Chapter Forty-Seven

Los Angeles

July 22, 1975

MORE THAN THREE weeks had passed since Prabhupāda had given the order for the BBT to produce seventeen books in two months. Now Rāmeśvara and Rādhāvallabha reported that work was going on around the clock in all departments and that devotees were determined to meet their deadlines. Most Press workers attended maṅgala-ārati at four-thirty A.M., chanted their prescribed rounds of japa, and worked all day until late at night, sometimes taking only one meal.

Additional editors, painters, photographers, indexers, typists, proofreaders, and layout men had been called in from other ISKCON departments. Everyone was cooperating to fulfill Śrīla Prabhupāda’s desire. It was as though nothing else existed except the task before them.

Kingsport Press, one of the largest printers in the country, had taken the job of printing, agreeing to push back all other assignments to free their presses and bindery for work twenty-four hours a day until all seventeen volumes were printed. A paper company in New York had agreed to supply paper at affordable terms to meet all the deadlines. The BBT’s top photographer was in India photographing places of caitanya-līlā, especially in Bengal and Orissa.

Śrīla Prabhupāda freely gave his time to the artists and the Bengali editors, answering their questions. Several times a day his disciples would come to him about the exact use of Sanskrit and Bengali words. This was not merely a matter of lingual scholarship, since each word had to be translated in light of the previous ācāryas’ explanations and Prabhupāda’s own Kṛṣṇa conscious realization. Prabhupāda had cautioned disciple editors not to change but to ask.

The artists had their usual questions about how things should look according to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s transcendental vision. In their desire to have the paintings completely accurate, they were greedy to ask him almost endless questions. Prabhupāda had said the transcendental paintings of his disciples were windows to the spiritual world; the artists didn’t want their imaginations to obscure the view.

One day, Rāmeśvara came into Śrīla Prabhupāda’s room carrying canvases by one of the artists whose proficiency the more experienced artists questioned. The artist in question, Gaurī-devī dāsī, was a book distributor with artistic talent, pressed into emergency service for the book production marathon. Rāmeśvara showed Śrīla Prabhupāda her painting of the Guṇḍicā temple. Prabhupāda’s verdict: “Oh, this is very nice.” One of the senior artists was present and pointed out several technical errors, but Prabhupāda replied, “A blind uncle is better than none.” Besides, he said, the painting showed a devotional spirit the readers of the book would appreciate.

Due to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s presence in Los Angeles, the book production marathon intensified. Even without attending Prabhupāda’s morning walks or classes or evening readings in the garden, the Press workers felt ecstasy. All day they worked at what Prabhupāda wanted most, and to take time off to go see him, they reasoned, would be selfish. Giving all their energy for Kṛṣṇa, they felt blissful.

The Press was busy day and night. To see devotees slumped over their desks or typewriters or lying beside their easels at two or three in the morning was not unusual. Proofreaders saw manuscripts come into and out of their hands so quickly they could hardly bear it. An artist might fall asleep before an uncompleted painting and awaken to find it being finished at another artist’s easel.

Rāmeśvara, running on very little sleep, orchestrated everything, including the photographer in India, the printer, and the paper company. Sometimes he would work directly with Rādhāvallabha on various aspects of the production.

Rādhāvallabha had set the deadlines, and he kept to them at all costs. To the Press workers, he seemed to be present everywhere – encouraging them, bringing them supplies, seeing to their needs, begging and coercing them to complete their quotas. But one night he took a break and entered Prabhupāda’s room during an informal gathering of devotees. Prabhupāda, his eyes closed, his head gently rocking, was listening to a tape of himself singing bhajanas. Opening his eyes and seeing Rādhāvallabha seated among the others, he said, “I am keeping you,” and again closed his eyes.

One of the devotees spoke up and said, “Oh, no, no, Prabhupāda. You’re not bothering us.” But another devotee turned to Rādhāvallabha and said, “I think Prabhupāda was talking to you.” Rādhāvallabha realized what Prabhupāda meant; he was telling him to go back to work. It was as if Prabhupāda were actually saying, “Why are you sitting here looking at me? Get back to work.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda was pleased with the sincerity of his disciples. Seventeen books in two months he had asked them to produce, and they, rather than try to explain to him why this was impossible, had taken the order so seriously that they could not conceive of rejecting or changing or modifying it. Instead of modifying the order, they had modified their lives. They had gone beyond the realm of routine work into the realm of extraordinary effort. As a result, both they and Prabhupāda felt great satisfaction. As Prabhupāda said, it was all an arrangement for the satisfaction of Lord Caitanya and the previous ācāryas.

Śrīla Prabhupāda decided to continue his U.S. tour, visiting Laguna Beach and San Diego and then going on to Dallas. From there he would visit New Orleans and the nearby ISKCON farm in Mississippi. Then on to Detroit, Toronto, Boston, and New York, eventually traveling to Europe and India.

From Prabhupāda’s point of view, his touring was imperative for spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As he had said in his arrival address at Berkeley, “I am traveling all over the world, twice, thrice in a year. My duty is to see that my disciples, who have accepted me as guru, may not fall down. That is my anxiety.”

Prabhupāda’s concern was for his disciples, but also for all people. Distressed by the fallen and ignorant state of humanity, especially in the West, he wanted to help the English-speaking world, as his spiritual master had ordered. This had been his spirit two years ago in Calcutta, when he had risen from his sickbed and flown to London to take part in the Ratha-yātrā. This was his great desire: to preach in the West, where people were so strongly under the grip of speculative philosophies, denying God and glorifying sense enjoyment. The mass of people would not easily change their ignorant ways, but if he could make only one person a pure devotee, he said, then his work would be successful.

Prabhupāda would work intensively with his important India projects for a few months, but then would always return to the West to again tour and preach. Both were required – developing his projects in India and touring the West. When Yogi Bhajan and company in Berkeley had expressed their amazement at how Prabhupāda was personally maintaining his disciples by traveling all over the world, Prabhupāda had admitted that it was difficult and that he was trying to train his G.B.C. secretaries to lead his movement. But so far, it seemed that as long as he had the power to do so, he would continue to travel.

Laguna Beach

July 25, 1975

  Laguna Beach was about a two-hour drive south of Los Angeles. The temple, a house near the beach, was crowded with guests and visiting devotees. After Prabhupāda had taken his seat upon the newly upholstered vyāsāsana, some of the temple leaders came forward one at a time and bathed his feet.

In the course of his lecture, Prabhupāda spoke against taking intoxicating drugs: “Is there anyone here who can say, ‘I am the controller’? Is there anyone who will answer this? You may think that you are the controller, but you are controlled by drugs.” The city of Laguna Beach was notorious as an illicit drug center. Prabhupāda had come not to flatter anyone with sentimental spirituality but to cut through their illusion. Bathing the feet of the spiritual master was good, but to be a genuine devotee one had to strictly follow the regulations. One had to choose whether to be controlled by drugs or by Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda stayed next door to the temple in a neighbor’s house. His first visitor was Ṛṣi dāsa, who had given up his initiation vows and fallen away from Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Sporting long, curly hair and a beard, he had casually dropped by to pay a little visit to his former spiritual master. Prabhupāda received Ṛṣi warmly, and they both exchanged smiles and laughed. Ṛṣi’s demeanor, however, was brazen, almost defiant, and he showed no contrition. Prabhupāda was not very happy to see the state of this boy to whom he had awarded the sannyāsa order a few years before.

