Srila Prabhupada Pastimes

GUIDELINES FOR INITIATED DISCIPLES

“Notice” the list of reg­u­la­tions written down in Prabhupada’s handwriting. 

Prabhupada’s English hand­writing is clearly leg­ible. Why did he wait so late in the year; November 25, to post the rules for ini­ti­ated dis­ci­ples? Maybe he saw they were get­ting slack. He just wanted to make it offi­cial. At the first ini­ti­a­tion in the summer the com­mit­ments were largely unknown and not com­mitted to by the ini­ti­ates. They didn’t all know that they were pledging to follow for a life­time. Some of the restric­tions seemed hard to follow at first. Years of smoking cig­a­rettes and of taking drugs and being habit­u­ated to sex had to be given up. They were deeply ingrained. But the taste of chanting the maha-mantra and the taking whole­heart­edly to hearing from the Swami and hon­oring prasadam with him were enough to give up the old sins.
Prabhupada was one of the very few yogis or gurus in the west who made these demands. “Swami, you are very con­ser­v­a­tive,” Allen Ginsberg had said to Prabhupada, but Prabhupada had no inten­tions of giving up the reg­u­la­tive principles.

“The Notice” was a his­tor­ical doc­u­ment, taped to the wall in the store­front without fan­fare or announce­ment. We read it and gasped and said, “This is serious,” and “I accept it.”

(Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami)
 
SRILA PRABHUPADA & MRS SUMATI MORARJI

Prabhupada and Sumati Morarji of Scindia Company sit together giving speeches acknowl­edging the favors she did for him when he was a poor san­nyasi trying to pub­lish his Srimad-Bhagavatam and trying to get pas­sage to America. Acting as a pious lady within the Hindu cul­ture, she received him as a san­nyasi beggar and agreed to pay for pub­lishing one of the vol­umes of his first canto, Srimad-Bhagavatam. (He had to wait many hours before she would give him an audi­ence) After she paid for his book, Prabhupada remem­bered her and approached her again when he had the urgent oppor­tu­nity to go to America. Without a great sac­ri­fice she gave him free pas­sage aboard a cargo ship, the Jaladuta, headed for New York. At first she did not agree, her sec­re­taries warned her that Prabhupada, being so old and in fragile health, might die enroute. From a worldly point of view this was not such a wild spec­u­la­tion. But Bhaktivedanta Swami had his way with Sumati Morarji. He impressed her with his saint­li­ness and his deter­mi­na­tion. Although she received some con­ser­v­a­tive advice not to let the old man ride on their steamship, she asserted her authority and gave him permission.

For this act of kind­ness she will always be remem­bered by Prabhupada’s fol­lowers and she will go down in his­tory as a great bene­factor to the world. During the first year in New York, when Srila Prabhupada did not have his own place, and when he did not make any progress in preaching, he thought of using his return ticket and going back to India. He wrote to Mrs. Morarji and she encour­aged him to stay in America until he had com­pleted his mis­sion. This word of sup­port helped his spirit to remain in New York and renew his visa to stay in America.

(Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami)


MY BOOKS ARE BETTER THAN MY SPEECHES
In discussing with His Divine Grace I summarized your desire to have access to all of the many tapes which Golden Avatar has for the purpose of transcribing them into rough manuscript form to be published later on as cross references or in some other form. His Divine Grace was not very enthusiastic at all about this idea. Srila Prabhupada commented, "This is not necessary. My books are sufficient. Let all of my disciples read my books. This idea is over-burden. It will mean too many readings. Let them read whatever is there and digest it. Everything I have wanted to say I have said in my books. This will only be superfluous. Tell him to concentrate on reading my books, not on studying such transcriptions. Does he think he will find something else in these transcriptions that are not in my books?"

...Actually you should know that Prabhupada's books are better than his speeches. This is because He concentrates tremendously and chooses each word when he writes these books. This is not my opinion but he himself has said this to me.

Letter from TKG, 770720

PRABHUPADA SMARANAM

This is a famous pic­ture, a won­derful moment. It is the 1974 San Francisco Ratha-yatra at Golden Gate Park. The cart in which Prabhupada has been sit­ting and riding has come to a halt. He rises to his feet, raises his hands like Lord Caitanya and makes little leaps with his feet. All the devo­tees go wild and start leaping in the air, raising their arms, playing karatalas and mrdangas and all sing Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. They are amazed that Prabhupada can dance like this. He is causing a mass ecstasy. All they know is that he is jumping, and they are jumping and that it is a state of exalted delight, joy and rap­ture. These are over­pow­ering emo­tions involving tem­po­rary loss of con­scious­ness. This is the highest mys­ti­cism of Krishna con­scious­ness — caused by Prabhupada’s dancing.

(Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami)

SRILA PRABHUPADA WITH KIDS



Srila Prabhupada was always kind and atten­tive to little chil­dren. He liked to hold their hands. They were usu­ally awed and in good behavior in his pres­ence. He would often give them cookies. They brought a smile to his face as he saw their inno­cence. The children’s par­ents would be thrilled when Prabhupada blessed the little ones. There is a nice series of pic­tures with the child of Gopal and Sally Agarwal, the first people he stopped with in Butler, Pennsylvania. He was present when their child first stood, and he beamed. He was a nat­ural, loving grand­fa­ther. There are many chil­dren who grew up not remem­bering their con­tact with Prabhupada because they were too young, but some remember it, and all were blessed. It was not an ordi­nary thing to be touched by him. He was amused at the tod­dlers. Sometimes he would catch their hand and not let it go. They would pull to free them­selves, but he would hold on for awhile. Everyone loved to see Prabhupada playing with the chil­dren. It demon­strated his nat­ural warmth and humanity.

Once Prabhupada took little Sarasvati’s Krishna deity and hid it behind his back. The little girl was flus­tered and con­fused. Her mother, Malati, mean­ing­fully asked her daughter, “Sarasvati, who has Krishna?” It clicked with Sarasvati, and she turned to Prabhupada and searched him until she found her Krishna deity. Prabhupada had Krishna in his hand, and he freely liked to give his hand to the sub­mis­sive, uncor­rupted children.

(Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami)