19840924 Śrīla Prabhupāda Nectar

The following is a discussion by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on September 24th, 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia. His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami is discussing Śrīla Prabhupāda nectar.

Jayapatākā Swami: Our temple in Calcutta is on 3 Albert Road, at the Queen Victoria Square and Prabhupāda said that that is the part of Calcutta that when he was a boy was known as the sahib quarter or the area where the British used to stay. In fact the owner of that house used to be a knight, he was knighted by the King of England and down the road is Lord… Sir Lord Sinha Road, or Lord Sinha Road. That is where all the totally Indian gentlemen who had become English nobles or English knights or whatever were and where all English people would stay. So he used to say, tell us how he used to drive through there on his bicycle. He would go and look at the houses when he was a boy. Before that Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying that normally that area, it was like an exclusive area and only the very elite people would stay, so he used to go through on his bicycle. So now we have our temple here, it is nice. He would sometimes make a joke, staying in the sahib quarter. The English people were called sahib.

Then Śrīla Prabhupāda also told us that when he was a boy, that sometimes when they would come to the Maidan – in the center of Calcutta like in New York there is Central Park, the center of Calcutta there is the big Maidan or a big… like a park, it is all grass, and that park is under the control of Fort William which is the army base. It is a very beautiful, very big park, it must be about seven miles long by two or three miles wide – quite large, at least 20-30 city blocks long. Goes from the side of the Ganges to the… it’s now known as… it was the Chowringee Road, now known as something else. So along that stretch, Prabhupāda said sometime his father would have him walk to save the tram fare which used to be five paise. So then they would walk and he remembered walking along the Maidan as a child with his father. And he also told us that at that time there was King George… actually it came because we were following caturmāsya one year – Bhavānanda Mahārāja, myself, Acyutānanda Swami, Garga Muni Swami – the four of us were following caturmāsya, so were eating just once a day, we were doing the austerities, chanting 64 rounds, so we also let our hair and beard grow. So then he saw Bhavānanda and he said, “You look just like King George!” And then everyone laughed like that and he said, “No, I have seen.” and he went on to explain that when he was in school at that time King George, I forget what number, King George the fifth or something – the fifth? He came to India, went by ship and came all the way to India and at that time their capital was in Calcutta, I still believe… still in Calcutta I believe. When he came there they had all the school children line up alongside the road. And then he remembers that he saw King George go by in his limousine, open air, amidst cheering and everything, then he was a schoolboy. Then he said, he looked just like Bhavānanda Mahārāja. Then he said that on that occasion they also gave a box lunch to all the children at school. Samosa and some sweet, everyone got a little box to commemorate the arrival of King George the Fifth to Calcutta.

If you see the old pictures of Calcutta, in Calcutta one-time Prabhupāda went to see the Victoria Memorial and we went with him. And there they had the pictures of Calcutta as it was in the 1800’s and the same buildings are still there. (laughter) A lot of them! Not all of them. But at that time, they were very stable and even now they are a little bit run down but that time they were very stately buildings and very well maintained. And they had all the horses and buggies and everything – quite a thriving place. Now in Calcutta they constructed a memorial for Queen Victoria calling it the Victoria Memorial and that is in the middle of that Maidan in Calcutta. 170 feet high, solid marble. Something like the Taj Mahal but not quite so big or exclusive. See, regarding Calcutta those are the main things I can remember that Prabhupāda said.

One thing that he said one day, he was giving class in Calcutta and he told the devotees in Calcutta, he said that “I don’t know how you are doing it, that how you are able to remain here in Calcutta, this is all Kṛṣṇa’s mercy because even I find it difficult or even I can’t remain here, I have to travel.” Something like that. He made a little joke out of it. Then he said “Because you are… this is my birthplace city and you are here, you are getting ten thousand times the credit for doing devotional service here than anywhere else… than if you were back in your own country.” Then he actually said, I cannot even remain here but you are taking this austerity because Calcutta is very crowded now, quite a change for someone from the West. And actually he was very moved but he was very thankful that the devotees were taking the austerity of remaining in Calcutta and Bengal and helping him to revitalize the saṅkīrtana movement in its original place.

Then in Calcutta the first thing that happened, Prabhupāda sent Acyutānanda Swami who was in Calcutta and Śrīla Prabhupāda… I had started the Toronto center and then Jagadīśa dāsa Adhikārī had come up and we mutually decided that he could be the president. Then I wrote to Prabhupāda if he had another service because I had already started that temple and it was going nicely. There was the president. So I could go and open a new temple or I could do anything he wanted. Or I could stay there, whatever he wanted. So he wrote back and said, “I want you to go to India, to Calcutta. Please come and see me.” So then I flew to Los Angeles to get instructions from Śrīla Prabhupāda. At that time, Śrīla Prabhupāda, Śrīla Prabhupāda called me in his room and read to me some of the letters from Acyutānanda dāsa brahmacārī and he said that he has the place, so you can go. Then by the time I reached there, that is what he said in his letter. But come and expla… In the meantime another letter came from Acyutānanda dāsa brahmacārī at that time that he was still staying in the Gauḍīya Maṭha in Satish Mukherjee Avenue in Bhawanipura, Calcutta, southern part of Calcutta. And then Prabhupāda said that “I don’t want you to go until we have our own place.” It was very cryptic, I mean, he said “I will explain everything to you but just before you go.” He didn’t want to explain until I was ready to go. And I had two or three meetings with Prabhupāda in his quarters in Los Angeles. I remember in the second meeting he read this letter, something that his Godbrothers had said or something and I remember his servant was Devānanda dāsa, maybe he was a Swami I am not sure at that time, I don’t think so. So Devānanda, he said that I think that your Godbrothers are envious and then it struck me funny you know, being a very simple just being here in the West, it seemed very unusual to me that how could a Godbrother be envious or something like that. And then sure enough, Prabhupāda blasted him and said “They are my Godbrothers, you have no right to question them or criticize them, they are my Godbrothers.” And then I thought that right, it is confirmed. He was off by saying that, it sounded unusual to me.