In earlier years, Prabhupāda had cried when a dear disciple had left him. In those days, the fall of a disciple had been rare, almost unheard of. But over the years Prabhupāda had seen more casualties, even among his G.B.C. leaders and sannyāsīs. In 1967, when one of his first disciples, Kṛṣṇā-devī dāsī, had left her husband, Subala, and gone off with a boyfriend, Prabhupāda had consoled Subala by reminding him how rare it was that one could become a devotee of Kṛṣṇa. “The wonderful thing is not that Kṛṣṇā dāsī has left,” Śrīla Prabhupāda had said, “but that we can stay in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.”

Although devotees left Kṛṣṇa consciousness for various reasons, Śrīla Prabhupāda saw them all as having been tricked by illusion. The result was almost always the same, whether the defector left on the plea of a new religion, or new economic opportunities, or whatever; usually he or she would take up a life of sense gratification, abandoning the strict path of self-realization.

This was certainly true of Ṛṣi. When Prabhupāda asked him what he was doing with his life, he laughed and said he was playing saxophone. There was no need to ask him whether he was chanting sixteen rounds or following the four rules. But Ṛṣi wanted to assure Śrīla Prabhupāda that he was doing fine. “I think I have more freedom now,” said Ṛṣi.

“Do you think you have freedom?” Prabhupāda challenged.

“Some,” Ṛṣi replied. “By studying and working.”

“What is your age?” Prabhupāda asked.

“Twenty-nine.”

“Are you free not to become older?” Śrīla Prabhupāda persisted.

“No.”

“Then what is your freedom?”

Ṛṣi gave a short laugh. “I don’t care.”

“That’s all right,” Prabhupāda replied, “but I am researching. I am now seventy-eight. I don’t wish to die, but I am forced. But you too are forced to become old. No one wants to be old.”

Recalling some of the Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy, Ṛṣi tried to argue against Prabhupāda, saying that although he was forced to grow old, according to transmigration of the soul he would be free after death. And anyway, there were other freedoms.

Prabhupāda stuck to his original point and said, “Death is inevitable. Old age, no one wants. Everyone wants youth. Even an old man goes to the beach for health. I want youth, but I cannot have it. So where is the freedom?”

Prabhupāda then spoke at length, for Ṛṣi’s benefit as well as for the benefit of the other devotees in the room. Persons under the influence of māyā, he said, declare that they are free. The drug addict or the drunkard thinks he is free – to lie down on the street. Yet his actions involve him in the strict laws of material nature. The outlaw declares himself free from the laws of the state, but he is put into jail. What is the use of his saying he is free? “Therefore Kṛṣṇa says,” Prabhupāda explained, “that ‘Whatever little freedom you have got, just surrender that freedom to Me.’ ”

Prabhupāda’s comments on false freedom were to the point. Within two hours of his arrival, he had already exposed the Laguna Beach mystique. Ṛṣi continued to smile and argue, but before Prabhupāda he was just another youth with no real answers. Prabhupāda was not interested in debating; he wanted to help his disciple. Ṛṣi, however, was using whatever freedom he had to defy Kṛṣṇa’s representative, trusting instead in his youth, his intoxication, and his music.

The door opened. “These are some professors, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” announced a devotee, “who form part of our congregation.” Prabhupāda greeted the new guests and asked that they sit up front on cushions.

“I was talking with this boy about freedom,” said Prabhupāda. “So I say there is no freedom for us. We are always dependent. What is your opinion about it?” One of the professors said he agreed, and Prabhupāda continued speaking. He talked with the professors for more than an hour.

Near the end, Upendra’s three-year-old son, Saumya, walked up to Prabhupāda from the back of the room. Prabhupāda gave him some money that was on the desk, and the boy ran back to his mother and gave her the money. “Yes. When I was young,” Prabhupāda reminisced, “if I got money I would take it to my mother. But then when I would become angry at her, I would demand it back. Sometimes I would steal money from my mother’s purse and go watch Charlie Chaplin movies.” His favorite scene was in a film called Hard Times, he said, when Charlie Chaplin sat down at a table with a knife and fork to eat a boot.

San Diego

July 27, 1975

  Śrīla Prabhupāda rode down the San Diego Freeway in the predawn darkness, on his way to San Diego to attend a festival in Balboa Park. On the way he passed through San Clemente, where former president Richard Nixon was staying. Prabhupāda had followed Nixon’s exposure and resignation and had often mentioned it in his lectures, sometimes as an example of how even the most powerful men are subject to anxiety and loss, sometimes to illustrate the need for proper training in the four natural social orders.

A devotee mentioned that Mr. Nixon lived here with no position, scorned by his countrymen. “Then you should go and preach to him,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said. Since the man had lost everything and was lamenting, he said, he might be receptive to hearing about the Absolute Truth. Prabhupāda had attempted a similar approach to Mahatma Gandhi.

At Balboa Park Prabhupāda was pleased with the devotees’ booths and colorful tents and the stage they had erected in the meadow. He had just begun addressing the large crowd when a man in the audience began shouting. Prabhupāda asked what he was saying, and a devotee explained, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, the man says he wants to have sex more than once a month.”

“He is creating disturbance,” said Prabhupāda into the microphone.

After a tense moment, Prabhupāda continued his lecture. “So, as this man is talking about sex, so this whole material world is enchanted by sex.” Taking the shouted protest as a new focus for his speech, Śrīla Prabhupāda quoted Prahlāda Mahārāja’s statement that all material entanglement begins from sexual enjoyment, which in comparison to transcendental pleasure is paltry and abominable. “But real happiness,” Prabhupāda asserted, “is above the senses. Whatever we enjoy with the gross senses is temporary, but permanent enjoyment is transcendental.

“So this man,” he continued, “was suggesting he wants sex at least once in a month. Yes, that is allowed. Five days after the wife’s menstrual period the husband and wife can have sex for begetting rightful children.” Prabhupāda used the Vedic technical term, garbhādhāna-saṁskāra, to describe the process of purifying sex within marriage. The devotees were astonished that before a crowd of sexually liberated Southern Californians Prabhupāda was espousing responsible, legitimate sex. Usually he discussed such matters, if at all, in letters to householders. But if the Americans were intent on sex, then Prabhupāda would let them have it. But he stressed responsible, restricted sex. Otherwise, by irresponsible sex, one has to suffer.

“Sex life is not denied,” Prabhupāda said, “but one must take responsibility for sex life. Otherwise he becomes entangled in so many sinful activities. You can have sex life once in a month. That is prescribed. Because a woman has once in a month menstrual period. So sex life is meant for simply begetting nice children, not for sense gratification. If it is in regulative form, the world may not become hell. If it is in irregulative form, then the whole world will be hell. Sex life is not denied. Sex life is not denied, but in a regulated form, so that you can get nice population and live very happily.

“Especially at the present moment, if you can produce children to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, that would be a great service to the Lord, because we want a Kṛṣṇa conscious population. Otherwise this world is going to hell. There were great empires like the Roman, Greek, and later on the Mogul empire, the British empire. Then there was Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini. So all these powerful empires and men have come and gone. Only a name is there now. Nothing is remaining. So I came to your country, America. I decided to come here because I heard your country is very nice, and when I came here I saw actually that your country is very nice – your cities, your buildings. Your men also – because mostly my students are Americans, and they help me very kindly to push on this movement.

“So I have studied the American life very nicely. They have a good heart. The only thing that is wanting is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. For want of this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, despite all your opulences, you are becoming confused and frustrated. I hear that out of three, one man is a patient of a psychiatrist. Why? Why are you unhappy? Why should you be unhappy? You have got everything – enough food, land, money, intelligence. Why should you be unhappy? The cause of this you should try to find out. The cause is that without Kṛṣṇa consciousness, without God consciousness, nobody can be happy.”

The outdoor audience was now quiet and attentive. Prabhupāda spoke for about forty minutes, ranging over different areas of Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy, and concluded with a request to the American men and women to seriously cooperate in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and thereby find happiness. His talk was greeted with cheers, and the devotees continued to host the crowd throughout the afternoon, chanting and dancing and distributing prasādam.

An Indian visitor was explaining to Prabhupāda why India had to build up nuclear weapons and armed forces, but Prabhupāda disagreed. The reason, he said, was the dearth of genuine kṣatriyas. There were no more men of courage; therefore a woman was now in charge.

In the newspapers also had been much coverage of a U.S. merchant ship, the Mayaquez, which, when sailing within the twelve-mile limit of Cambodia, had been seized without warning. President Ford had taken a strong stand, sending in the U.S. Marines. Fifteen Marines had been killed and fifty wounded in recovering the vessel, and the U.S. had bombed Cambodia. It was proper, Prabhupāda said, for the U.S. to take a strong stand in defending its citizens abroad. “Yes, America should be strong,” he asserted. “But first of all they should become Kṛṣṇa conscious. If they were actually a Kṛṣṇa conscious nation, they should declare, ‘If you touch the hair of one of our men, there will be a fight.’ ”

Śrīla Prabhupāda spoke strongly, giving the devotees a vision of a powerful America leading the world in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And this stirred within them hopes for a pure patriotism, such as in the ancient Vedic culture, when the world had been ruled by God conscious leaders.

The next morning, before going to the airport, Śrīla Prabhupāda took a walk in Balboa Park. Hearing the sweet singing of birds, he said they were happy. “They just take the fruits, and they are singing in the morning,” he said.

Rāmeśvara: “But when we tell people that they may take their next birth as an animal or bird, they say that’s all right, because these creatures are happier than the humans.”

Prabhupāda: “But because you are rascal, you do not know that you can become more happy – go back home, back to Godhead. That you do not know.”

Devotees liked to bring before Śrīla Prabhupāda all kinds of topics for his comment. Conversations would jump from one thing to another as devotees sometimes brought up horrendous examples of contemporary degradation or sometimes tested their own doubts by posing as agnostics. Or sometimes they would simply bring to Prabhupāda’s attention ordinary sights and sounds. Whatever the topic, Prabhupāda showed the devotees how to see things from the transcendental perspective. And thus he also showed to them his own purity and humanness. When a devotee told Prabhupāda that Balboa was the first man to see the Pacific, Prabhupāda at first seemed impressed, but a moment later he scoffed, “Everyone was already there. That they do not know. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans are mentioned in Kalidāsa Kavi’s book Kumāra-sambhava. They are all mentioned – Pacific, Atlantic oceans. These fools do not know anything. They say, ‘I am the first man to come,’ as if before him there was no man. Just see!”

Prabhupāda complimented the devotees on the previous day’s festival in the park and advised them to hold such festivals every day. “You are so rich,” he said laughingly, “you can do it. Continual festival. Tell them, ‘Come on. Take prasādam. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.’ Just like – what is that? Who told me? – continual massage.”

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami: “Yes, they have twenty-four-hour massage parlors.”

“Twenty-four hours,” Prabhupāda said, laughing. “Similarly, twenty-four-hours free prasādam – come on. But they are not hungry. Not for that.”

While walking to a meadow, they came upon a man standing on his head. “Is this our man?” Prabhupāda asked.

The devotees laughed and replied, “No, yoga.”

“He wants to be immortal,” said Rāmeśvara.

“No,” said Prabhupāda. “This keeps them healthy.”

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: “It’s good for the body?”

Prabhupāda: “Yes, śīrṣāsana it is called, sitting on the head. Śīrṣāsana, padmāsana, yogāsana – there are so many āsanas.”

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: “We don’t practice those.”

“Yes, we have no time from sleeping,” said Prabhupāda sarcastically. The devotees laughed at his cutting remark. “Otherwise,” Prabhupāda continued, “this is not bad. This is not bad. It keeps good health, this yoga-āsana.”

Hearing Prabhupāda’s surprising praise of haṭha-yoga, a devotee asked the inevitable – “So if we have time, can we do that?”

By now they had finished their walk and had arrived back at the cars. Śrīla Prabhupāda chuckled, as if aware that he was being baited with a controversial question. “Hare Kṛṣṇa,” he said. On getting into the car, he added, “Not required.”

Dallas

July 28, 1975

  “Swami, why are you here?” asked a reporter at the Dallas – Forth Worth Airport.

“This is my home,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda. The reply delighted his disciples. “I have got so many children, grandchildren. So I have come to see them.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda had written about Dallas Gurukula in his commentary on the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, he had written, was training a new generation of Vaiṣṇavas in its own school in Dallas, Texas.

More than a hundred boys and girls were now enrolled, and Śrīla Prabhupāda liked to visit here whenever he toured the United States. Here, as in other ISKCON projects in the U.S., he involved himself little in the management; but he visited, making himself available to the teachers, who were always ready with questions. Since there was no precedent in the West for Kṛṣṇa conscious education, and since the devotees wanted to develop the school just as Prabhupāda desired, they felt they had to ask him about curriculum, teaching methods, hygiene, recreation, and so on.

In the one-hundred-degree weather, the schoolboys wore no shirts, and Śrīla Prabhupāda ran the electric fan in his room. As soon as he arrived in his quarters, he asked that all the children and adults come into his room, and one by one they entered his room, held out a hand, and Prabhupāda gave them a large rasagullā. That evening he sat in a rocking chair on the lawn behind the temple, while devotees fanned him with a large peacock fan and locusts droned loudly in the trees. He sat there with his disciples amid many thriving tulasī plants, listening to a reading from the Kṛṣṇa book. This was as much a lesson in how to conduct a gurukula as were his answers to the teachers’ intricate questions. At Gurukula, everything should be based on chanting and hearing about Kṛṣṇa.

