SpiritualKrishna Will Give You All Help The Montreal temple was opened by Janārdana Dāsa, a French Canadian devotee whom Prabhupāda sent to Montreal from New York in October 1966. Janārdana was to prepare an exhibit of Kṛṣṇa conscious literature for the World Expo in the spring of 1967. Prabhupāda also wanted a center there. He once said in a letter that he would consider his mission successful if he could have temples in New York, San Francisco, Montreal, and London.
In the winter of 1966, an American draft dodger named Samuel Greer arrived in Montreal. One year earlier, Sam had traveled by boat from Canada to Europe. He had spent most of the summer and autumn hitchhiking across Europe—visiting Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Florence—and parts of North Africa. He had then tried to settle in Great Britain, but he had been denied entry, so he had decided to move to Canada instead.
SAMUEL GREER: In Montreal, I rented an apartment near McGill University in a cheap student area. One evening, at the student union, I met Janārdana, who had come to hang up posters announcing a Mantra Rock Dance at the Montreal Hare Kṛṣṇa temple. I spoke to him, and he invited me to come. I didn’t go to the Mantra Rock Dance, but I did eventually visit the temple. Right from the beginning, I felt a special attraction for prasādam, the sanctified food offered to Kṛṣṇa, and the temple’s spiritual atmosphere, so I began to come more often.
A few weeks later, after regularly attending classes on Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Sam moved into the temple. Six months later, in July 1967, Śrīla Prabhupāda initiated him by letter and gave him the name Śivānanda Dāsa Brahmacārī. In the summer of 1968, Śivānanda finally met his spiritual master in person.
ŚIVĀNANDA DĀSA: During Śrīla Prabhupāda’s visit to Montreal, we devotees would often accompany him on his morning walks. On one walk, I told Prabhupāda about the different places in Europe I had visited. After listening with great interest, Prabhupāda said, “Oh, you should go and open temples in all those places.” I was not aware of the fact that Prabhupāda had been planning for a long time to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness beyond North America. Therefore, when I got word that he wanted someone to go to London to open a temple, I became excited. London was famous for being the center of the European counterculture scene, led by the Beatles, and for its large Indian community. So I volunteered to go there and start a temple.
But Prabhupāda seemed to feel that I was not the right person and replied, “That’s all right, but I think for the time being you had better stay here in Montreal.” The reason, as far as I can judge in retrospect, was that Prabhupāda understood I was still somewhat immature and not quite able to handle myself very well in the world.
But then the subject came up again. I think I was probably as eager to have an adventure as I was to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness and please my spiritual master. Because I had hitchhiked around Europe before and never had difficulty finding a place to stay, I felt I could handle the situation. Consequently, I asked Prabhupāda again about going to London. Finally, he relented and said okay. Then he added, “You know, I was a Calcutta boy. I never got cheated when I came to New York.” He was intimating to me that I wasn’t very experienced. But because he saw my eagerness to go, he let me go.
Full of enthusiasm, I immediately contacted my mother and asked her to donate the money I would need to fly to Europe and get started. She agreed, but only on the condition that I go back to college. Not quite sure what to do, I asked Prabhupāda, “If I go back to college, what should I study?” He was a little hesitant, but eventually, he said, “Well, you should study English.” Of course, I never went back to college, but my mother got the benefit of helping the mission of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
It did not take me long to make arrangements for the journey. I felt quite confident that it would be successful, because this was Lord Caitanya’s movement, and it was bona fide. Nevertheless, while boarding the bus to the airport, I turned to Hansadutta and asked, “Once I get there, what do you think will be the best way to start?” His reply was simple: “As soon as you get off the plane, sit down where there are some people and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, accompanying yourself with hand cymbals, just as Prabhupāda did in New York two years ago. When a crowd has gathered, give a short explanation of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and ask for a small donation to spread the mission. This is sure to be successful.”