Then Prabhupāda said “I am not going to send you to India now because they don’t have their own place. Until they have their own place…” So that time Bhagavān Mahārāja was… Bhagavān dāsa Adhikārī was going from Detroit to open up a center in Chicago. So then Prabhupāda said I could go to Chicago and help him open up that center and then he would call me when it was time to go to India. So then we had that adventurous ride with Rūpānuga Prabhu where the car didn’t stay on the road near Albuquerque in Mexico . Anyway, somehow I reached Chicago and then Prabhupāda sent me a telegram, “Please call.” So I phoned Śrīla Prabhupāda up and I got the message that you go immediately to India to Calcutta, they have their own place, you don’t have to come back and get any information from Prabhupāda, it is alright, Garga Muni gave me that message. So then I never got the briefing that Prabhupāda said he was going to give me, what to watch out for – I think it was because Garga Muni did not want to spend the money or something, ha! To send me back to Los Angeles. Frugal temple president serving conserving his finance. Anyway, Śrīla Prabhupāda had a fund and he sent me from his own fund money to go to India and I raised a little more.

So finally, I got to Calcutta and unfortunately, we didn’t have a separate residence as Śrīla Prabhupāda had wanted. We were still staying in this Gauḍīya Maṭha in the temple of Prabhupāda’s Godbrother, Bhakti Daiyīta Mādhava Mahārāja. And they treated me very nicely and I stayed there for two months. But Prabhupāda kept writing us letters, furious that immediately we have to get another place. Daily Harināma and immediately get another place and move out of there and have your own place. As soon as you have your own place I am coming. And then Prabhupāda flew to Japan and he kept writing from there, saying, “Where’s…” Finally, we found a place in Lake Road… Lake View Road, something like that near Rasbehari Avenue in south Calcutta. It was a very nice house built by a doctor, it was a three-story house and he had never lived there, it was brand new. So he said that “If sadhus live in my house you can stay there for free for six months, saying that if Kṛṣṇa conscious devotees stay there my house will be blessed. So you can stay there.” So he gave it to us free of rent. Actually, for the first year and half in Calcutta I did not pay any rent. People always gave us houses free which are probably historic. Neither did we pay for any food to speak of, most of it was donated.

So when we had a new place we telexed Prabhupāda and he said that he would be coming and so prepared for his arrival, I visited all the newspapers, just Acyutānanda dāsa and myself. Acyutānanda dāsa went to all the Godbrothers of Prabhupāda to invite them to come and meet him at the airport. So he told me that he couldn’t get anyone to agree to come. So that was very unusual. So then I also invited one or two and I invited one Mahārāja on the stairs from one temple and he said, “Yes, I will go and greet my Godbrother, why not?” And then some gṛhastha disciple of one of Prabhupāda’s Godbrothers, came up to him and said, “You can't go, he is your junior sannyāsī, he took sannyāsa after you did. Five years, you can’t go and greet him.” So then he was all intimidated by this. So we couldn’t actually get any of Prabhupāda’s Godbrothers to go to the airport. It was unusual for us, I couldn’t understand it. I had always noticed the difference that when Prabhupāda spoke it seemed to just earth shattering and immediately penetrate the heart and when I heard his Godbrothers speak it was very interesting and I could feel like a little tingle like a little something but it was just never the same, never had that same overwhelming presence of the spiritual world as I would expect, that was my own subjective experience. But this was completely bewildering to me. So then we all went to the airport to meet Prabhupāda. We had truck loads of Harināma kīrtana groups, we had newspaper men, the colonel who was in charge of that Fort Williams, he was in charge of the reception, so he arranged that Prabhupāda did not have to go through immigration or customs. They picked him up right from the airplane by car and drove him to the VIP lounge where he gave a press conference – a returning celebrity, a returning ambassador of Indian culture; they gave him the royal reception.

All the big dignitaries came, and the people greeted him and we did a kīrtana and reception. Prabhupāda looked around and saw that there were some of his Godbrothers’ disciples but no Godbrother was present. And one of the Godbrothers had… If you don’t know the name, later, I’ll tell you, but I’ll just leave it out for the sake… but one of the Godbrothers said, invited that we will give a reception for Prabhupāda in our temple and we will have a feast ready. He should drive right up to our temple, and we will give a reception there. It sounded like a very nice thing. But the Godbrothers themselves did not come to meet Prabhupāda at the airport. They sent their disciples. So then we told Prabhupāda and Prabhupāda looked very stern.

We had a big American car for him to ride in and then behind we had all these trucks of kīrtana devotees. So we had like a procession into the town. So Prabhupāda jumped into the car and Śrīla Bhaktipāda was with Prabhupāda, if I am correct, I think it was Bhaktipāda, yes. Somehow Bhaktipāda just took the steering wheel and Prabhupāda said go and I was arranging with the press and everything and next thing I know Bhaktipāda was behind the steering wheel and ready to take off. I didn’t even know, you know… so I could just, you know… Prabhupāda, swish… had to run and jump and get into the car at the last minute. So then I told this to Śrīla Prabhupāda. He said, “We will not go there, take us directly to our house.” We could not understand the intricacies and Prabhupāda was just very silent, very stern, I said “We have this kīrtana par…” but he was very – very grave at that time, never saw Prabhupāda so intense up to that point, as I had seen then. It was a new experience. So then we drove him right straight to the Lake… Lake Road house.

He liked the house, all brand new, we had a little room set up for him with an attached bath. Then Prabhupāda said, “They wanted me to go directly to their temple so then they would take the credit that they had sent me to preach all over the world. If they were sincere, they would have come and met me at the airport and requested me to also visit their temple.” But they sat in their temple and did not come to get me. This is very intricate. What this means it would appear that I was going and reporting back to them and they would publish that they had sent me and now I was going back to them. Therefore, I will not go there; you go there and accept some prasad and we will take some. (laughter) So this is my first introduction to intricacies of Indian sādhu etiquette and different higher level kind of spiritual intrigues, being very simple. I once asked Śrīla Prabhupāda “What should we do when we meet sannyāsīs? In India I mean there will be so many sannyāsīs, what should I do?” You know I was very… I wanted to do the proper thing, the proper etiquette.

