httpv://youtu.be/DEKvBujrEfU
video: Mahabuddhi das | Published on Jan 17, 2013
One experienced man can sit down in a hut and simply talk about Krishna and organize the local people. This is how I started in the beginning at 26 Second Avenue in New York City. If there is genuine preaching, they will be attracted, so long as the preacher has no self motivation but simply chants and preaches.
(Letter to disciple, April 8, 1974)
“Early one morning I took my parents’ car and went from Long Beach, where we lived, to the Los Angeles temple. I met Prabhupada’s secretary, Shyamasundar, who said, “Would you like to see Srila Prabhupada?” At the time the maya I was in was to argue with people, and my intent in meeting Prabhupada was to challenge him to see if he was really a guru.
I had thought about it that morning and had made four points. If he’s a guru, he has to know the Absolute Truth, the process of knowing the Absolute Truth, he has to be able to read my mind, and he has to be able to predict the future. Who knows why I came up with those?
I sat in the back of Prabhupada’s room because it was filled with sannyasis holding their dandas. It was a room full of sticks. Only two people were in white dhotis, Karandhar and Jayatirtha, and I was the only non-initiated person present. I had long, curling hair and was too muscular to sit comfortably in a lotus position.
Prabhupada had just finished singing a song, and he looked from side to side and then looked at me. Immediately he said, “Why are you a kripana?” I hadn’t said anything, but I thought, “What is a kripana?” Prabhupada said, “A kripana is the opposite of a brahmana!” He explained how brahmanas are the pious class of society and are meant to know the Absolute Truth and to teach others. Because Prabhupada was so heavy, Karandhar and Jayatirtha and the sannyasis in the front made a little aisle so there was an open space between Prabhupada and me. I was looking at him, thinking, “What is this? I’m being screamed at for being miserly?”
Prabhupada explained, “If you have abilities and you are not using them for Krishna, then you are miser.” We had never met before, and I was in a challenging spirit, so Prabhupada took the first whap. Then he progressively explained that the Absolute Truth is the lotus feet of Krishna and that the process of realizing the Absolute Truth is bhakti, rendering service to Him. One after another my prerequisites for being a guru became erased, and simultaneously, by Prabhupada’s lotus mercy, I was kicked in the face for my nonsense challenging spirit.
Prabhupada could see right through me, and by his vision I felt naked. Still, in my mind I insisted, “He didn’t predict the future,” and just as I thought that, Prabhupada called for Pradyumna, his travelling Sanskrit editor, and asked Pradyumna to bring him the big volume that he translated from, the Srimad-Bhagavatam that has the commentaries of the major Vaishnav acharyas. At this time, the early ’70s, Prabhupada had not read from the Twelfth Canto of the Srimad-Bhagavatam before. Prabhupada turned to the Twelfth Canto and predicted the future for the age of Kali. He looked at me and said, “People will think they’re beautiful by having long hairs.” Prabhupada explained many of the predictions for this age, and I felt defeated even though I hadn’t even opened my mouth. By Krishna’s grace I hadn’t made any offences other than to offensively come before Prabhupada.
Prabhupada smashed me, and after the darshan was over, I bolted out of the room. Without looking at anybody, I ran down the stairs, jumped in the car, and started driving home. I though, “Why have I been called a miser?” and I was going over everything that Prabhupada had said. When I reached home I thought, “Why don’t you just face it? You’ve been defeated.” I wasn’t used to being defeated, but I remembered that was what I was looking for. I realized that Prabhupada was an honest and regal and powerful guru. It took a bit of courage, but the next morning I drove back, wrote a check payable to A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami for a thousand dollars (Which was a big donation at that time), and gave it to Karandhar, who was in the gift shop. Karandhar looked at it and said, “Come and give it to Srila Prabhupada.” I said, “No, that’s okay.” I thought, “I barely survived the first meeting.” Karandhar said, “Wait here.” While I waited, Karandhar gave my check to Srila Prabhupada. Prabhupada told Karandhar to tell me, “You have understood.” That was my first meeting with Srila Prabhupada.”
DEFINITIONS:
Kripana – miser
Sannyasi – one in the renounced order of spiritual life
Maya – illusion, accepting as true what is not; forgetfulness of God and our own spiritual nature
Dhoti – a simple piece of cloth wrapped around the lower body
Darshan – audience with the Deity or a saintly person
Bhakti-yoga – the science of loving devotion towards the Supreme Being
Brahmana – the intelligent class; a second spiritual initiation
— Memories: Anecdotes of a Modern-day Saint (Volume 2, Tape 22, pg. 190-192)
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Transcriptions from video interviews conducted and compiled by Siddhanta das.
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