20160902 Śrīla Prabhupāda Kathā

20160902 His. Holiness. Jayapatākā Swāmi Mahārāja gave a Śrīla Prabhupāda Līlā class. [360p]

Gurumahārāja: 

So, today we are talking about Prabhupāda. I was very fortunate because I had a lot of association with Śrīla Prabhupāda, and in 1968 I went to the Montreal temple and met Śrīla Prabhupāda. I stayed there for about six months with Prabhupāda… no, no, I was there with Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was there for about six months. I was there for year and a half, and at that time there were only a few temples in in ISKCON. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda had me write to him every week or so. In Boston I went down to meet Śrīla Prabhupāda, and I also took second initiation in New York from Śrīla Prabhupāda. Then I went to Los Angeles and met Śrīla Prabhupāda where he said that he would send me to India. Then we received Prabhupāda in Calcutta, and then I had about two times a year association with Śrīla Prabhupāda, and sometimes more. So, of course most of my association was in India.

Śrīla Prabhupāda went to see Vinoda Bhave in Maharastra. He was a famous follower of Gandhi, and he was having a conference on Bhagavad-gītā. So, Prabhupāda came and was well received. He had brought us from… I came from Māyāpur and others had come from different parts of India to basically to be with Śrīla Prabhupāda on this occasion. Vinoda Bhave, he was practicing mauna. He would not speak. I first said mauna. He would write notes but he wouldn’t speak. He wanted that the cow slaughter be outlawed and banned, and he had some talks with Śrīla Prabhupāda. So, in the conference there were three speakers: Śrīla Prabhupāda, Vinod Bhāve, but he was not speaking, and one māyāvādī, Citānandā. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda had us chant, and everybody clapped along and liked the chanting. Then Prabhupāda spoke. His speech was to the point and very transcendental. Since Vinoda Bhāve wasn’t speaking, he had his lady disciples chant the fourth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā. Then it was Citānandā’s turn to speak. So, since he wanted to do something to match up Śrīla Prabhupāda, he started to chant. He told his followers to chant and hum… Oṁ Sachidānanda Vsnu, Oṁ Sachidānanda (applause) His chanting was so bad that Prabhupāda waved to the devotees to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Then we had to chant,

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa

Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare

Hare Rāma Hare Rāma

Rāma Rāma Hare Hare……………………. (repeated by devotees)

After his Oṁ Sachidānanda Vṣṇu Paramātmā Oṁ tat sat, everybody was relieved that we could chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. And Prabhupāda spoke. He said, everybody appreciated because you are pure devotees. And we objected, we said, “We are not pure devotees.” But Prabhupāda said that it is just a question of ripening. You are pure devotees but you are not ripe yet, like a green mango and a ripe mango. Both are mangoes. So, you are also pure devotees, but you are not ripe yet. That’s why the people appreciated your chanting, and Swami Cidānandā, his chanting was offensive. Every day, with Prabhupāda we would learn something new. 

In 1971 we went to ardha-Kumbha mela in Allahabad, Prayāg. In the Kumbha mela there would be thirty million people, and in the ardha kumbha mela 21 million. Prabhupāda, he had us go and take early morning bath in the Triveṇī… the saṅgaṁ of the Gaṅgā, Yamunā and Saraswati. And then he would walk around, and he would see different things. So, every morning he would give a class, and he mentioned how he had seen some Māyāvādī sanyasi, how he was riding on an elephant with a golden shafta… one hundred eight, one thousand eight, one ten thousand eight, one hundred thousand eight, mahā mahā… one with ten million and eight mahajaladuru, mahāmandeleshwar. Prabhupāda said that, we take the Deities on the head of the elephant and we walk. “Also, what Jagatguru? They only preach in about three villages.” Then, he would say that there are some yogis who bathe in the sixth different rivers of the Kumbha mela, and they would dip down in one and come up in another, they would dip down in one and come up in another. So that many sādhus came down from the Himalayas to bathe in these holy rivers. There were particular days that eternal nectar from Mohinī rūpa fell in those rivers. So, people would bathe on those particular days to get the spiritual, eternal nectar. He took us to the dasaaswamegha ghāṭa where Lord Caitanya taught Rūpa Goswāmi. There is another Dāsa aswamegha ghāṭa in Benaras where Lord Caitanya taught Sanātan Goswāmi. So, this was our first year. So, depending how many years you go, you get a priority on location. Now we have a very good location because we have been going for so many years. One Dattin Saraswāti from Malaysia, she came with her party to see Prabhupāda. Her husband was… they have a system of knighting called “Datu”, like England they call “Sir”, in Malaysia they call “Datu”, and some of our devotees are also Datu’s now. So, the wife of a Datu is called Datin. So, she invited Prabhupāda to Malaysia, and said she would give him a land in Charāsh which is a suburb of Kuala-Lampur. So, many people had seen Śrīla Prabhupāda at the Kumbha Mela. We asked Śrīla Prabhupāda, “Why did we come to the Kumbha Mela?” and he said, “To get association with the Saintly people.” I think that he went to give his association. So, many things happened after Kumbha mela. One of the devotees… an Indian devotee, he stole Prabhupāda’s typewriter, and like that there were so many things happening, and Prabhupāda was very accessible living in the temple. He lived in a tent, and so, when he gave class, we sat next to him. He purified the whole Kumbha mela. We saw how Prabhupāda got initiated in Allahabad, at the Gaudia Math. We saw his pharmacy, his drug store. He had lived for some time in Allahabad, and, his house, he had constructed in such a way that there was a guest room which had a separate entrance, and different sanyasis would visit him. This way Śrīdhar Mahārāja, he was a regular visitor for Śrīla Prabhupāda. I think his full name was Bhaktirakshak Śrīdhar Maharaj. He is the guru of Sundar Govinda Swami who is a Gaudia Math Sanyāsi and he has a restaurant in Moscow, but he is not alive anymore. So, when Prabhupāda came to Māyāpur, he wanted to see Śrīdhar Mahārāj. I had the good fortune to go there with him. There is a picture of… photo of Mahara…Śrīla Prabhupāda, Śrīdhar Mahārāja, Tamal Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and myself and Govinda Swāmi. So, when Prabhupāda invited Śrīdhar Mahārāja to come to Māyāpur, he also invited him to see his temple in London, maybe other places, I can’t remember. And one day he had Śrīdhar Maharaj sit next to him. I remember when he went upstairs, he waved his finger.