He wrote back, “You should bow down.”

“Even if he is a Māyāvādī?”

“Yes, go ahead. Just don’t listen to them.”

So… but this was pretty high-level intrigue, but any way Prabhupāda guided us through and then that night and any way just being two brahmacārīs together in India, Acyutānanada dāsa and myself, you know sometimes in India taking sannyāsa and preaching, these things are very prominent. In the West there are other things which are more prominent but there because of environment it is a very good field for preaching and people are more receptive from the renounced order of life. So we were thinking that sometime possibly Śrīla Prabhupāda would ask us to take sannyāsa or whether he would or not because he had told me once when my temple president, this was another thing, any way I won’t distract you… I can say that. Once my temple president, that time my temple president was Haṁsadūta dāsa and his wife was Himāvatī and I was the bhakta in the temple. And Himāvatī was trying to get all the, not only the brahmacārīs but even the bhaktas married. So that time I was quite determined to be Kṛṣṇa conscious, and I wasn’t hundred percent sure that being married was actually what I should be doing. I wasn’t closed to the idea but at the same time it was more or less being pushed on me. So I was kind of upset and I came in tears to Prabhupāda and asked him “What should I do? They are trying to pressure me, this wife of the president.” And he said, “No, you tell her that it is my order that you cannot be married. The system in India is you wait till you are 25 and the guru decides, at the age of 25, he decides which direction the brahmacārī should go. So you wait till you are 25 and then I will decide.”

Up until then you will be hands off! So I was relieved that I did not have to get married. So we were thinking that maybe Prabhupāda would ask us because we knew he said you can get first and second initiations, you have to ask for that but sannyāsī you have to be asked. So he called Acyutānanada das in his quarters and at that time we were all asleep, it was 10 o clock but I was you know, listening. I heard Prabhupāda shouting at him. First, I thought he is calling him in to get sannyāsa, I didn’t know, it didn’t seem like that he was getting sannyāsa and it sounded like Prabhupāda was very angry. I didn’t know what was actually happening. I could hear in bits and pieces. Something about a letter, something about Brahmānanda, something about Godbrothers, couldn’t really pick it all together that time. But I knew one thing that it didn’t seem he was getting sannyāsa! So then the next morning, I think it was the next morning, Prabhupāda, he called us in and at time he explained to us that – in the meantime I heard from other Godbrothers that there was something happening in New Vṛndāvana, that some of our sannyāsīs had gone a little bit crazy, they had been affected by Māyāvādī philosophy and so on and that Prabhupāda was very upset – so then Prabhupāda explained that, well he said that Acyutānanda is – I don’t know if Acyutānanda was in the room at that time or not, he might have been, but I don’t remember – but he explained that he was – he picked up some criticism or something and he wrote that in a letter to one of the sannyāsīs in America, one of the devotees in America and as a result of that poison they became affected and they actually developed the Māyāvādī philosophy and so Prabhupāda was actually testing Acyutānanda to see if he was really into it and he said that he was innocent. But he was like a carrier, like a person carries a disease, by inadvertently repeating something which was envious, that he actually was a carrier and through him this poison had come and affected those four people. Of course, Prabhupāda corrected everything. So it was… Pretty much the first two days it was pretty intense but after that it was very nice.

We had programs in south Calcutta near Gariahatta and in Jadavpuranda all over Calcutta; Prabhupāda went and did these programs. One program we had this big car, it was a Dodge 56, was given by a life member that we could drive it and then Kīrtanānanda Swami used to drive the Dodge in Calcutta. It was a very big car and in Calcutta it was very crowded, so you drive a big car like that it is quite – had a very good suspension though – you were kind of floating. When we go over the bumps it seemed like we were floating. It was – I forget the name of the group – but it was a very distinguished group who met every two weeks – like Rotary Alliance but it was not that type of a… that type of a syndicate group, it was one specific group of high class, exclusive citizens of Calcutta but mostly businessmen, right near the corner of what was known as Esplanade – which is a… like kind of real hustle and bustle central part of Calcutta, up on the second floor.

So there, there was a big program and Prabhupāda spoke and at time he inaugurated life membership in India. He said we were going to have a program, you can visit our temples all over the world and you can come and stay there, and he inaugurated that you pay 1,111 rupees, Kṛṣṇa, God is one! You give 1,111. So everyone liked that and about three or four people right on the spot, they became life members. And that was a lot of money in those days 1,111 rupees and I remember that there was actually a struggle who would be first because whoever would be first would be the number one life member. In fact even to this day one of the life members who is number 2 he tried to get it changed to be number 1. But when number 1 heard about it then he became very upset. So then, you know, Prabhupāda was very happy to accept their donations and he issued the first life memberships and then there was a big feast and this is the first time… normally we would only eat the temple prasāda but this time he said no, because they have become life members and for preaching, all vegetarian of course, he said we can eat the vegetarian feast. And I remember Prabhupāda was sitting at the head and devotees on one side and people who were new life members and other dignitaries were on the other side and it was a very wonderful gathering.

So that was basically the highlight I remember of how the Calcutta preaching started. Then Prabhupāda went to Bombay and later on he came back and then in May, 1971 he arrived there in August 1970 and in May 1971 at that time when Calcutta was the time of what they called the United Front, they had a coalition government of the Leftist parties. At that time the Leftist parties they weren’t very cohesive and there was a lot of violence and the Naxals… at that time there was the Naxal movement of Marxists, Leninists and radical revolutionaries who were on the rampage because the scenario in Calcutta was that every day there was fourteen or twelve murders. They picked out businessmen, big politicians, all over eastern India, especially in Bengal, especially in Calcutta area but even in Jamshedpur and it was spread out, very rampant. And where I… where we were living in north Calcutta in a very sensitive area, it was Jatindra Mohan Avenue near Vidhan Street which is just in the heart of a very crowded area of Calcutta and in all alleys and lanes in India there were political activists.

