tall and there was a large crack on the side. The pujari told us a story of the temple:

A long while ago, the king of the land was nastika, an atheist. His queen, however, was a very great devotee of Lord Shiva. One day when walking in the woods the queen saw a cow and wondered what a cow was doing within the woods approached it only to see from her udder milk was pouring and dripping onto a small Shiva Lingam. The queen bowed down and began to worship the Shiva Lingam, returning each day until one day the king followed her. Seeing his wife worshipping Shiva Lingam he became enraged and drew his sword and smashed it. When he did this, the Lingam grew to this size and so we have now built this temple here.

We all respectfully agreed that was an amazing story and very respectfully left the temple.

After a few days, we also visited another temple about 20 kilometers away. This was a temple to Gopal Shree Nathaji. When the pujari came to greet us he also had a story of how Shree Nathji had been placed in that temple. His story went, “A long time ago, there was a king and he was a atheist, but his queen was a very good devotees of Shree Nathaji.” We heard this story in about ten places. After a while, we would laugh as soon as they started and say we had already heard the story, but the temple was very sweet anyway.

In one temple we had kirtan in front of the Deities and many persons came into the temple to join us. After the kirtan they told us, “You danced in front of Krishna! One time many years ago an old sadhu came here and chanted and danced like this also.”

Outside of Somnath we met a Brahmin Pujari who insisted we all go with him to his home and so the whole group of us did. This Brahmin wanted us to meet his older brother and it was a very special afternoon. Their family had lived in the same house for 700 years and in front of the house there was a small temple of Lakshmi Devi. This was their family temple, which was also the same age.

Each day their family would distribute prasad from this temple to the poor and the older brother was a palmist and astrologer. He looked at each of our hands and told us you will all have good lives and nothing else. He then lead us in kirtan which lasted hours starting with Om na mo bha ga va te va su de va ya drawn out very long and slowly so we could hear and taste the transcendental sound vibration and very very gradually building the tempo to a ISKCON type speed and then back again and again and again. In 25 years I have never forgotten the melody. I am completely captivated by the tune even today.

When in America leading kirtans in the home of our Gujarati members in Houston, I would sing this nice Brahmin tune and these devotees would tell me that that kind of method of kirtan was the traditional tunes that their grandfathers would sing.

From this place we visited Porbandar, famous as Gandhi’s hometown. We visited his ashram in that city, but they would not take Srila Prabhupada’s books. They wanted us to join their ashram so they could teach us the teaching of Gandhi. Of Gandhi, Srila Prabhupada would say, “Among politicians he was a saint, and among saints he was a politician.”


[This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 07-20-2001).]

[Jagat]

Dear Pitaji,

Your servant, Jagat