Brahmānanda Swami was reading about Kṛṣṇa’s rescuing His beloved Rukmiṇī, when suddenly Śrīla Prabhupāda interrupted and said that when they had been escaping on Kṛṣṇa’s chariot and the other princes had been attacking, Rukmiṇī had taken the reins and had driven the chariot. Kṛṣṇa had then taken His bow and arrows and had defeated His opponents. The devotees were amazed. Many of them were keen students of Kṛṣṇa book, and nowhere was that particular detail mentioned. Never before had any of them heard of Rukmiṇī’s taking the reins, nor had they ever thought of her in that way. But Prabhupāda assured them that she had fearlessly driven Kṛṣṇa’s chariot during the fight.

While Prabhupāda was speaking, Dayānanda, the Gurukula headmaster, stretched out his leg to find a more comfortable position, and Prabhupāda turned to him and said sternly, “Do not put your feet near Tulasī. She is a pure devotee.”

When Brahmānanda read a prayer in the Kṛṣṇa book describing Kṛṣṇa as the creator of the material elements, Prabhupāda spoke up. “If we do not accept that Kṛṣṇa made the sky,” he challenged, “then who made it?” The blue of the Texas sky was now fading into twilight, and guests and devotees alike looked up at the sky and then back to Prabhupāda.

“According to Bhagavad-gītā,” Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “Kṛṣṇa made the sky – bhūmir āpo ’nalo vāyuḥ kham. So we should study like this – ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ. The sky is the greatest material thing, but He created it. In this way, study Kṛṣṇa. Not just studying Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs – then you will misunderstand. But the more you understand Kṛṣṇa, the more you will become His staunch follower. Unauthorized persons never paint Kṛṣṇa creating the sky. They always want to see Kṛṣṇa dancing with the gopīs, and in this way they try to support their own lusty activities.”

Two Dallas newspapers had covered Prabhupāda’s arrival. The Dallas Times Herald printed a photo of Śrīla Prabhupāda seated and garlanded with roses, his right hand raised, his index finger extended, instructing. “Barefoot swami draws admiring Krishna crowd,” the headline read.

Aside from claiming that Śrīla Prabhupāda was barefoot (actually he had worn shoes but had removed them when sitting cross-legged), the article pointed out a controversy around the Kṛṣṇa devotees in Dallas. The article cited ISKCON’s injunction against officials of the Dallas – Fort Worth Airport, who had forbidden them to distribute literature and take donations.

On hearing the article, Śrīla Prabhupāda had commented, “This is good literature. It should be encouraged.” By reading it, people would become sane, and they would understand their constitutional position. Otherwise the people would go on being perturbed by crime and wondering what to do.

Śrīla Prabhupāda was particularly interested in the newspaper’s version of his reply to the question about Indian politics.

… the Swami replied that, “Mrs. Gandhi is inclined to some spiritual understanding, and if she fully develops it the situation will improve.

“Democracy is not much beneficial if its leaders have no spiritual values. Mahatma Gandhi was practically a dictator, but he was a man of a high moral character, so people accepted him. Dictatorship can be good, provided the dictator is spiritually developed.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda was repeatedly being asked about Indira Gandhi. The U.S. government was critical of her newly instituted emergency rule, and particularly in Chicago, the reporters had tried to construe Prabhupāda’s comments about women as criticism of Prime Minister Gandhi. Both in Chicago and Dallas Śrīla Prabhupāda had stressed that he was not much concerned with politics, although he indicated that politics were useless without Kṛṣṇa.

Eager to keep good relations with the Indian government, Prabhupāda did not like to speak publicly against India’s leaders. He had often expressed a desire to meet with the Prime Minister to assure her of the good work the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement was doing for the benefit of India and the whole world, and to request her assistance. In India, visas had always been a problem for the devotees. They had to continually leave the country and their service to renew their visas and then reenter, at great cost. Now some devotees, especially in the Māyāpur area, were being asked to leave the country because of America’s stance against Indira Gandhi’s political actions. Recently Prabhupāda had received word from the devotees in Delhi that they were trying to arrange such a meeting. So he liked the favorable statements on Indira Gandhi in the Dallas Times Herald and asked that the article be saved.

While walking near White Rock Lake the morning he was to leave for New Orleans, Śrīla Prabhupāda dropped behind the main group of devotees and said to his servant, “I am not feeling well.” The few sannyāsīs close by pressed in near him with concern. “Yesterday also,” he added.

“Is it due to the heat, Śrīla Prabhupāda?”

“I do not know why, but now I am feeling headache and some spasm.”

“Should we cancel the trip this morning?”

Śrīla Prabhupāda didn’t answer. He admitted, however, the heat may have weakened his digestion. When asked if the food was to his liking, he replied, “Not very all right. Constantly change of hand is not good.” Brahmānanda Swami suggested that another difficulty for health was the constant flying, but when he again suggested postponing the flight to New Orleans, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “No, no,” and continued forward.

July 31

  The weather was stormy en route to New Orleans. Śrīla Prabhupāda, in the first-class section with Upendra, was looking out the window when the “Fasten Your Seat Belt” announcement came, just ten minutes before the scheduled landing.

Suddenly the plane dropped violently. Passengers screamed and clutched their armrests, bracing themselves. Upendra, frightened speechless, thought, If I have to die, it’s all right, because Prabhupāda is here. The downward plunge stopped abruptly, but then the plane began to lurch and roll, tossed by turbulent air currents. Overhead bins snapped open, and articles fell out, bouncing off passengers and onto the floor. Śrīla Prabhupāda turned to Upendra. “Why is it rocking?” he asked.

“It’s a storm,” replied Upendra. He could see that Śrīla Prabhupāda was calm. His expression was one of irritation, like over some minor incident, as when his lunch would be served late.

In wind and downpour, the pilot finally touched the wheels onto the runway, landing without mishap. A sigh rose from the passengers, then cheering and applause. Śrīla Prabhupāda seemed unaffected. He asked Upendra how long a drive it would be to the temple.

Śrīla Prabhupāda and his party arrived at the large mansion on Esplanade Boulevard in heavy rain. Nityānanda, the New Orleans temple president, having been given two weeks’ notice of Prabhupāda’s visit, had hurriedly repainted and readied all the buildings, both here and at the Mississippi farm. Despite a thorough search of the city’s markets, however, he had been unable to find any bitter melon, which he had heard Śrīla Prabhupāda took daily for digestion. Therefore he had arranged for one of Prabhupāda’s secretaries to bring some from Dallas. Nityānanda and the New Orleans devotees felt they were as ready for Prabhupāda’s visit as they would ever be.