A few hours later, I was airborne and on my way to the other side of the Atlantic. Before becoming a devotee, I had tried to go to London twice (first as a draft dodger and later on my return from North Africa) and both times I was refused. Now, as a devotee, I arrived in England with a shaved head and śikhā, with tilaka on my forehead and dressed in a dhotī. Besides that, I carried a little Lord Jagannātha in my suitcase. The customs officers cut the Deity’s cloth looking for drugs, but of course, they didn’t find any. Still, highly suspicious of my intentions, they flatly refused to let me into the country. Thus I had to go elsewhere, and I decided to take the next flight to the nearest destination. That happened to be Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands.
The Netherlands was one of the more liberal countries in Europe, and Amsterdam in particular was a Mecca for the blossoming hippie culture. I had no trouble getting through customs, and I soon found myself chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa on Dam Square, the place downtown where the youth met. My out-of-this-world appearance caused quite a stir, and soon a reporter took photographs and asked questions. The next day, one of the major newspapers in Amsterdam carried an article about Kṛṣṇa consciousness and my preaching, and I happily sent it to Prabhupāda. In my report, I mentioned that a boy from Finland had shown interest in our philosophy and was helping me in some ways and that from conversations with him I had gotten the impression that the people in Amsterdam were not too well off. It thought it would be difficult to find a permanent place for a temple. Therefore, I was thinking of where else I should go and finally settled on West Berlin. I also told Prabhupāda that I really missed both his association and the association of my godbrothers. Prabhupāda replied immediately, in a letter dated August 27, 1968: I am so glad to receive your letter dated August 21, 1968, and I declare herewith that Krishna desired you to go to Amsterdam, and therefore, you were not admitted in England. I have seen also the description of your little activities in Amsterdam, but I could not understand the language. But one thing I observed in that article, there is publication of my name, Swami A. C. Bhaktivedanta. So this indicates that your tour in Europe is going to be very successful. I am glad that you are going to West Berlin, and I hope you will duly receive this letter and be courageous and always chant Hare Krishna. You will be successful. Similarly, I came in New York, in 1965, in the same position, and gradually many students like you have come to me. So don’t be disappointed. Do and try your best and Krishna will give you all help.
These assuring words gave me a lot of encouragement, and with renewed faith and determination, I boarded the train to West Berlin. After arriving there, I stayed for the first few weeks at a youth hostel. Afterward, I started to move around, staying at different places, once even at a monastery, but I knew I had to get a fixed place. Sometimes I would sit down and have kīrtana on Kurfürstendamm, Berlin’s famous shopping street.
In Montreal, Hansadutta had given me a begging bowl and some cards that read “Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and your life will be sublime!” I put the bowl and cards in front of me and began to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and naturally, people would throw some coins into the bowl. When a big enough crowd gathered, I would stop chanting and preach. Because I did not know any German, I had to find somebody in the crowd who understood both English and German and could translate. West Berlin has a big university, and there were always some students around who volunteered, so I rarely had a problem.
*** Shortly after Śivānanda’s departure, Śrīla Prabhupāda received a letter from one of his disciples in San Francisco, Kṛṣṇadāsa, who expressed a desire to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Prabhupāda immediately suggested that he join Śivānanda in Germany.
During Prabhupāda’s next visit to San Francisco, in mid-September, he discussed the details with Kṛṣṇadāsa and another new disciple, Uttamaśloka, a German-born young man who had lived in America for fifteen years and wanted to accompany Kṛṣṇadāsa and translate Prabhupāda’s books into German.
Prabhupāda felt enlivened by their preaching spirit and immediately informed Śivānanda about these encouraging developments: I have just talked with Krishnadas and the German boy, Uttama Sloka das, and they are prepared to join you by the end of this month. Sriman Uttama Sloka is already initiated, and he is a German scholar also. He has shown me his translation work on my essays in English, and it appears that he will be a great help in the Berlin center. I am trying to inject in him the basic ideals of Krishna Consciousness philosophy and this morning we had one nice discussion.