So on the street at that time, there were sand bags put up by the police and they would be sitting there with their guns and they… actually would just be holding… when you went by at night you have to raise your arms and walk by with your hands in the air. And right below our window we often saw that from one side of the road one group of political gang almost you know, would come and they would carrying small athletic bags filled with bombs and from the other side they would come and like have a snow ball fight. They would throw the bomb and the bomb would hit the street and people would spin off and the bomb would explode and then they would get up and throw one and run with more bombs and the guy would carry, like a mad scientist kind of guy, and sometimes they would get hit and then the police would come, usually long after everything was over, but sometime they come. One time they came and they were chasing a boy into the alley and we heard gun shots and we saw them drag out his body. So it was like a very dangerous time in Calcutta.

At that time we were trying to preach there and at that time Prabhupāda called us to the Kumbha-melā in Allahabad and that is a whole other story, the Kumbha-melā story, we could discuss that later. But when we went to the Kumbha-melā then Prabhupāda told me that “I am never going to Calcutta until you get me…” at that time we were in our own place. “I want our own place, our temple.” At that time, we were staying in a half a floor of an apartment building that one gentleman had given us but he wanted the whole floor to ourselves so we could perpetually stay in at least for some time. So I had to leave the Kumbha-melā a few days early, went back to Calcutta and we found the present place we still are on Albert Road, we found that place, and one gentleman was going to make it into a hotel and office six months later but right now he did not have need for it so he said we could have it free of rent for six months.

So we sent a telegram to Prabhupāda and he came by train. So then we arranged to have in May a big pandal in downtown Calcutta. So Prabhupāda got a letter in the mail which was you know, cut out from magazines – like the, you, may, words cut out which you see in the movies, he got one of those – several. “You please stop now or die. Naxal salaam.” Something like that. So then Prabhupāda called the police and gave it over and we were going on with our program in spite of the threat that “If you don’t stop your pandal program now you will be killed.” Prabhupāda said, “Just go on with it.” So we informed the police for the extra guard. While we were doing our pandal program in Calcutta, it was the biggest pandal in India, probably even to date. It was a huge pandal, bigger than a football field, about twice the size of a football field – 400 feet long by 300 feet wide. It was huge and was completely packed with people. It was opposite the Indian museum. We had all kinds of dignitaries who came and spoke there. Deputy chief minister one Mr. Nahar, he spoke. I think just at that time the government changed but you know still very agitated time, it was a very disturbed time but Prabhupāda he just said “Go on with the preaching.”

We distributed prasad every night – halwa, sabzi and puris to thousands and thousands of people and Prabhupāda would come every night, did arti and he would lecture and he was very bold in his preaching. So at that time he sent Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami and Bali Mardhana dāsa to Māyāpur to buy the Māyāpur land that we had found – Acyutānanda das and myself had found… but I was busy with this program so I stayed in Calcutta. So at that time there were several things that happened, all day Prabhupāda would be sitting in his room and big dignitaries would come and he would always preach to them how they should help the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement because they were the religious Indians, and they were very… that if the Indian community gave support then all over the world this would give us strength to the Kṛṣṇa consciousness preaching.

I remember that one day this minister, he was the home minister of the government at that time, Tarun Kanti Ghosh, he came to see Śrīla Prabhupāda and in India it is customary that people tried to touch the feet of sādhus but Prabhupāda would sometimes get sick because so many people would touch him and he would get their karma. He said that if you touched the feet then they give you their karma but it is not good for the sadhus because they may have to take that karma, so actually only the disciples should touch the feet. So normally Brahmananda Swami would stop people from touching Prabhupad’s feet but sometimes they would be too enthusiastic and Prabhupāda would say up to a point you can stop someone, you can entreat them, you can request, “Please don’t touch.” but I mean if somebody is really you know, diving, then you can’t have like a whole battle or something! So in this case the minister, he came and he said that “I am going to touch your feet Swamiji.” Prabhupāda tried to get out of it but he just grabbed and I forget who was there, Brahmananda swami or someone whoever was there were ready but Prabhupāda he didn’t want the minister the government to get assaulted or something you know! So then he went and put his head on Prabhupad’s feet and then Prabhupāda touched him on the head, Prabhupāda said there was some system where you can actually pass back the karma! (laughter) I don’t really know that technique.

But then we were sitting there and that morning in class Prabhupāda had been saying that how all the devotees, in fact some of the devotees who were being sent by Lord Caitanya, that they were devotees previously. He said something like that and this minister he came and said, you know, I have seen your devotees chanting and seen them and “My impression is that they were born in Bengal before, that they were devotees before, this is not their first birth, how is it that so quickly they could take all these things up?”

Then Prabhupad, he turned to us and said, you just see, confirmed! Just what I have been saying to you, he has also said, this is a confirmation. So I remember that time then he had a darshan with the gentleman and then even again Prabhupāda said that just see, this is confirmed what I had said. And I remember I was standing up and then I told Prabhupāda that, “But Prabhupāda how can this be? I am so fallen. How could it be that I was a devotee before?” And then you know, Prabhupāda took… he became angry. He said, “Do not doubt my words, do not doubt! This is all superficial.” and when he became angry we all paid our obeisances.

