SpiritualŚrīla Prabhupāda, scheduled to arrive in Paris on July 20, 1972, would not travel to Germany on his summer tour of Europe that year, so all the devotees in Germany, except for the pūjārīs, got into their vehicles and drove to France.
BHAKTI GAURAVANI GOSWAMI: We reached the Paris temple, located in the suburb of Fontenay-aux-Roses, on the evening of July 19. Devotees from France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and England, had all arrived to be with Prabhupāda, and the small temple resembled a beehive. Wherever I went in the building, devotees were painting doors, walls, ceilings, and windowsills white and blue, and Bhagavān Dāsa, the GBC for France, was directing the whole show like a military commander. Some of the devotees painted right up to the moment Prabhupāda arrived.
The next morning, after breakfast, some seventy devotees drove to Orly, where Prabhupāda’s flight from London was expected to land around noon.
JAYAGOURA DĀSA: When I saw Prabhupāda for the first time at the airport I saw nothing special right away, but as he approached, I noticed tears in his eyes. And when I bowed down to offer obeisances, tears also welled up in my eyes. I found out that many devotees had a similar experience, so my conclusion is that Prabhupāda displayed spiritual emotions and thereby moved us. He saw that we had become devotees only by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy. Transmitting a mood of intense humility and gratitude, he was just like the rays of sunshine illuminating darkness.
BHARATA DĀSA: My first encounter with Prabhupāda at Orly was a big surprise for me. I had been initiated by mail only two months earlier, and my conception of Prabhupāda was that of a peaceful yogī. But he was so much different from what I had imagined. As soon as Prabhupāda appeared, half the devotees began to cry. The atmosphere suddenly became surcharged with an intense feeling of love of God and endless mercy toward all the fallen souls—truly overwhelming.
PṚTHU DĀSA: After arriving at the airport, the devotees began kīrtana. Along with some others, I went ahead to the customs area. As the sliding doors opened and closed and travelers came through one by one, I peeked through the doors and saw Prabhupāda twenty meters away. When he noticed us, he smiled and waved. I was so overwhelmed seeing Prabhupāda in person for the first time that I immediately fell to the ground and offered obeisances. I laughed and cried simultaneously. My body trembled, and within a few seconds, I experienced all kinds of contradictory emotions. That was my first experience of seeing Prabhupāda.
KṚṢṆA-KṢETRA SWAMI: My first direct sight of Śrīla Prabhupāda was at the airport. Some seventy devotees had converged in the arrival hall and were receiving him with a roaring kīrtana. At the moment Prabhupāda became visible to us, he smiled broadly and waved to the devotees. He was still yet to clear customs. The feeling from seeing him in person after hearing so much about him from devotees, seeing pictures of him, reading his books, and distributing his magazines was, of course, most exhilarating. His greatness seemed accentuated by his small physical stature and soft golden effulgence. Noting that he was even shorter than I inspired in me a particular affection, perhaps blended with protectiveness. One of my first thoughts on seeing him was, “Yes, here is my eternal father.”
We all threw ourselves on the floor in daṇḍavats in two lines separated by an aisle for Prabhupāda. As he walked by me, his right lotus foot slightly touched my right thumb. Naturally, I felt especially blessed by the unsolicited, inadvertent touch of the pure devotee.
After I got up, someone told me to help retrieve Prabhupāda’s luggage from the baggage claim. Two or three of us dashed gleefully with Prabhupāda’s servant to the conveyer belt, happy to be able to render a small, practical service to His Divine Grace’s tadīya (paraphernalia). We knew that in his luggage Prabhupāda carried his books and translation work. Indeed, one large suitcase was particularly heavy. A huskier devotee carried that one, while I carried one of the smaller cases.
VAIDYANĀTHA DĀSA: When Śrīla Prabhupāda came out of the customs area, he was surrounded by a lot of people. To me, those people appeared like a gray mass, but Prabhupāda stood out like a luminous personality. With a huge smile on his face, he waved to the devotees. In contrast to the other passengers, who appeared to me like shadows, Prabhupāda seemed to be the only real person there.