So the Berlin temple will be one of the most important centers in Europe, and I hope that in the future we will be able to train many Germans who are very intelligent personalities in the European countries. You know that I have got already one German godbrother [Sadānanda Swami], and he has influenced another German scholar, Vāmana Dāsa [Walter Eidlitz], who has written a very nice book on Lord Caitanya, in German.
So in that great country, people are very much interested in India’s original spiritual and cultural life, and Krishna Consciousness is the most perfect order of such cultural understanding in India. Lord Caitanya is the symbol of India’s original culture and perfect scholar for exposition of India’s philosophical thoughts, based on the Vedic knowledge. I hope our books, Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Teachings of Lord Caitanya, and SrimadBhagavatam will in the near future be translated into German language and distributed to the noble nation of Germany.
You may not think for the time being of any other branch, at least for the coming one year. And as soon as Krishna das and Uttama Sloka go there, please make combined effort to popularize this Krishna Consciousness movement in that country. They will take with them a mridanga drum. And I understand that in Germany they make very nice harmoniums. Please take information of them and let me know immediately, otherwise, Krishna das will take a harmonium from here, along with mridanga. This Krishna Consciousness movement through music, philosophy, spiritual culture, and personal behavior culminating in ideal character of the devotees—all these heavenly contributions combined together—will certainly bring about a major change in the life of Western people. ŚIVĀNANDA DĀSA: Prabhupāda’s letter was, of course, very encouraging, but to be all on my own was not easy, and after some time, I became somewhat restless. Thus I thought that maybe I should travel again and go on to Switzerland. When I consulted Prabhupāda about that, he wrote, “You can earn $12 by traveling, but you can earn $13 by sitting, provided you know how to sit in a place. Certainly, you can preach well by traveling, as I also came to your country, but since I sat at 26 Second Avenue, in July 1966, the society has developed to its present shape.” Taking his advice to heart, I again began to look for a place.
In the last week of September, I found a little storefront in Kreuzberg, on Manteuffelstrasse. It was not a prestigious neighborhood. The buildings still had big holes in them from the artillery fire of World War II. Nevertheless, I moved in and started to hold kīrtanas regularly. From time to time, I would also go and sit down and chant near the Gedächtniskirche, the famous bombed-out church that stands as a war memorial in the center of Berlin.
After a week or so, Kṛṣṇadāsa and Uttamaśloka arrived. After analyzing the situation and considering that more and more young people were leaving West Berlin, which was a divided city at that time, situated like an island in the middle of communist East Germany, we concluded that moving to West Germany would be more effective for preaching.
Consequently, we decided to go to Hamburg, the nearest important city. After arriving in Hamburg, we had the same problem as before: we did not know anybody and we had very little money. Fortunately, we were allowed to stay for some time at the Deutsch-Dänische Akademie.
Although we had not found a suitable place for opening a temple, Prabhupāda encouraged our efforts. On October 21, he wrote: In London also they have not opened a branch yet, but they are doing kirtana performances daily, twice or thrice—in parks, schools, colleges, clubs, societies and private houses; so our propaganda is not stopped. So, even you have not found out any place at Hamburg, you three together you can chant Hare Krishna kirtana in the same way as they are doing in London and other cities. We are more or less concerned for preaching. It does not matter even whether we have got a temple or not, but if the preaching work goes on, that is a great satisfaction.
After a month or so, we found a place we could afford, a storefront on Eppendorfer Weg. Because it was a rather small place, we had to put up a partition. On one side was the temple room, and on the other side, we had our kitchen, which consisted of a sink and a hotplate sitting on a radiator. At that time, we did not have any literature in German, and thus there was no question of collecting funds by distributing books. Prabhupāda advised us to get jobs to maintain the temple. Kṛṣṇadāsa became a goldsmith’s apprentice while Uttamaśloka and I found work in the Botanical Garden. Whenever we had time, we went out to chant in the streets and in this way continue our humble preaching efforts.