A wide marble staircase led up to the entrance, and Prabhupāda, leaning on his cane, climbed it slowly, as devotees threw flower petals down from the third floor. The entire distance from the car to the house, about 250 feet, was covered with a three-foot-wide white cloth, leading up to the vyāsāsana. Prabhupāda bowed down before the Deities of Gaura-Nitāi, Rādhā-Rādhākānta, and Lord Jagannātha, sat down, but then decided it was too late in the morning to speak. Instead, he went at once to his quarters in the building next door.

As soon as Śrīla Prabhupāda reached his room, he was introduced to an official from City Hall who had come from the mayor’s office to present him with an honorary welcome to New Orleans. Prabhupāda graciously accepted a symbolic key to the city and a scroll welcoming and praising him as an honorable visitor. Seizing the opportunity, he began preaching to the man, treating his guest not as a city official but as any other conditioned soul.

When the welcoming flurry had abated and Śrīla Prabhupāda had bathed, taken prasādam, and rested, he called for Nityānanda. When Nityānanda entered, Prabhupāda had sandalwood pulp on his forehead and wore a fresh garland. Nityānanda offered obeisances. Alone in the room with his spiritual master, he felt embarrassed and fearful. Prabhupāda picked up a photo album from his desk containing pictures of the farm in Mississippi. “You know,” he said, “I have come especially to see your farm.”

Before sunrise the next morning Śrīla Prabhupāda left in the rain on a two-hour drive to the farm. He would have to return to New Orleans that night, as he was scheduled to fly to Detroit the next morning.

The rain had stopped in Carriere, Mississippi, and Śrīla Prabhupāda looked out across the gently rolling land. The ISKCON farm – cleared land, surrounded by a pine forest – was situated on a ridge. The previous owner had used the property as a horse ranch, and the modern fourteen-room brick house, the large barn, and several sheds were all in good condition. Prabhupāda liked the land. He said it looked just like Bengal.

Most of the devotees from New Orleans had raced to the farm to be with Prabhupāda, and they crowded into the temple room, waiting for him to give the morning Bhāgavatam class. As soon as he began to speak, however, many flies came, buzzing, landing on his head and body. A devotee began fanning him with a cāmara whisk, but to no avail.

“Come near,” Prabhupāda said. “This cāmara is especially meant for driving away the flies. Even it is touching the body, there is no harm.”

Toward the end of the lecture, Śrīla Prabhupāda began speaking of the farm. “Now this place, I see, although I have not seen all, it is a nice place. The gṛhasthas may come here, have some small cottage, grow your own food grains and vegetables, and have your own cow’s milk. Get nice foodstuff, and save time. Why should you go into the city hundreds of miles in a car and again hundreds of miles back and take unnecessary trouble? Stick to this spot and grow your own food, make your own cloth, and live peacefully. Save time and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. This is actual life.

“What is this nonsense life – big, big cities, and all these people busy? To see a friend he has to go thirty miles. If he has to see a physician, he has to go fifty miles. If he has to go to work, another hundred miles. So what is this life? This is not life. Be satisfied. A devotee’s life should be prayojana. We require material necessities – as much as is required. No artificial life.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda went on to deprecate the life of “simply machine, machine, machine, machine.” He asked the devotees to show by practical example how to live simply and advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. If they could show the example, people would try to follow.

Although Nityānanda and the others had been living on the land for many months, Prabhupāda’s words gave them the real direction and purpose for the project. It was as if he were now breathing life into his project.

Śrīla Prabhupāda went to his room and sat with Brahmānanda Swami, Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami, Harikeśa, Jagadīśa, and Upendra. When he began speaking about varṇāśrama, he called for Nityānanda. They should try not to use machines, he said. The men and animals should do the work.

Nityānanda asked whether the householders should produce food cooperatively or as individual families. “They should work together,” said Prabhupāda, “or what’s the use of living in a community center?”

When Upendra asked how the milk should be used, Śrīla Prabhupāda explained what he called the Indian village system. “As Nanda Mahārāja was keeping cows,” he said, “similarly there are many villages. They have a big pan, and whatever milk is collected they put into that pan. It is kept on a fire and is warm. So the whole family can drink milk whenever they like. Then whatever milk remains at night, they have to convert it into yogurt. The next day they use milk and yogurt also as they like. Then after converting the milk into yogurt, whatever remains is stored. If there is sufficient old yogurt, they churn, and then butter comes out. They take that butter, and the water separated from the butter is called whey. So instead of dāl, they use this whey for eating with capātīs. It will be very healthy and tasty. Meanwhile, the butter they turn into ghee. There is not a single drop of waste.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda said that everyone could take as much milk as necessary and that the ghee could be used in ISKCON restaurants in the cities. Curd could also be used in the restaurants for making sandeśa, rasagullā, and other dishes.

Śrīla Prabhupāda stressed that the farm be well organized, engaging all classes of men – brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas, and śūdras. No laziness or unemployment. “Otherwise,” he said, “people will criticize that we are simply eating and sleeping and escaping.”

Nityānanda asked whether they should immediately stop using farm machinery.

“We are not against the machine,” Prabhupāda explained. “You can utilize machine. But we should not allow others to be unemployed while we use the machine. This is the point. You can use the machine, but the first thing is that everyone should be employed. If you have got many men, then why should you engage the machine?”

Śrīla Prabhupāda also explained that in Vedic culture, the kṣatriyas collected taxes and protected the citizens while the śūdras worked in the fields or at trade. The women would cook, spin, weave, and take care of the milk products. The low-class men, such as cobblers, who used the skin of dead cows, were allowed to eat meat. “But not that one is Professor Such-and-such and yet he is eating meat,” Prabhupāda said. “This is the way of the degraded modern society. Teacher means brāhmaṇa, and yet he is eating meat. How horrible! So do these things and organize. I can give you the idea, but I will not live very long. If you can carry it out, you can change the whole world. Especially if you can change America, then the whole world will change.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda became emotional, and tears came to his eyes. “It is the duty!” he said. “Caitanya Mahāprabhu has explained para-upakāra: Save them! If it is not possible to save everyone – as many as possible. This is human life. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness – to save those who are in the darkness.

“Don’t think,” he said, “ ‘Kṛṣṇa consciousness is my profession. I am getting a living, food, and shelter.’ That is just what the Indians are doing. Not like that. It is para-upakāra. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then Kṛṣṇa will be very much pleased. Kṛṣṇa personally comes for giving this benefit to the people, and if you do, then how much Kṛṣṇa will be pleased. Just like I am traveling to my centers, and if I see that my students, my men, are doing very nice, everything is going nice, how much pleased I will be. Then I can save my labors and now write books for the rest of my life. Similarly, if Kṛṣṇa sees that you are, on behalf of Kṛṣṇa, trying to save these rascals, then you will very much please Kṛṣṇa. The Vaiṣṇava’s qualification is para-duḥkha-duḥkhī. He is unhappy seeing others’ distress. This is a Vaiṣṇava.” Śrīla Prabhupāda ended the intimate meeting by rising and leaving the room.