So, there were many… every day there were big batches of people who would come, sometimes his relatives came rarely, he would introduce us, especially Pishima, his younger sister and god sister, she would come. I remember one time she insisted that she wanted to cook for Śrīla Prabhupad, she made the whole thing, Prabhupāda was like “You have to let her do it, she is a very good cook!” Sometimes she would make preparations with mustard oil and Prabhupāda had always told us that mustard oil is for your body it is not for eating, so when we told Prabhupāda it is mustard oil, he would say “Mustard oil is very good taste if you know how to cook with it.” So from her cooking he would take one or two preparations with mustard oil although normally it was always with ghee. He said not too much, but one preparation was alright. And I remember one time Prabhupāda got dysentery, the water in Calcutta is such that you can get dysentery there sometime. The sewage is built from the British times, the sewage and water pipes are very close or something I don’t know but somehow you get sick there quite easily. So even Prabhupāda may be from the feasting with the life members or somehow he had the līlā of having dysentery. So he said that “Today I want to have hot puris and salt!”

“Hot puris!” In dysentery or diarrhea you normally don’t take ghee. He said, no this is one cure, to take hot puris, has to be piping hot with salt. Order of the guru, so they cooked hot puris, I think pishi ma herself cooked him the first time and brought it in piping hot just steaming, small thin puris, you put salt on them and he ate a lot of them. Everybody thought, because normally if you take pakoras or puris when you are having a weak stomach, then forget it! Your liver doesn’t but this was like by a mystic power Prabhupāda was completely cured by hot puris and salt! So that was a new one for Prabhupāda devotees. Devotee: Did anyone try it?

Jayapatākā Swami: Yes, I think in Māyāpur once I saw someone try it I think Bhavananada maharaj.

(aside)

Is there some prasad to give?

Then there was another thing that happened. One time we had a lot of learning to do, in India, Prabhupāda said well, because nobody knew how to cook Indian style, so he said we could hire a brāhmaṇa if he didn’t smoke we could hire a brahamana. So then we hired a cook. Because at that time Yasodananadana Maharaj, Gargamuni Maharaj were also there. The assistant to the cook was a good chapatiwalla, he used to make thin nice chapattis, used to puff up, fantastic chapatis. So somehow or other the devotees thought that let him do the cooking. He is a better cook than the Brāhmaṇa cook. So then he was doing the cooking for a few days.

I didn’t like it but I was overwhelmed by because at that time the temple had Revatinandan, Gurudas, Shyamasundar, Giriraj, Gargamuni and I had Sanandana Gurukripa, Yamunā, Malati, these were very strong-willed devotees, to say the least, and so somehow or another they decided they wanted to have this person cook, and we were on a little austerity program, I was only letting them use half a kilo of ghee a day which wasn’t making me very popular. At that time Prabhupāda had… it was on a pretty tight budget. So Prabhupāda came and someone complained to him about the cooking, you know, that they weren’t getting enough ghee. So he came out and he saw, what are those? Those are chapatis. Why there is no ghee on them? He said, that is food fit for the goats. It was real heavy! Ha! To get chapatti without ghee, it was fit for the goats. Then he said bring the cook. So when they brought the cook, he said, who is this character? He is not a Brāhmaṇa. Then he said you are not only eating food fit for the goat but it is being cooked by a fifth class man. So he blasted us. I forget some of the others; this was some of the heaviest things that I ever heard him say. And because at least the Brāhmaṇa had some understanding about hygiene or things like that but a non Brāhmaṇa, a non vaishnava, you don’t know what they are going to do you know, they don’t have that training, that upbringing to act in a very clean and hygienic way. So like this Prabhupāda was teaching us so many things even there in Calcutta.

One time in Calcutta we had a big verandah with marble floor and I was the president there but every time my GBC would come because GBCs were real new then, it was 1971 and Prabhupāda had just appointed GBCs. We didn’t exactly know what their role was. So he had come and I wouldn’t be doing things the way he would be doing them. So he wanted to do everything the right way. But instead of telling me how to do them, he would be so impatient that he would fire me and he would take over as president. Then he would do everything his way. Then Prabhupāda would come and say what are you doing? You are supposed to be the GBC. You are not supposed to manage the temple. He removed him and put me back as the president. Like this I was removed about eight times and every time I was replaced either by Prabhupāda or by the GBC. And I remember that the GBC said that “I have to have my own room… I have to have my own room to meet people and for preaching.” So we didn’t have any rooms in the Calcutta temple as such, it was a weird palatial kind of building which was any way divided in half and had big rooms and high 15 – 16 about 18 feet high ceiling. So there was really no room to offer. There was one room for Prabhupad, there was the temple, there was the verandah, there was a little office, there was no other room in the whole place, there wasn’t any other room. Even the president didn’t have a room, kind of floating. But he insisted on having a room. So he built a little shanty he got some plywood and built a little shanty on the little room, very nice kind of simple little Masonite 8 inch plywood, built it up on the verandah with a little door, painted it blue, real bright blue like the color of Balabhadra’s T shirt lapel there. turquoisey bright blue. That was his little room and that room lasted until Prabhupāda came. What is this he asked? “This is ruining my verandah.” I forget the exact words he used. “Why are you building this shanty room on my verandah? You tear it down immediately.” The GBC was crushed. We all you know… we all had told him that you know, “This is kind of strange. It cuts into the veranda.” So, while Prabhupāda was telling that we had to like… (laughter) It was serious otherwise we would get... But was real hard because everybody was covering up. So that was the last of the blue room.

There are many little things. Prabhupāda onetime he said that, “Nobody… we’re spending much on taxis, everyone should take a tram.” and trams cost 10 paise in India and at time 10 paise was less than a cent. So you could ride anywhere in the city for 10 paise. But it took forever, it was real slow as compared to a taxi and this was not even a bus, buses were fast but this was a tram. You could go by bus but buses are very crowded. Tram was a little better. Most of the devotees went by tram, 12 paise, 10 paise; you go first class was 12 paise, normal was 10. But if you went 10 paise all the seats had these bed bugs, you sit on it and you stand up, your whole rear end would be striped where… just where you sat, they’d be wooden seats, they’d all come out of the cracks and bite. And in first class they had a little bit of rexin plastic with some fibre, you know, and a little bit of padding, just for 2 paise more but the bed bugs didn’t get through it. Sometimes the devotees would you know, spend a little extra (laughter) and go by the tram, first class. So because Prabhupāda had said we took it literally and we did but then later on it turned out that it cut into the collections and so… In the meantime I was transferred to Māyāpur and the other, the new president got permission from Prabhupāda that if the devotees collected more, you know by doing more sankirtan, and going by taxi was alright. But it shouldn’t be just going by taxi but should be due to getting increased productivity.