BHAKTI GAURAVANI GOSWAMI: To receive Prabhupāda we formed two rows and an aisle from customs all the way through the arrivals hall to the area where Prabhupāda was expected to giva a press conference. With our heads turned toward the sliding doors where he was expected to come through, all of us were absorbed in an ecstatic kīrtana in glorification of Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotee. Suddenly, the chanting gained volume, and some devotees began to jump up and down like mad. Prabhupāda’s appearance was imminent. Then I saw his head—golden-hued and effulgent, almost like something carved from precious wood. His spirituality was palpable, and it distinguished him from everyone around him. Prabhupāda’s bright eyes were glancing mercifully over the assembled devotees, and at the same time, he emanated a deep humility. As Prabhupāda strode down the aisle, devotees offered their obeisances one after another. Standing further down, I was waiting anxiously for Prabhupāda to pass, and when he finally was so near that I could almost touch him, I fell to the floor. My voice choked reciting the praṇāma mantras, tears of joy sprang to my eyes, and my body shook. The entire experience lasted only a few seconds, but it left an indelible impression on my heart.
As I began writing this chapter, I had not really intended to share this deeply personal experience with a wider audience, chiefly out of concern that it might be dismissed as sentimental imagination. However, when I discovered that several Godbrothers and Godsisters had undergone similar experiences, I decided to recount my own as well.
Years later, while reading the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, I found a section that confirms that seeing Prabhupāda with an effulgent countenance is not a figment of the imagination. In Madhya-līlā, Chapter 11, where the beḍā-kīrtana pastimes are described, Mahārāja Pratāparudra observes the devotees performing saṅkīrtana and exclaims, “Upon seeing all these devotees, I am very much astonished, for I have never seen such an effulgence. Indeed, their effulgence is like the brilliance of a million suns. Nor have I ever heard the Lord’s names chanted so melodiously”.
Prabhupāda explains in his purport (Cc. Madhya 11.95): Such are the symptoms of pure devotees when they are chanting. All the pure devotees are as bright as sunshine, and their bodily luster is very effulgent. In addition, their performance of saṅkīrtana is unparalleled. There are many professional chanters who can perform congregational chanting with various musical instruments in an artistic and musical way, but their chanting cannot be as attractive as the congregational chanting of pure devotees. If a devotee sticks strictly to the principles governing vaiṣṇava behavior, his bodily luster will naturally be attractive, and his singing and chanting of the holy names of the Lord will be effective. People will appreciate such kīrtana without hesitation. Even dramas about the pastimes of Lord Caitanya or Śrī Kṛṣṇa should be played by devotees. Such dramas will immediately interest an audience and be full of potency. The students of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness should note these two points and try to apply these principles in their spreading of the Lord’s glories.
So Prabhupāda was a living example of this phenomenon, and he mentioned on several occasions that his disciples were appreciated even by outsiders as “bright-faced,” having developed similar symptoms.
* * * Bhagavān, Hansadutta and leading devotees of the French yātrā escorted Prabhupāda into the Salon d’honneur, a restricted reception room for dignitaries at the airport terminal, where the French media, guests and disciples were waiting. Guru Gauranga, a preacher originally from America, then based in Geneva, had traveled to Paris to meet his spiritual master for the first time. Because he spoke fluent French, he was chosen to be Prabhupāda’s live translator.
After a short kīrtana, Prabhupāda began his address by thanking the audience for taking part in the saṅkīrtana movement: This saṅkīrtana movement was started by Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu five hundred years ago for mitigating the sufferings of the people of the world. He predicted that in every village and every town on the surface of the globe, this saṅkīrtana movement would spread and people would become happy and find peace. … Actually, this is happening now. So our simple method is, we go everywhere, all over the world, chant this Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, and we attract people, especially the younger generation, boys and girls. Sometimes the newspaper reporters ask me why these young men and young women are very much attracted to this movement. I reply, “That is the success of the movement because the younger generation—they are the flowers, the future hope of the country, of the world—if they take this movement seriously, then the whole world will be happy.
Prabhupāda explained that many Indians were coming to the West to get an education because Western civilization is highly advanced, from the material point of view, but in India, the treasure of spiritual knowledge is meant for the benefit of all human beings regardless of their material position.