I informed Prabhupāda about our activities and also asked him several questions. His reply came at the end of January 1969: Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated January 14, 1969, and I have noted the contents. I am pleased to note that you enjoy going out into the streets chanting and preaching from Bhagavadgita. This is a very good attitude and in accordance with the teachings of Lord Caitanya that the process of Sankirtana should be presented to men all over the world. So as you are able you should continue to go into the streets to chant, and I am sure that the others at your temple will appreciate going with you as they are available. Surely this practice will attract many people there to take some interest in this Krishna Consciousness movement.
Regarding your request for cooking information, it is best if you will consult Yamuna Dasi in London. She is very expert cook, and will be able to answer any questions you have regarding prasadam preparations. I understand that Yamuna has written a recipe book which they are trying to have printed in London soon, so this also will be available to help you in this connection.
Regarding serving your godbrothers, this is a very good practice. The Spiritual Master is never without His followers, so to serve the Spiritual Master also means to be the servant of His disciples. When you want to serve the king, you must also serve his minister, secretary, and everyone who serves him. And to serve his servants may please him more than to serve the king personally. So the Spiritual Master is not alone. He is always with His entourage. We are not impersonalists. We take care of every part of the whole, as much as one should take care of his hat as well as his shoes. Both are equally important for the upkeep of the body. I hope that you will understand this rightly.
It is important that we preach the message of Krishna Consciousness exactly as we have heard it from our Spiritual Master. The same philosophy and spirit must be there exactly. Just like we preach in this country exactly as we have heard from our Spiritual Master, but there are changes due to the time, circumstances, and the trainees. The spirit of the disciplic succession may not be changed, but there may be adjustments made to suit the special circumstances.
Regarding your last question about the importance of chanting; this chanting process is the only way of attaining full Krishna Consciousness in this age of Kali-yuga. Lord Caitanya stressed upon this point, and we may take it from His authority that no other method will prove to be successful in this matter.
So continue to push on our Hamburg center as far as possible. You have gone to Germany, not even knowing how to speak their language, and you are trying to give to them the rarest jewel, Krishna Consciousness. I know that Krishna is very pleased with all of your efforts there, and surely He will give you all facilities to come out successful in your efforts. I hope this will meet you in good health.
Knowing that without any literature our preaching would be ineffective, we thought of getting a mimeograph machine. When I informed Prabhupāda of our plans, he sent us an encouraging letter: I have noted with much pleasure that you are planning to mimeograph our essays in the German language. This is good news and please do it nicely. These literatures must be made available to all peoples so they may take interest in Krishna and seek to learn more. This will attract many people to begin chanting and learning this philosophy.
So try in this way, it is very important endeavor. In the United States we have now published Bhagavad-gita As It Is and by next month we should receive Teachings of Lord Caitanya. So if you can also present our literatures in the German language, it will be very successful.
Eventually, we found a mimeograph machine at a bargain price, and soon we were printing leaflets, translated into German, by Uttamaśloka. *** After a few months, Uttamaśloka became restless, and he eventually gave up his translation work and left the temple. Being aware of his disciples’ difficulty in Hamburg, Prabhupāda arranged for another devotee to join them, Jaya Govinda, who had been staying in India with Acyutānanda. After hearing about the preaching in Germany he had written a letter to Prabhupāda: I think of the printing press lying idle (as far as I know) in Germany, and as printing and the graphic arts field is what I have the greatest amount of experience and training in, that seems to be the place for me to go. So on Prabhupāda’s request, Kṛṣṇadāsa arranged for Jaya Govinda’s airfare, and by the beginning of May 1969, he was in Hamburg.