Now the time Prabhupāda was going from Calcutta to the Kumbha mela. Then he said in the train sometimes Prabhupāda would take, he would also take a box lunch but sometime in the train he would get hungry when the lunch would run out. So sometimes he would send me out and he would take puris cooked on the stations and he said that “If you fry then there is no karma and if it is cooked in ghee or deep frying then the transference of the bad mentality doesn’t go so much.” While travelling he quoted some Sanskrit verse which said while travelling it is alright in emergency. Although later when we went out we would cook a bigger lunch and then he would never do that. In the air planes I don’t think he ever did it at all. But one time anyway there were only few devotees. I remember I went out on the station and I was trying to procure those things and buy some oranges and somehow I didn’t notice that the train was taking off. I looked and there the train was, woo woo, going off. I started running because if you miss the train there is nothing you can do. And I missed Prabhupad’s car and by that time the train was going real fast. So one conductor reached down and pulled me up and it was an AC first-class compartment. All air conditioned. Prabhupāda wouldn’t go in the air conditioned class; he liked to go in the first class. Those days first class was much better than it is today. But then somehow the next stop I got down and ran up and met Śrīla Prabhupāda gave him the prasada.

He said “Where were you?” He was very nonchalant about it. I remember they were sitting there and because we didn’t have proper plates or any tray or anything, so one hand he had the banana and the other hand… eating with two hands we never see this here you know, in the train it was sheer logistics. He was taking with two hands and that time Prabhupāda was, somehow the discussion came about milk. So then Tamal Kṛṣṇa Adhikari at that time, he was asking Prabhupāda that in India there are so many kinds of milk, they have buffalo, cow, goat, so many, and somehow he said that “Do dogs give milk?” Prabhupāda was you know… and said, “That’s not milk.” with disgust. Then Prabhupāda said that apart from cows, buffalo and goat, nothing else is milk.

It was very intimate, you know, being in the same compartment with Śrīla Prabhupāda and going to Allahabad. Of course no one would sleep above him, so we had purchased him two berths. Opposite there would be two people and when we were going in he would bring everyone in, so we would be sitting across either on the ground or on the seat across. He would sit on one seat cross legged, with a cloth there, so it was very intimate opportunity and very wonderful instructions he gave. Because it was so intimate therefore you could and Tamal and I were just by his lotus feet. You can’t think what you are saying before you say it! But normally in another more formal situation that would never happen but then just as soon as you say something that wasn’t right Prabhupāda would have immediately shown his transcendental position.

One thing happened in Calcutta that one day we were sitting in his room. I think that they, in his room they always had it completely white. There would be mattresses on the floor and he would have them covered with white sheets and he had big bolster pillows and a seat, not so opulent but a nice seat with a glass cover and he would be sitting there and everything would be white, the room would be white all covered with clean sheets which were changed every day, even a speck and they would be changed, always kept immaculately clean and incense burning. And there were two or three of us sitting there I think maybe that time… forget exactly who was there. I was sitting right in front of Śrīla Prabhupāda and there were about three other devotees at that time and he started just to tell these stories.

He said that in Bengal there was one Gopal Bhar who was the court uh, barber and he was a very… he said there’s a story. Let’s see, how did it go? There was a very high pressure in the king’s court, the king was a judge, he was the administrative head, and everything was on his shoulders. So sometimes between sessions he would need a little relief, comical relief or humorous relief or... So nobody could play off the king and one had to you know, my lord, but the barber and he was like in the western context you might say he was a court jester, Prabhupāda never exactly explained what he was but he was the one person, courtier in the court who had the right that he could spoof with the king. That was his unique position. But similarly the king would always treat all his other ministers with great respect; he would never treat them lightly. But the king could also, you know, spoof with this guy.

So one day the King came in… this Gopal Bhar came in, Prabhupāda explained, just to give a little background and Prabhupāda just started explaining this, Gopal Bhar came in the king said, “Gopal, you are an ass.”

Prabhupāda said, that “Gopal said ‘No, there is a difference between me and an ass.’

The king said, ‘Gopal, you are an ass.’

He said, ‘No, your majesty; there is a difference between me and an ass.’

The king said, ‘Gopal, there is a difference between you and an ass?’

‘Yes.’ he said.

‘What is that difference?’

Then he was standing about six feet from the king, he measured off the distance from the king and he said “Six feet!’” (laughter) And Prabhupāda was laughing. This is the first time we had ever seen Prabhupāda crack a joke. We didn’t really know what to do, Prabhupāda was laughing so we were laughing but we were little bit afraid, we didn’t want to do the wrong thing also. Actually just suddenly told us… then he explained how the king has his way and he said that actually even in the humor, in the Vedic humor there are messages. Then he just proceeded to tell more Gopal Bhar stories.

He said “There’s this famous…” he said, “There is a book in Bengal, the histories of this king, Kṛṣṇachandra who was in Kṛṣṇa Nagar near Māyāpur which is named after Kṛṣṇachandra and his famous court advisor is Gopal Bhar.” So he told the story that “One day…” Prabhupāda told the story that one day the king had a new son, heir to the throne and the whole kingdom was rejoicing. So at that time the king was father, heir prince, was very joyful occasion. So then Gopal just happened to show up at that time. He came and the king said, “Gopal, Gopal, this joyous occasion, the birth of the crown prince, what do you have to say? Tell me at this moment. Tell me, how are you feeling?”

So then Gopal Bhar said “To be sincere, I am feeling very happy after passing stool.”