As he had done many times before, Prabhupāda observed that no scientific institution or university was studying the imperishable soul, which is the real purpose of human life: So it is a movement of the soul, not a political, social or religious movement. Those pertain to the perishable body. But the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement pertains to the imperishable soul. Therefore, simply by chanting this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, your heart will be gradually cleansed so that you can come to the spiritual platform. Just like here in this movement we have got students from all countries of the world, all religions of the world. But they no more think of the particular type of religion or nation or creed or color. No. All of them think of themselves as part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa.
When we come to that platform and when we engage ourselves in our spiritual occupation, then we are liberated. So this movement is a very important movement. It is not, of course, possible to give you all details within a few minutes, but if you are interested, you can kindly contact us by correspondence or by reading our literature or by personal contact. Anyway, your life will be sublime. We have no such distinction, that this is India, this is England, this is France, this is Africa. We think every living entity, not only the human being, even animals, birds, beasts, trees, aquatics, insects, reptiles—all are part and parcel of God. But the lower animals are unable to receive this knowledge. The human being has developed consciousness. He can receive this knowledge of the spirit soul. So our only request is that you come forward and try to understand this philosophy and spread it for the benefit of the whole human society. Thank you very much.
GURU-GAURĀṄGA DĀSA: The opportunity to serve as Prabhupada’s oral translator for the first time was the privilege of a lifetime, or rather many lifetimes. Actively rendering a pure devotee's spoken words into another language live in front of an exacting audience was a very special form of śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam (hearing and chanting), and I was keenly aware that my oral translation had to be perfectly aligned with Prabhupada’s intent and message. Upon completing his address, Prabhupada opened the press conference to the restless French media representatives.
[The first reporter to ask a question was from France Inter, the flagship, national public radio station of France.] France Inter reporter: O great master, would you kindly present yourself to the listeners of France Inter?
Prabhupāda [to Guru-Gauranga]: I have already explained what is our mission, what is this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. If he wants some particular answer, he can ask me.
Guru-Gaurāṅga: [translating for the France Inter reporter] He would like to know who you are, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and how old you are.
Prabhupāda: I am now 77.
Guru-Gaurāṅga [translating]: How long have you been the head of this movement?
Prabhupāda: Well, for the last 5 years.
France Inter reporter: Can you please describe the dress you are wearing? Prabhupāda: You can ask about our philosophy. My dress? What will be the benefit for people to know about my dress? Instead of wasting time in that way... I can ask you why you are in dressed in that way. That's not very important.
Guru-Gaurāṅga: [translates and then reminds the France Inter reporter to pose questions about the philosophy of Krishna consciousness.] Bhagavān interjects: Anyone can answer those questions.
Guru-Gaurāṅga: [translating for the reporter] What do you think of the future?
Prabhupāda: Future you can guess... Because I am 77, I may die. But these young men, they will live and spread Krishna consciousness all over the world.
Guru-Gaurāṅga: Now he's asking about your childhood, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: My childhood? I was all along a devotee, from my childhood. My father was a devotee, and he trained me to be a devotee.
Guru-Gaurāṅga: [again reminds the France Inter reporter to ask about the philosophy of Krishna consciousness.] France Inter reporter: Are you happy? [devotees laugh] Prabhupāda: What do you think? I'm happy or unhappy?
GURU-GAURĀṄGA DĀSA: And so it went on. Try as I might, I could not shake the persistent reporter from his line of questioning.
Impatient with the seemingly endless questions about his age, dress, childhood, prior civil status, etc., Prabhupāda expertly decided to handle the matter his own way. When the France Inter reporter asked him, “Do you have any children?” His Divine Grace responded affirmatively. The reporter followed up reflexively, “How many?” he inquired. With a twinkle in his eye, Prabhupada replied, “Many.” Of course, the journalist wanted to know precisely how many and fell into Prabhupada’s trap. Prabhupada replied matter-of-factly, “Many hundreds. Hunched over his notepad, the reporter began to scribble furiously about this startling nugget of information. With impeccable timing, Prabhupada added drily, “. . . and without my wife.” At first, the journalist thought that he had uncovered a real “scoop,” but when the devotees in attendance burst into laughter, the reporter sheepishly realized that Prabhupada’s disciples were those children!