When Harikeśa mentioned that he was spending two-and-a-half hours to cook Śrīla Prabhupāda’s lunch, Prabhupāda said, “You do not know how to cook. I will show you and do it in one hour.”

“One hour?” said Harikeśa, almost in disbelief. “This is amazing!”

Prabhupāda then took off his shirt and entered the little kitchen of the Mississippi farm. While a crowd of devotees peered in through the open door, Prabhupāda looked at his wristwatch and announced, “It is now twelve o’clock.”

He used the same three-tiered brass cooker he had brought to America in 1965. In the bottom section he put mung beans and water, in the middle section he put rice, and in the top he arranged various cut vegetables – squash, peas, potatoes, and cauliflower. Putting the cooker over a low flame, he then poured an inch of ghee into a frying pan and placed it over a flame. Next he cut up an eggplant, dipped the pieces into turmeric and salt, and began to fry them in the hot ghee. He mixed and kneaded dough and began rolling out capātīs. Periodically he checked his wristwatch, and when forty-five minutes had passed, he took the cooker’s top off and turned it upside down to use as a small frying pan. He put in ghee and cooked some bitter melon, then deftly added cumin, anise, chili, and asafoetida. He squeezed lemon on the steamed vegetables and, within a few minutes, had finished.

Śrīla Prabhupāda looked at his watch. “One hour,” he said. “We have cooked nine preparations.” He then left the kitchen while his servant prepared his plate. Prabhupāda said that everyone who had watched him cook should be given some of the prasādam.

About five in the afternoon, Prabhupāda toured the farm. In the barn he saw the calves taking milk.

“How are you using the bulls?” he asked.

Like a hesitant student, Nityānanda replied, “To plow?”

“Yes,” said Prabhupāda, “to plow and transport. You have to engage more men for plowing. Two bulls may be used for each plow.”

Passing by a hayfield, Prabhupāda asked why the cut hay still lay in the field. Nityānanda explained that he had to wait for it to dry after the rain. Prabhupāda warned that rain could spoil the hay; it should be harvested soon. Coming upon a three-acre plot of sugarcane, they walked up one row and entered deep into the cane patch, which stood several feet above their heads. Emerging on the other side, they came to the edge of a forest of pine.

“These jungles are natural arrangement,” said Prabhupāda. “You cut the trees, make your home, and the balance of it you can make for fuel. Then the ground you can plow and grow your own food. That’s all. It’s natural.” Prabhupāda lamented modern society’s waste of trees by printing heaps of useless newspapers. He saw the two acres of fruit trees the devotees had planted – satsumas, peaches, pears, and figs – as well as the twenty-five large pecan trees.

But he discovered discrepancies. Nityānanda had lined up for Prabhupāda’s inspection two tractors, a large forage harvester, a hay conditioner, hay mowers, rakes, a blower, and a wagon. But when Prabhupāda saw the machines standing in the open, he asked why they were not being kept under cover. Nityānanda replied that they were still building a shed.

“In the meantime it will be finished,” said Prabhupāda. “By the time you finish your shed, they will be rusty and gradually become useless.” He quoted a Hindi proverb and translated. “ ‘A woman was dressing to go to a fair, but when she was finally dressed, the fair was already finished.’ ” The devotees laughed, but Nityānanda was grave.

Prabhupāda continued: “Utilize these machines, otherwise, while they are in working order, sell them. But don’t keep idle in this neglected way.”

Nityānanda showed Prabhupāda where twenty-five acres of sorghum was growing. This grain was for the animals and when harvested would go into the silos.

“So everything is for the animals?” asked Prabhupāda. “Nothing for man?”

“The cows give us milk,” explained Nityānanda.

“That’s all?” asked Prabhupāda. “And you are not growing any food grains? Why?” Prabhupāda’s instruction was clear. Just before the walk was over, he again asked Nityānanda, “What the oxen will do?”

“Plow the fields,” Nityānanda replied, like a student having learned his lesson.

“Yes,” said Prabhupāda, “that is wanted. Transport and plowing the fields. And unless our men are trained up in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they will think, ‘What is the use of taking care of the cow? Better go to the city, earn money, and eat them.’ ”

This statement was similar to an instruction Prabhupāda had given in various temples after installing the Deities of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. If the devotees were not enthusiastic, he had warned, the Deity worship would deteriorate into mere ritual, until finally the devotees would resent the spiritual master’s giving them such a burden. Likewise on the farms, if the devotees did not utilize the bulls in the natural way and if they did not use the milk properly, then eventually they would want to get rid of the animals. By conducting things as Prabhupāda had taught, however, the devotees, the cows, and the bulls would live cooperatively and happily and Kṛṣṇa would be pleased.

Although for years Śrīla Prabhupāda had given many practical instructions in other areas of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, this was one of the first times he had given so many practical directions on conducting varṇāśrama society. He felt satisfied and pleased to have seen such a promising Kṛṣṇa conscious farm community and, reentering the house, said he was ready to return to New Orleans. It had been a busy, productive day in the service of Kṛṣṇa, and tomorrow would be another.

Detroit

August 2, 1975

  Alfred Ford, the great-grandson of Henry Ford, had become attracted to Kṛṣṇa consciousness through meeting some of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciples in Detroit and through reading Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. He had adopted the principles of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, begun regularly chanting sixteen rounds, and was now Śrīla Prabhupāda’s initiated disciple, Ambarīṣa. Today Ambarīṣa was at the airport, behind the wheel of a white Lincoln Continental limousine, waiting to meet Śrīla Prabhupāda. On seeing Śrīla Prabhupāda approach, Ambarīṣa got out of the driver’s seat and offered obeisances. He opened the back door of the limousine for Śrīla Prabhupāda, shut it, and returned to his seat, just like a menial chauffeur.

“We devotees also have a car,” said Prabhupāda as they drove away, “but we are going to the temple and distributing books with it. Anything can be used for Kṛṣṇa. Here is a rich man’s son, Alfred Ford. We are giving him a little spiritual teaching, and he is happy.”

Another of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Detroit disciples was Elisabeth Reuther, now Lekhaśravantī-devī dāsī, the daughter of labor leader Walter Reuther. Ambarīṣa told Prabhupāda that the Fords and the Reuthers had been enemies, but now two of their descendants were peacefully working together in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Śrīla Prabhupāda was pleased with the humility of these two disciples, and while he gave them some special status, he did not dote on the fact that they were from such famous families. Ambarīṣa and Lekhaśravantī saw themselves as humble servants of the Vaiṣṇavas.

On the way to the temple, Prabhupāda’s car passed a large, modern building displaying flags of many nations and a large sign: “World Headquarters, Ford.” One of the devotees turned to Ambarīṣa and asked, “Is this where you work?”

From the back seat, Prabhupāda spoke up. “No, he is the proprietor.”

As they passed by a big urban redevelopment project, Prabhupāda asked, “What is this?”

“This is known as Detroit’s Renaissance Center,” said Ambarīṣa.