“Oh Gopal! You are so gross! How can you say something like this?” The king became thoroughly disgusted. Just see, here’s… the sake… the Brāhmaṇa are doing pūjā… it’s a big thing and just suddenly, the grossest thing you know. So after that Gopal said, “Don’t be angry, you asked me to tell you how I felt at that moment and I was just telling you the truth.” The king said, “Oh, just out of taste. You’re crude. You have no couth.” So after that the king had a very cold relation with Gopal. This courtier relationship is very dangerous, you know, very sensitive. The king was very turned… you know, very displeased with him and after that there was a cold relationship. He was very formal, he took it very personally. So then after sometime, Prabhupāda explained that one day, Gopal after many months was taking him on a boat ride and he was rowing the boat. The king said that “Gopal, pull over. I have to answer nature’s call.”

He said that “No, no, this is not a good place, thieves and things congregate here. It’s a bad place.” So he kept on rowing and little further he kept on going and the king said, “Gopal, you pull over right away.”

He said, “No, no, I can’t, you see it is a very rough area here. It is not a good place. Thorns and things.”

But the king said, “No, no, pull over here right away.”

Gopal said, “Just a little further there is a better place.” you know.

The king said, “Immediately pull over! I cannot wait any longer.”

The king was really getting… so then Gopal pulled over and the king jumped out and did his business, nature call. So then when he came back after washing… he came back and Gopal said that “How do you feel?” He said, “Whew. Relieved.”

Gopal said, “You remember that day, the crown prince was born, such a thing happened to me and just at that moment you asked me how I was feeling? And so I just told you, now you understand?”

The king just said, “Gopal!” So then Prabhupāda was laughing, that was too much for us. We didn’t know what to say. We tried to laugh but it was like uh, we didn’t know, you know, because our relationship with Prabhupāda was so formal that we didn’t really notice that this was really an intimate joke and the punch line was not the normal that you get in the West so.... But Prabhupāda didn’t stop there. He said that “You see there are many cultural things to learn from these stories. What is the position of the king?”

And he told another story. He said that one time Gopal was making a new house and according to the Vedic culture when you make a new house it has to be completely clean, no one should pass stool there. And if they do then they can’t as they have to do pūjā, griha pravesh and then you can use the house. So Prabhupāda was trying to explain that this is the humor, just the normal humor, it doesn’t get any worse than this. But actually even in the humor, it is all based upon subtle relationships in the culture of the Vedas. So “Here he is building his house, he is going to have his pūjā, as soon as it is completed. So the king offers in the court that Gopal is building a new house and anybody can go there and defile his house and go there and pass nature call, you know, stool in his house, I will give a thousand silver coins.”

So then one person said I will do it, took the challenge. So he made a plan, what to do. One day Gopal was supervising his house construction, seeing everything is going on properly. They had brahmanas to do the foundation stone setting, people building according to the artha śātra and everything. Even for an ordinary house, they are very careful. Suddenly this man came up and said “Gopal, Gopal. There is an extreme emergency, I have to immediately answer nature’s call, please allow me to use your new bathroom.”

Gopal thought “This is very strange. Why he wants to use my new bathroom?”

“Yes, yes, it is alright.” Prabhupāda explained then, that the person went and he positioned himself in the bathroom you know, and he wanted to close the door. He said, “Gopal what are you doing standing there with that big stick. Why don’t you let me close the door?”

Gopal said, “No you can pass stool but if you pass one drop of urine I am going to beat your head and kill you.”

So then he said, “Gopal, you win.” and he ran off, you know.

That was the final, that was really too much for us. But indirectly we were taught, this was actually teaching Vedic culture even in the humor, they had to do pūjā, the kings they were, this was the light side of their day they would… playing games but even the games were based on this Vedic culture even if it was intertwined. You can’t just say, like they say Kṛṣṇa is so much intertwined that even if somebody gets a little, they call this tamasa, joking is like tama-guna. These are not like the spiritual instructions or something but even though these are so crude or whatever but at the same time it is like within the whole cultural values are completely intertwined and those were the stories that Prabhupāda told us. Of course other… there are other different stories. There were just a couple of devotees and in a lighter moment Prabhupāda opened up and told us a little bit of what the local humor was like. That way Prabhupāda was trying to show that alright even you know, in the humor that has been handed down, this is taught in all the high schools, it is like part of the history of Bengal. That even within the humor there is this cultural connection. There is one more story how; you want to hear one more Gopal Bhar story? Devotee: Haribol!

Jayapatākā Swami:

Gopal Bhar was really smart.

One day the king was going on procession with his courtiers and everyone and then he saw that there was a Brāhmaṇa who was wearing a shaligram shila around his neck in a silk bag and then the Brāhmaṇa walked up to the side of the road and just with the shaligram shila round his neck he evacuated. So the king said, “Arrest him.” He had him brought to the court and said “What type of Brāhmaṇa are you? You are carrying a shaligram shila and then you do such a thing. Do you know that is Nārāyaṇa that is God? How can you go to the bathroom wearing a shaligram shila? You are not a Brāhmaṇa. What do you have to say for yourself?” He started shaking and the king said at sun down you will be beheaded. “If brahmanas like you commit offence to Nārāyaṇa in the kingdom then the whole kingdom will be destroyed by the offence. So you are not a Brāhmaṇa, therefore for committing this offence you should give your life.” So the Brāhmaṇa was completely petrified. And then Gopal said, “But your majesty, he is just a carrier of the Lord; he is just a carrier of the shaligram shila.” The king had just sentenced him to death and suddenly Gopal said, “He is just a carrier.”

So he thought this was one of Gopal’s jokes. So the king asked “What do you mean, Gopal? What do you mean he is just a carrier? Don’t butt in now, this is a serious business.”

“No, no, but your majesty he is just the carrier.”

The king knew that something was up. He said, “What do you mean? What do you mean, he is just the carrier? He is carrying the shaligram shila and he passed stool! Could there be a greater offence?”