When Prabhupāda finished his talk a crowd of chanting devotees escorted him to a car that would take him to the temple. Then all the devotees rushed to their vehicles to speed ahead and be at the temple in time for his arrival.
HARERNĀMĀNANDA DĀSA: For Prabhupāda’s reception at the temple we formed an aisle from the sidewalk to the entrance of the building. Judging from photographs in Back to Godhead, I had imagined Prabhupāda to be much taller, but although he was relatively small in stature, in overall appearance he was a noble personality. His hands especially caught my attention, they were very fine and aristocratic. My photographer’s eye made me think immediately that he was someone completely different from any other person I had ever seen.
Within myself, I accepted Prabhupāda immediately as a self-realized soul. I knew he was the right person. Back in Berlin, I had inquired from the devotees whether Prabhupāda was self-realized because I felt that, being conditioned myself, only someone who was not conditioned could liberate me. So when I finally saw Prabhupāda in person, I was immediately struck by his spiritual potency and was convinced that he was indeed a genuine spiritual master.
Some months before coming to the temple I had skimmed a copy of Śrī Īśopaniṣad in a health food store. There I had seen a picture of Prabhupāda for the first time and read about how he had gone to New York. Since I had grown up in America and had personally experienced how hellish New York is, I was truly impressed that Prabhupāda, in his advanced age, with hardly any money or support, practically without preparation, had gone there to preach. For me, this was evidence of his genuineness. Only somebody with a genuine mission would have the courage to take such a step and undergo so much hardship.
KṚṢṆA-KṢETRA SWAMI: The Paris devotees had rented a hall and some rooms at L’Ecole d’Architecture, a school of architecture, where Prabhupāda was scheduled to give a couple of evening programs and where the visiting devotees stayed.
As was customary on such occasions, we held kīrtana until Prabhupāda arrived, sat on the vyāsāsana, and began chanting Jaya Rādhā-Mādhava. It was absor-bing just to watch Prabhupāda chant; he seemed to become more and more immersed in thought of Kṛṣṇa’s form and pastimes in Vṛndāvana with each successive repetition of the short song. His eyes would generally be tightly closed, but would occasionally open to dart swiftly about the room, glancing at the devotees and guests.
At the end of the program we held another kīrtana, and as the intensity of the chanting gradually increased Prabhupāda’s head shook more and more, back and forth to the rhythm, as he played his karatālas and sang. A small girl, perhaps four or five years old, was dancing in front of Prabhupāda. As he opened his eyes and saw her, his grave demeanor suddenly transformed into a wide smile, and when the devotees saw Prabhupāda smile, it was as if the smile infused everyone with renewed energy. Thus the intensity and ecstasy of the kīrtana all of a sudden increased tenfold.
At the end of one of the lectures, Śrīla Prabhupāda asked for questions. One middle-aged man, apparently a Christian, stood up and said: “I am afraid there is no religiosity present here whatsoever!” Prabhupāda responded immediately with a look of genuine concern. “Oh, you are afraid?” he wryly asked. His words so clearly cut to the core of the man’s ignorance that it left him dumbfounded, and he simply sat down without a further word. By this simple, disarming question, Prabhupāda communicated volumes. One felt how unfortunate such a fearful, confused, conditioned soul is that he cannot take advantage of pure transcendental teachings, the very essence of all religion, being delivered by a self-realized person full of compassion for the foolish denizens of Kaliyuga.
SURABHĪ DEVĪ DĀSĪ: In those days, men and women were not sitting separately in class, so I was sitting right in front of Prabhupāda. And we were also not practiced repeating the Sanskrit verses before the lecture, but here Prabhupāda had us chant the Sanskrit, and then he asked the devotees to also chant. When he turned to the ladies, I was in complete anxiety, because I was sitting right in front of him. Maybe he would ask me to repeat the verse, but I never ever had recited Sanskrit, so I was really afraid. Then he looked at me and asked me to chant. I was red all over the face and I tried to pronounce one word after the other, but I didn’t know how to do it. Prabhupada helped me along with every single word, and at the end, he smiled at me and said, “Very good”.