In the meantime, as Prabhupāda had assured them, Kṛṣṇa made more arrangements to help spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness in Germany. Beginning in early 1968, Prabhupāda had been corresponding with Mario Windisch, a German living in Sweden who had met Vāmana Dāsa, one of Sadānanda Swami’s disciples. Mario showed strong interest in Lord Caitanya’s philosophy, and he joined Prabhupāda in Montreal just after Śivānanda had left for Europe. On April 3, Prabhupāda wrote to Kṛṣṇadāsa, who had become discouraged with Uttamaśloka’s departure and was thinking of returning to the US: Last night one German boy was initiated by me; [his name is Mandali Bhadra] and he will be entrusted for rendering all of my books into the German language. From now on, therefore, there will be no difficulty to publish the German edition of Back to Godhead on your newly purchased press. You should take the indication given by Lord Krishna: The press is already there, the press worker, Jaya Govinda, is coming, and the German scholar [Mandali Bhadra] has joined our institution. Don’t you see the indication by Krishna that we must make propaganda in the German language in that part of the world? So, you have to adjust things by the indication of Lord Krishna.
Don’t do anything whimsically. The direction comes through the spiritual master, and anyone who abides by the order of the spiritual master to give shape to the wish of the Lord, he is a perfectly surrendered soul. By the beginning of June, Śivānanda had wonderful news for Śrīla Prabhupāda: the first fruit of their preaching activities. A young artist named Oliver had decided to live in the temple and become a devotee. Prabhupāda was extremely pleased, and he impressed on Śivānanda the incalculable value of such a rare soul: I am so much encouraged to learn that one very nice German boy has come to live in your temple. This is clear evidence that you are all working sincerely to serve Krishna, and now one sincere soul has been so attracted by this, that he is also coming to join you. Actually, if one true Vaisnava goes to any place in the world, then the spiritual instincts of the more advanced souls he comes into contact with will be awakened, and they will automatically be attracted.
Please take nice care of Oliver, and help him in whatever way you can. In Krishna Consciousness every man is so important because all of the activities of a devotee of Lord Krishna are beneficial to all living entities. So, if there are any questions that he would like me to help him with, I am always at your service to help in any way I can.
VĀSUDEVA DĀSA (Oliver): When I was seventeen or eighteen, I felt deeply dissatisfied with the concepts of reality, morality, and ethics presented by society. I intuitively knew that there must be another reality beyond the phantasmagoria of mundane existence, and I hoped to come in contact with this reality by experimenting with art, mainly through painting, music, and happenings. In the course of these artistic experiments, I became more and more convinced that this other reality was not an imagination but a tangible truth that could be experienced.
In the spring of 1969, a friend of mine gave me an invitation card for a feast at the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temple in Hamburg. One Sunday, I went to the storefront on Eppendorfer Weg, where Śivānanda and Kṛṣṇadāsa received me. After we had exchanged some words of introduction, they explained to me that before the feast they would chant the holy names of God—the words were embroidered onto a cloth hanging on the wall—and that I was welcome to take part.
To sing together with the devotees in kīrtana was a special, ecstatic experience. From the very beginning, I abandoned myself to chanting. I felt like I was elevated to a different level of existence, a level beyond the burdensome routine of material life. I only regretted that the kīrtana didn’t go on forever.
Then the feast was served. The smell and taste of prasādam was another unique and wonderful experience. During the meal, the devotees played Prabhupāda’s first record album, Govinda, and his voice left a deep impression on me.
I liked everything about the temple—the music, the food, the devotees—the only drawback was communication. Neither Śivānanda nor Kṛṣṇadāsa spoke German well enough to explain the philosophy to me, and my knowledge of English was too limited to hold a conversation. Nor were there any books or magazines in German. But all these limitations were not so important to me. By Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, I had acquired a little taste for chanting His holy names: Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare / Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare.
A couple of weeks later, the deep significance of the holy names dawned on me, and I got a glimpse of their absolute and transcendental nature. I had tried to express spiritual emotions in a painting titled “Absolute Immediate Spontaneity,” and I became acutely aware of the difficulty of transmitting spirituality through a material medium. But the vibration of Kṛṣṇa’s holy names was different: I did not doubt that chanting with the devotees had been a pure, spiritual experience.