Nitāi Gaura Hari bol………………..(repeated by devotees)

Prabhupāda was bending over backwards trying to get his godbrothers to work together with him. 

What time? 

And for some reason no one wanted to take forward. Even Śrīla Prabhupāda, he offered Śrīdhar Mahārāja, “I will make you the President of ISKCON. Please come.” But he did not do it. We asked Prabhupāda, “You offered him to be President?” Prabhupāda said, “What does it mean… what does President mean?”

In other words, Prabhupāda said, “We could have adjusted according to how things were worked out.”

But instead, he went to Jagannath Purī… Śrīdhar Mahārāja. So, Prabhupāda said, “You have to take a riksha to Nabadwip railway station and take another train to Howrah, and take a train to Purī, get the…it is just more complicated than taking a flight over.” But no one was willing to take that risk. I don’t know what was there in their mind. One time two godbrothers: Mādhava Mahārāj and Madhusudhana Mahārāja, they came to see Prabhupāda. Prabhupāda asked for all of us to leave. And we could see through the window that they were having a heated discussion. Prabhupāda called for his secretary. He brought a letter head, he showed them the letter head. We couldn’t hear what they were talking, and then they two left. We went back into Prabhupāda’s room, paid our obeisance’s. Prabhupāda said, “They were asking why I am called Śrīla Prabhupāda? This was reserved for Bhaktisiddāntha Saraswāti Thākur. But I showed my letter head that I do not call myself Prabhupāda. My disciples call me, and they are determined to call me this. So, then they left.” So, we had glimpses of Prabhupāda with his godbrothers. 

A week before Prabhupāda left this mortal world, he established a trust called “Bhaktivedānta Swāmi Charity trust.” And he made me the lifetime chairman. Also, he made those two godbrothers: Madhusudhana Mahārāj and Bhaktidaita Mādhava Mahārāja as trustees. So, Prabhupāda had great love and respect for his godbrothers, but he recognized that some of them would not do anything to help him. But he made this two godbrothers trustees of his charity trust. So, we were exposed to some very heavy dealings. Sometimes Prabhupāda was very light, sometimes very heavy. One day he was heavy with me. I deserved it. I don’t know what I did, but I did something wrong. But then later Prabhupāda called me. He said, “I am such a heavy spiritual master. How do you tolerate me?” Oh, that was the worst thing. Prabhupāda saying this word was really heavy. I said, “No, Prabhupāda. I am a nonsense. How do you tolerate me?” So, Prabhupāda, he was so careful to see how the devotees, how they would take being chastised and so on. Just one closing thing. In the Shyām Prasād Mukherjee road there was a society in Calcutta. They were all intellectuals; so, they invited Prabhupāda over, and in the introductory speech they introduced Prabhupāda as a… that he was a saktyavesh avatar, that he was empowered by Lord Caitanya to spread the sankirtan movement all over the world. Śrīla Prabhupāda didn’t accept or reject that statement, but he spoke on Krishna consciousness. So, actually, we can see that he was empowered by Lord Caitanya.

Śrīla Prabhupāda ki………………………………..[Jay]

Śrīla Prabhupāda ki………………………………..[Jay]

Śrīla Prabhupāda ki………………………………..[Jay]