PṚTHU DĀSA: The devotees had planned to have an installation ceremony of a medium-size set of marble Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities, and thus they were putting all their energy into making the preparations. Vāsudeva was painting the altar; in fact, practically the whole place was wet from fresh paint.
But when Prabhupāda assessed the situation, he became doubtful whether the French devotees would be able to provide the necessary standard of worship. He said, “These Deities need nine brāhmaṇas to worship Them. Do we have these brāhmaṇas?” When the reply was negative, Prabhupāda suggested that it was better to wait.
AṢṬARATHA DĀSA: As soon as Hansadutta heard about this, he went up to Prabhupāda’s room and said: “Prabhupāda, I want these Deities!” Prabhupāda simply said, “Then take them.” In this way Rādhā-Madanamohana came to Germany. For almost three years They remained in Their Indian metal trunk because whenever Hansadutta asked Prabhupāda for permission to install Them, the response was the same: “Wait.”
DVIJAVARA DĀSA: In the spring of 1972, after having met the devotees previously in England, I went from Italy to Amsterdam and stayed there for some time in the temple at Bethanienstraat. I was not yet initiated and eagerly awaited Prabhupāda’s visit in August. Meanwhile, we were all busy converting the former garage into a temple room.
One day a devotee named Darśa arrived from India, carrying marble Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities with him. They had been ordered by Harivilāsa for the temple in Paris. The next day, Locanānanda and Bhugarbha arrived in a Volkswagen van to bring Darśa and the Deities to France. When I learned that Prabhupāda was coming to Paris soon, even before going to Amsterdam, I took the opportunity to go with them.
When we arrived in Paris the devotees were busy preparing the temple for Prabhupāda’s visit. The whole place smelled of fresh paint. The day Prabhupāda was coming, most of the devotees, I included, went to the Orly Airport where we all joined in a lively kirtana, eagerly expecting our spiritual master’s arrival.
As soon as I saw Prabhupāda walking out from customs into the arrival hall, I had all the ecstatic symptoms as described in the Nectar of Devotion. My first thought was that I may be dying: I was choked, I could not breathe, my hair stood on end, I was shaking and cold tears streamed from my eyes. It was all Prabhupāda’s mercy. As soon as I saw him, my realization was: “Finally I have met my real father.” And on the spot, I made up my mind that my life was his.
As the temple was quite small, all the visiting devotees were staying at the L’Ecole d’Architecture. However, since I was the driver, I was allowed to stay at the temple, where only the senior disciples were staying with Prabhupāda. I would sneak up to the attic, which was situated above Prabhupāda’s quarters and sleep there. Sometimes I could hear him chant japa or dictate his translations.
One morning, while Śrīla Prabhupāda was leaving the house, he saw that the leaves of an ivy creeper that was growing there were wilted. He stopped and asked, “Why are these leaves wilted?” I remembered having watered that plant, but next to the base there was a rat hole, so whenever I put water, it would just gush down and disappear. So I said, “ Śrīla Prabhupāda, I used to water the plant but there is a hole and the water goes down and vanishes.” He gave me a stern look and, pointing with his cane at the base of the creeper, said: “See to it!” I thought, “This is the first direct instruction from my spiritual master, I have to do something about it.” Later I mixed some earth with water and poured it into the hole until it was filled up. I understood that with Prabhupāda there is no excuse, you were expected to find a way to solve a given problem. It is not enough to simply try, there has to be a result.
The next day, while I was chanting japa outside the temple, I saw Hansadutta coming down the stairs holding a bundle in his arms as if he was carrying a baby. And right behind him, his wife Himāvatī also had a “baby” in her arms. Obviously, Prabhupāda was not handing out babies. Then it dawned on me that they were carrying the Deities that Darśa had brought from India. Later I found out that Prabhupāda had given the Deities to Hansadutta because the Paris devotees were not yet ready to install Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities. Instead, he told the devotees to carve Lord Jagannātha. This was done by Dayāmṛgya Dāsa, and those Deities are still being worshiped today in the Paris temple.