“But your majesty, he was just the carrier.”

“Explain yourself!” the king said. “What do you mean he is just the carrier?”

And Gopal said, “My Lord, your horse was carrying you. When your horse passed stool, did you take a bath? Did you feel contaminated?”

“Release him! Never do this again!

Gopal, you did it again.”

So it gave a different angle in Vedic culture you know there were very personal relations and very personal things. Of course these are not the pure devotees, this is a king about five hundred years ago or four hundred years ago, just after the time of Lord Caitanya before the British came, during the Mogul period. But even then just only about three hundred years ago Vedic culture was so strong.

Anyway these were the basic ones we heard from Prabhupāda and I became so curious that I bought the book. Prabhupāda told us the sample just to show that there was another aspect in the lighter side but even the lighter side had its roots in the Vedic culture and similarly he told how… the unusual way you could seek how Vedic culture, how 5000 years ago there was total Vedic culture and how over the time it gradually got watered down, watered down and how it kind of intermingled with māyā. As time went on it came with unusual combinations, some of them which are totally mind-boggling. Prabhupāda would point out and show that how he could still see certain remnants of the Vedic culture, trained how to pick out what way you could see the roots of the Vedic culture in the humor, in the lifestyle in the history of the modern and neo-modern recent times. Prabhupāda slapped his knee, he was laughing when he told the joke. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Part of the Gopal Bhar stories the punchline is kind of, it is more like a situation which is very cryptic, very humorous and then surprise ending. And the surprise ending is humorous.

Any questions?

Yes?

Question: Would you care to… you went to Kumbha Mela. What was the story?

Jayapatākā Swami: It’s too late for… that’s a long story.

Question: You said before when you invited the uh… Prabhupāda’s Godbrother, who was standing on the stairs, the householder, was he a Godbrother of Prabhupāda?

Jayapatākā Swami: Like it is in the family tree, cousin brother

Question: Cousin brother. But my… my… He was saying that uh, you shouldn’t visit Prabhupāda because he had taken initiation… sannyāsa initiation before Prabhupāda, but now he was giving instructions… he was a disciple. So he… why would he take his you know, instructions or advice?

Jayapatākā Swami: Well, obviously it was political.

Reply: Seems like its contradictory.

Jayapatākā Swami: It’s all so big… That is why in Lord Caitanya’s time this wasn’t there. This was the whole thing that for a long time he kept clear from the other mission, that’s wound up a lot now. Prabhupāda brought together but it was kind of formal because Prabhupāda was actually someone who may have taken sannyāsa later but he was very close to Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Ṭhākura and Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur often, on some occasions praised Prabhupāda and gave him very specific private instructions. But apparently his success in preaching all over the world the response it should have brought was complete cooperation and everything and Prabhupāda comments on this fact in his Caitanya Caritamrita purport especially in the Madhya one… going to Ramakeli, is that was Madhya one?

Comment: Is that Advaitācārya’s…

Jayapatākā Swami: Or maybe it is Madhya Two or… Where Lord Caitanya meets Rūpa Goswami in Ramkeli, just going to Vrindavana. That is what I have the first one, Madhya One.

“Birth after birth you have been My eternal servants. I am sure that Kṛṣṇa will deliver you very soon.” The Lord then placed His two hands on the heads of both of them, and in return they immediately placed the lotus feet of the Lord on their heads.

After this, the Lord embraced both of them and requested all of the devotees present to be merciful upon them and deliver them.

When all of the devotees saw the mercy of the Lord upon the two brothers, they were very much gladdened, and they began to chant the holy name of the Lord, “Hari! Hari!”

PURPORT

Śrīla Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura says, chāḍiyā vaiṣṇava sevā nistāra peyeche kebā: unless one serves a Vaiṣṇava, he cannot be delivered. The spiritual master initiates the disciple to deliver him, and if the disciple executes the order of the spiritual master and does not offend other Vaiṣṇavas, his path is clear. Consequently Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu requested all the Vaiṣṇavas present to show mercy toward the two brothers, Rūpa and Sanātana, who had just been initiated by the Lord. When a Vaiṣṇava sees that another Vaiṣṇava is a recipient of the Lord’s mercy, he becomes very happy. Vaiṣṇavas are not envious. If a Vaiṣṇava, by the mercy of the Lord, is empowered by Him to distribute the Lord’s holy name all over the world, other Vaiṣṇavas become very joyful—that is, if they are truly Vaiṣṇavas. One who is envious of the success of a Vaiṣṇava is certainly not a Vaiṣṇava himself but an ordinary, mundane man. Envy and jealousy are manifested by mundane people, not by Vaiṣṇavas. Why should a Vaiṣṇava be envious of another Vaiṣṇava who is successful in spreading the holy name of the Lord? An actual Vaiṣṇava is very pleased to accept another Vaiṣṇava who is bestowing the Lord’s mercy. A mundane person in the dress of a Vaiṣṇava should not be respected but rejected. This is enjoined in the śāstra (upekṣā). The word upekṣā means neglect. One should neglect an envious person. A preacher’s duty is to love the Supreme Personality of Godhead, make friendships with Vaiṣṇavas, show mercy to the innocent and reject or neglect those who are envious or jealous. There are many jealous people in the dress of Vaiṣṇavas in this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, and they should be completely neglected. There is no need to serve a jealous person who is in the dress of a Vaiṣṇava. When Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura says chāḍiyā vaiṣṇava sevā nistāra peyeche kebā, he is indicating an actual Vaiṣṇava, not an envious or jealous person in the dress of a Vaiṣṇava.

So Prabhupāda wrote these purports not only for the ISKCON Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement but for the other Kṛṣṇa consciousness movements as well, other followers of Lord Caitanya. Of course you have to kindly forgive our rudeness in repeating the Gopal Bhar stories publicly, more for the sake of history. If anyone is embarrassed, they should probably cover their ears.