“They will never have a Renaissance,” Prabhupāda replied.

The Detroit temple was located in an old brick house, with the temple room in the third-floor attic. The lease was soon due to run out, and Govardhana, the temple president, was looking for a new place. He showed Prabhupāda photos of likely buildings, one of them a mansion of the late auto industry millionaire Lawrence Fisher. The place was probably too expensive, Govardhana said, and was located in a bad neighborhood.

But Prabhupāda was interested. In fact, whatever the devotees cited as bad about the mansion, Prabhupāda would say was actually good, or at least could be easily rectified. As for the high crime rate in the area, he said, “You’ll have nothing to fear. Just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and distribute prasādam. Invite all the neighborhood people, thieves, and rascals, to take prasādam and chant, and you won’t have any thefts.”

Devotees emphasized that Detroit was the crime capital of the U.S. and that the poor slum area where the mansion was located was known for drug trafficking, robberies, and murders. But Śrīla Prabhupāda repeated that they should not be afraid. “I lived in the Bowery,” he said, and he described how the bums used to urinate on his front door and lie across the doorway. But when he would come to enter the building, they would get up and say, “Yes, sir. Come on, sir.”

“Get the place,” Prabhupāda said, “and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa there twenty-four hours a day. If a thief comes, we will say, ‘Yes, first take prasādam, and then take whatever you want.’ What do we have?”

Śrīla Prabhupāda went to see the mansion with Govardhana, Ambarīṣa, and several G.B.C. men. They were met by the owner and a lady who introduced herself as a real estate agent.

As the owner guided them on a tour, Prabhupāda came to like the estate even more. The palatial building was situated on four acres surrounded by a high stone wall. There were gardens and walkways, now in disrepair, as well as fountains and a swimming pool. Some of the devotees thought the place gaudy, with its extravagant 1920s decor, but Śrīla Prabhupāda saw the great potential.

As soon as he entered the vestibule and saw the ornate Italian tiles and marble archways, he began to smile. The group entered the lobby, its high ceiling covered with classically sculptured leaves, rosettes, and hand-painted plaster flowers. Next they entered the ballroom, with its marble floor and high, vaulted ceiling painted to resemble an early-evening blue sky with clouds and stars. Special lighting gave the effect of natural starlight. At one end of the hall, three marble arches exactly resembled the design Prabhupāda had given for the Deity altars in his temples. Three altars could be installed there and the ballroom made into a temple with very little renovation. Prabhupāda did not comment to the owner on the ballroom’s suitability, but to the devotees it was obvious.

The tour then proceeded to the boat well, an indoor water garage capable of holding several yachts. The boat well opened into a channel, which opened into the nearby Detroit River. Prabhupāda mentioned that the devotees could get a boat for their preaching.

As Prabhupāda and his entourage entered one gorgeous room after another, they saw the many carved stone columns, hand-painted floor and wall tiles from Italy and Greece, and ceilings ornamented with gold-leafed figures. Rare antique crystal chandeliers adorned many of the rooms. There were living rooms, library rooms, a dining room, a billiard room, a music room, two master bedrooms, other bedrooms – all extravaganzas. “Each room is worth the entire price,” said Prabhupāda privately to the devotees.

The owner spoke of Mayan, Moorish, Spanish, Greek, and Italian influences, and pointed out that the two hand-carved spiral columns in the dining room were salvaged from an ancient European palace. Wherever Śrīla Prabhupāda looked, he saw opulence: an indoor marble fountain, a wall of iridescent tiles, hand-painted cornices. Even the large bathrooms were extraordinary, with glamorous imported tiles and gold-plated accents.

The introductory tour completed, Prabhupāda, his followers, the owner, and the real estate agent sat together at an umbrella-covered patio table by the swimming pool. Already Śrīla Prabhupāda had mentioned to his disciples that the owner should donate the building for ISKCON’s missionary purposes, and he had told Brahmānanda Swami to make the request. Since the owner had not mentioned the price, Prabhupāda spoke up.

“So, we are beggars,” he began. He was serious, and yet he spoke with an air of humor. Ambarīṣa and Upendra hid their faces in embarrassment. “We have no money,” Prabhupāda continued boldly. “Therefore, we are asking you, please give us this building.”

The owner glanced incredulously at his real estate agent and then laughed nervously. “It’s out of the question,” he said. “I can’t do that.”

The agent was also taken aback and upset. “He can’t do that,” she whispered.

“I can’t give it to you,” explained the owner, “because I have taken a loss in maintaining this property. So I have to make my money back. This property represents a major part of my income.”

“Then,” said Prabhupāda, “how much do you want?”

“Well,” the man replied, “I have to get at least $350,000.”

None of the devotees dared say anything. Prabhupāda thought for a moment and then said, “We will give you $300,000 cash.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” the man replied.

The real estate agent got to her feet, saying that a transaction like this is usually not done straight to the owner. But Prabhupāda ignored her and spoke with the owner about how lovely the mansion was. Prabhupāda then got up and took a short walk in the garden with his men.

Govardhana asked Prabhupāda if he’d liked it, and Prabhupāda said, “Yes, who would not like such a building?”

“Ambarīṣa doesn’t like it,” said Govardhana.

“Oh?”

Ambarīṣa said he thought the mansion was māyā.

“Yes,” said Prabhupāda, “but māyā is also Kṛṣṇa. We can use anything in Kṛṣṇa’s service.”

Leaving the garden path and returning to their cars, Prabhupāda asked Ambarīṣa, “So, is this possible?”

“Yes, Prabhupāda. This is possible.”

As soon as they returned to the temple, Ambarīṣa and Lekhaśravantī conferred. Her inheritance was limited, but she was able to give $125,000. Ambarīṣa had to come up with the balance.

The next day the owner came to see Śrīla Prabhupāda. The man was accompanied by two women, and they all appeared a little intoxicated. He had come to say that he accepted the offer. Prabhupāda smiled and reaffirmed his intention to buy.

Afterward, Śrīla Prabhupāda openly showed his blissfulness about the purchase. “Just see,” he said, “I didn’t have one penny, and yet I offered him $300,000 cash. And now Kṛṣṇa has provided the money.”

As Prabhupāda had told the estate owner, “I am a sannyāsī. I have no money.” And after collecting $300,000 from his disciples, he still had no money. Within a few days he left for Toronto, taking nothing for himself. Everything was Kṛṣṇa’s, to be used in Kṛṣṇa’s service.

Toronto

August 7, 1975

  Despite a severe toothache and swollen jaw, Śrīla Prabhupāda continued with lectures, interviews, and his usual activities. He could not chew and took only puréed fruit. When asked if he would see a dentist, he told the devotees not to worry; he was used to difficulties.