After one morning class, Yogeśvara asked Prabhupāda: “How does one get credit in Kṛṣṇa consciousness?” Prabhupāda became very sober and closed his eyes. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and said: “One gets credit when he trains others and helps them to advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.”
KṚṢṆA-KṢETRA SWAMI: An outdoor initiation ceremony was scheduled to take place on Sunday morning, July 23. It was a cloudy and somewhat cool day. When about fifteen devotees, mostly from Germany, assembled in the Jardin du Luxembourg, a public park in central Paris, to take part in the ceremony over which Prabhupāda would preside, a small crowd gathered, curious about the arrangements and strangely dressed people. After Prabhupāda arrived and sat on the vyāsāsana, he gave a brief lecture, which was translated sentence by Jyotirmayi Dasi, a French disciple. Prabhupada addressed the bystanders as much as the devotees: “If you want real liberty, equality, and fraternity, then you must take to this Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” Hansadutta, acting as a priest for the ceremony, began lighting the fire. Normally, the procedure is that the devotees first say their vows and receive new spiritual names and beads, and then the fire sacrifice is performed. This time, however, Hansadutta decided to go ahead with the fire sacrifice first. Just as we were concluding the ceremony with the final mantras, throwing the last grains into the fire and offering bananas into the sacrificial flames, it began to rain. I looked over to the vyāsāsana, but Prabhupāda had already left. Somewhat surprised, confused, and dismayed, the rest of us got up and prepared to retreat from the quickly increasing rain.
For me, this was a lesson in not taking the spiritual master’s presence for granted. At the same time, it was a lesson in preparing for times when Prabhupāda would not be physically present, a lesson which he expounded on in his Bhāgavatam lecture the next morning. Prabhupāda first chanted the Ñaḍ-gosvāmy-āṣṭaka, and then lectured on the First Canto of ŚrīmadBhāgavatam, Chapter 1, Text 15, which describes how the association of pure devotees is more purifying than that of the Ganges, which purifies only after prolonged use: “O Sūta, those great sages who have completely taken shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord can at once sanctify those who come in touch with them, whereas the waters of the Ganges can sanctify only after prolonged use.” I remember Prabhupāda giving the example of flight training, regarding the necessity of taking full advantage of the spiritual master’s instructions in order to be prepared for death: Eventually, the trainee must fly solo, in the same way, that we all, at the time of death, must leave the world alone, without help from others. After the lecture, the devotees receiving first initiation were called forward one by one to make their vows before Prabhupāda and receive a spiritual name and a set of beads that he had chanted on. I remember that before I went up, one of the devotees called forward was Haryakṣa. Prabhupāda looked at his forehead and noticed that he was without the tilaka mark of a vaiṣṇava. “No tilaka?” he asked gravely, to indicate that he should immediately put it on before coming to receive his spiritual name. I had been in some anxiety that I might forget one or another of the four regulative principles when saying my vows, but for some reason, Prabhupāda didn’t ask me to say them. Perhaps he saw my anxiety. He simply handed me the beads and said, “Your name is Kṛṣṇa-kṣetra Dāsa. It means the servant of the place where Kṛṣṇa appears, or Vṛndāvana.” In my excitement, I didn’t fully comprehend the meaning, but I understood that my name included the name “Kṛṣṇa.” This fulfilled a wish that had appeared within my heart since I first met Smita Kṛṣṇa in Germany: that it would be nice to be given a name that included “Kṛṣṇa.”
BHAKTI GAURAVANI GOSWAMI: After Bhāgavatam class, Prabhupāda had all the beads draped over the side of his vyāsāsana, and his servant, Nanda-kumāra, started to call us one by one to receive the beads and our spiritual names.
There was one boy who had been a butcher before, and apparently, Prabhupāda had been informed about it. After the candidate had repeated the last regulative principle, “No eating of meat, fish or eggs,” there was a moment of silence. Prabhupāda looked at his prospective disciple gravely and said, “Please don’t kill any more cows.” The boy blushed and simply shook his head in embarrassment, and then Prabhupāda gave him his name: Mahārathi Dāsa, “the servant of one who can fight with one thousand enemies at a time.”
We were all amazed at Prabhupāda’s extraordinary mercy and compassion. Considering that cow killing is one of the most sinful acts, for which the culprit has to be born in the body of a cow and slaughtered as many times as there are hairs on the cow’s skin, remarkably, Prabhupāda never hesitated to accept even such a person as his disciple, provided he agreed to give up his sinful ways. In this way, he acted as the perfect representative of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who accepted even sinners like Jagāi and Mādhāi on the condition that they would not commit any more sinful activities.
GURU-GAURĀṄGA DĀSA: That morning Prabhupāda also gave brāhmaṇa initiation to a number of his first-initiated disciples, including me. I was called into his quarters and promptly offered my prostrated obeisances. I was seated right next to him, closer than I had ever been before. Prabhupāda blessed my sacred thread and looped it over my left shoulder draped diagonally across my chest. He then handed me a slip of paper with the Gāyatrī mantra printed on it, which I repeated after him aloud so he could correct my pronunciation. At Prabhupāda’s request, I leaned in even closer to hear the sacred words pronounced by him. The pleasant, woody aroma of the sandalwood paste applied to his forehead for its soothing, cooling effect was unmistakable. Prabhupāda’s voice dropped to a whisper as he spoke Gāyatrī into my right ear. He then showed me how to use the finger joints of my right hand to count the number of times I recited the mantra. Finally, Prabhupāda instructed me to keep the Gāyatrī mantra confidential and maintain strict daily cleanliness.
When it was all over, he leaned back, smiled, and said, “So, now you are brāhmaṇa. Would you like to worship the Deity?”
I was taken aback by the suddenness and directness of his question and the necessity to answer it on the spot, which I had not anticipated. Uncertain about making a commitment to become a temple pūjārī after having spent my first year in ISKCON worshipping images of the disciplic succession and the Pañca-tattva, preaching and going on harināma saṅkīrtana, I felt the heavy weight of the moment.
“I would like to do whatever pleases you,” I replied timidly.
Prabhupāda pressed further: “I am asking if you would like to worship the Deity.”
“I would like to do whatever you instruct me,” I stammered, realizing that I had been unable to provide the answer that I thought he was looking for.
Śrīla Prabhupāda then shifted his approach: “What service are you performing presently?” he asked.
“I am preaching in Geneva, Switzerland. I traveled to Paris to be with you for the first time and be blessed by your association,” I explained. “Oh, I see,” he replied. A profound clarity filled the room. “Preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness is our number one business. Deity worship is secondary. Go back to Geneva, and continue your preaching in Switzerland.”
Leaving Prabhupada’s quarters, the weight of his final instruction settled into my heart as a sacred personal assignment.
Receiving brahminical initiation meant not only a formal qualification to worship the Deity on the altar, but marked, at least for me, a new, deeper level of serious commitment to my spiritual master and his mission. I did not have the vocabulary for this at the time, but by sending me back to my prescribed service, I felt that Prabhupāda had recognized my readiness and eagerness to preach and had mapped out my role.
It was only in 1976, while reading the newly published Śrī Caitanyacaritāmṛta, that I came across a term in Antya-līlā 4.144 that perfectly illuminated what had transpired that summer morning in Prabhupada’s quarters in the Fontenay-aux-Roses temple. Long before the publication of Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Prabhupāda had recognized my commitment and assigned me a prabhu-datta-deśa, a field of service chosen and given by the spiritual master. My path was clear: I was to be a preacher of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in Switzerland.
*** VĀSUDEVA DĀSA: We drove from Berlin to Paris in our Volkswagen bus. On one side of the van I had painted the spiritual sky with Goloka in the center, and on the other side, the cloudlike Causal Ocean with MahāViṣṇu lying in it, and Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu inside an egg-shaped universe. When Prabhupāda saw the van, he immediately inspected the artwork. However, when he looked at the painting of Mahā-Viṣṇu more closely, he became angry and chastised me. I didn’t have time to finish the painting, and two of Mahā-Viṣṇu’s four arms were only drafted. Prabhupāda didn’t approve of my decision to leave them like that and show something halffinished in public. He wanted us to do things conscientiously and perfectly.