The Toronto temple was a small, run-down building, and Prabhupāda was interested in helping the devotees relocate. All the real estate brokers they had approached had told them about a fabulous church for sale downtown. The temple president, Viśvakarmā, had looked at the building, but the owners were asking almost half a million dollars, with a large down payment. When Prabhupāda went to see the church, he decided that somehow they must get it. If necessary he could send the total BBT collections for two months as a loan to the Toronto temple. Prabhupāda told them to offer $300,000 cash, but when Uttamaśloka went, the church directors rejected the offer, saying they had already rejected an offer for much more.

Śrīla Prabhupāda did not give up the idea of getting the church, however, and he mentioned it before a meeting of Indians. Near the end of the program, when the host begged Prabhupāda to return again to bless them, Prabhupāda took the opportunity to request all present to please help the devotees raise money to purchase the church. Once they had actually purchased it, he said, he would return to Toronto. Many of the gentlemen present promised to help.

Suddenly, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s North American tour was interrupted. A telegram from Tejās in New Delhi announced that if Prabhupāda wanted an interview with Indira Gandhi, he would have to come at once. The telegram contained no details, and his secretary was unable to reach the Delhi temple by phone. But Prabhupāda didn’t need to hear anything more. When an auspicious opportunity arose, he said, a devotee should act at once.

Harikeśa planned the trip so they could stop in Montreal overnight. From Montreal they would fly to Paris, where Prabhupāda could rest before going on to Delhi. As word of Prabhupāda’s imminent departure spread, several devotees in Toronto tried to see Prabhupāda for last instructions about their projects. Rāmeśvara also phoned from Los Angeles, pressing Harikeśa to ask Prabhupāda a list of last-minute editorial questions regarding the Fifth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The questions, however, concerning the Bhāgavatam’s explanation of the structure of the universe, Prabhupāda rejected as unintelligent. He ordered the BBT to simply print the books as they were.

Not only was the prospect of meeting with Prime Minister Gandhi prompting Prabhupāda’s return to India, but so were his uncompleted projects, especially Hare Krishna Land in Bombay. Brahmānanda Swami said he thought Prabhupāda had been looking for such a chance to end his Western tour and get back into personally managing the projects in India. Prabhupāda had just dictated a letter to Surabhi in Vṛndāvana, expressing disappointment that things could not get done without him.

You are all simply writing letters to me. Without my personal presence there you cannot do anything. Simply correspondence. Anyway, be careful there is no underhanded dealing in this transaction [purchasing land]. It is very much risky, so be careful. Please send me a regular report of the Bombay construction. I am very much anxious and will be glad to receive your regular report.

Devotees in Boston, New Vrindaban, and New York received the news of Prabhupāda’s sudden departure with shock – he would not be visiting their temples! And they felt the impact of the stark realization that Śrīla Prabhupāda could leave them at any moment. He was not obliged to stay with them, and they should not take his presence for granted. They had his instructions; this was sufficient. Of course, important decisions still had to be made. In Boston the devotees had expected Prabhupāda to look at a new building with them; but based on his instruction, they could become responsible and carry out his will, even in his absence.

The devotees who had recently received Prabhupāda in their temples realized how valuable had been those moments. The personal association they had had should be relished, remembered, and acted upon. The book distributors already knew that their work was most important to Prabhupāda, and that was sufficient. The Press workers in Los Angeles weren’t dependent on Prabhupāda’s staying in America; they had their mission – seventeen books in two months – and they were working day and night.

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s traveling in the U.S. and Canada had been exactly in the mood of a wandering sannyāsī. And he was showing his G.B.C. men that they should not simply sit behind desks and manage but should travel and preach. Traveling, Prabhupāda stressed, did not mean aimless wandering or pleasure-seeking. While traveling, the preacher had to do some substantial work for the Kṛṣṇa consciousness society. And that also Śrīla Prabhupāda had shown – at the Dallas Gurukula, the Mississippi farm, Ratha-yātrā. In Detroit he had secured a mansion, and in Toronto he was praying for a wonderful church, to be financed by the Indians. In Chicago he had shown how to preach on contemporary issues like crime and women’s liberation – without compromise. His disciples could not match or imitate him, but his example of selfless work on behalf of Kṛṣṇa should be their standard.

In spite of Prabhupāda’s traveling to so many cities, most people in the United States did not recognize his position. Reporters would interview him, but their superficial stories in the newspapers drew little attention. To the press, Prabhupāda was just another celebrity in the constant parade of faces and events. As Lord Kṛṣṇa had predicted in Bhagavad-gītā, out of thousands of men, only one seeks perfection. Śrīla Prabhupāda, in his tireless search for that one person out of thousands, had shown his enthusiasm and willingness to speak with whoever came to see him. And through Ratha-yātrā and other public festivals, he was offering millions a first taste of potent spiritual life. Even one moment’s association with a pure devotee could save them from a most inauspicious fate in their next life.

Besides the hundreds of thousands who benefited incidentally, in each city a fortunate few felt their lives greatly affected by Śrīla Prabhupāda. Professor Thomas Hopkins in Philadelphia, Assemblyman John Porter in Chicago, a flight supervisor on the plane to San Francisco, an appreciative mother in Philadelphia, and many others – all understood that their meeting with Śrīla Prabhupāda was special.

Śrīla Prabhupāda often cited a specific reason for his touring. “My duty,” he had said in Berkeley, “is to see that my disciples, who have accepted me as guru, may not fall down. That is my anxiety.” And as he had lovingly expressed it in Dallas, “I have got so many children and grandchildren, so I have come to see them.” He was the spiritual father of his disciples, and every ISKCON center was his home.

While touring his movement in the West, Śrīla Prabhupāda had felt satisfied that it was growing stronger. Opposition was also growing, but he took that as another sign of ISKCON’s authenticity. His original plan was still intact, and on this tour he had been pursuing it. America had a chance of becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious – at least he and his disciples should try for that. If they succeeded, then the whole world could be uplifted by that transcendental influence.

Prabhupāda liked preaching in America. “Mostly my students are American,” he had said, “and they help me very kindly push on this movement.” But one man in the San Diego crowd had shouted back that he wanted more sex than was allowed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So Prabhupāda’s estimation was that Americans had good hearts, but that for want of Kṛṣṇa consciousness they were becoming completely confused, frustrated, and degraded.

Śrīla Prabhupāda had come first to America in 1965 to plant the seed of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That he had done. Now, with dozens of centers across the country and many others around the world, he was realizing that his ambitions were not going unfulfilled. He also accepted that to make Kṛṣṇa consciousness the dominant force in America and the world was something he might not see in his lifetime. “It is not one man’s work,” he had said, and he asked everyone – Americans, Indians, and all world citizens – to take part in distributing Lord Caitanya’s mercy.

Only a rare few came forward to help him, however, and he worked with them. Touring, therefore, was but another attempt at making his organization as strong as possible while it was within his power to do so. Actually, he was living for others, and he didn’t think he would live much longer. He wanted to continue touring, building ISKCON, saving as many lost souls as possible. And he wanted to impress upon his sincere followers and upon others who would read his books that every human being should take up this same work and live for the benefit of others by distributing Kṛṣṇa consciousness.