Thus I decided to go to the temple again. This is what I was looking for. I wrapped my painting in a cloth and went to Eppendorfer Weg to share my realization with one of the devotees. Śivānanda received me and listened patiently to my clumsy attempt, in broken English, to explain the meaning of Absolute Immediate Spontaneity. I doubt he understood a word of what I was saying, but he made me feel at ease and simply encouraged me to continue my spiritual quest, especially by chanting God’s holy names and visiting the temple.
By the end of May, my desire to live with the devotees had become so strong that I decided to move into the temple. The determining factor was actually the holy name. Since my first visit, Kṛṣṇa’s name had captivated me, and I felt that to be near the name and serve the name was best possible in the temple in the association of other devotees.
During the first Sunday feast, as a member of the temple community, I had great difficulty speaking about Kṛṣṇa. Being inexperienced, I felt unqualified to preach, and thus I was terribly afraid to talk to guests. I became so desperate that I just left the temple room and escaped to the basement, where I broke into tears and prayed to Kṛṣṇa: “What is the use of my existence if I cannot even speak about You or my experience with You?” That very moment, an inner transformation took place, and my heart became filled with a feeling of joy. Enlivened, I went upstairs and simply began to speak about my experience with the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. It was amazing how my relationship with the guests turned into a warm and loving exchange.
On Saturday and Sunday mornings we took a rug to sit on and went out to chant the holy name in public. Often Śivānanda and I went alone, one of us playing mṛdaṅga and singing and the other distributing invitation cards. But generally, once I began to chant, I found it difficult to stop. I used to become so absorbed in the holy name that I felt the transcendental vibration engulf everything, and I had the desire to sing louder and clearer and let the holy name resonate even more and penetrate the walls of the nearby buildings, the trees—the whole universe. Poor Śivānanda was always frustrated when I didn’t stop after some time, because to hand out invitations was not such a nectarean engagement; it involved tolerating insults from nasty people who didn’t like to be approached by a devotee.
Later I went out almost daily, generally in the afternoons, and by myself. I took a small handcart to transport the rug, straw collection basket, and mṛdaṅga and karatālas. I would then sit on the sidewalk where the Reeperbahn begins and chant the mahā-mantra for five or six hours. I became so used to doing this that I practically couldn’t live without going out and chanting the holy name every day.
Sometimes, in the evenings, I would also go to the communes, where most people were under the influence of marijuana and LSD. I felt it was my special mission to try to purify the depressive atmosphere there with the holy name because I had lived in communes for almost two years. I wanted to share my good fortune with my former friends. Generally, they tolerated me, and I was free to speak about Kṛṣṇa consciousness and hold kīrtana. It was a special joy to see some of them become enlivened by the chanting and take part in it.
*** At the end of June, the devotees in Hamburg presented Śrīla Prabhupāda with more wonderful news. With the help of Jaya Govinda, they had finally printed the first German issue of Back to Godhead in German: Zurück zur Gottheit. Deeply grateful, Prabhupāda wrote to Jaya Govinda: Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated June 23, 1969, sent along with your German language Back to Godhead. It is very, very nice. You have achieved a great blessing from my Guru Maharaja. My Guru Maharaja had an ambition to publish the message of Lord Caitanya in all the languages of the world, and when He was present in India, He published six magazines in five languages; one in Hindi, one in Assami, two in Bengali, one in English, and one in Oriya. Your Zurück zur Gottheit is certainly a unique gift to me, and I shall ever remember it. ŚIVĀNANDA DĀSA: After we got the magazines, we could finally do harināma and book distribution more effectively. We would go out, put down a rug, sit down and chant, and put out a stack of magazines. At the beginning of August, another boy decided to move into the small storefront at Eppendorfer Weg. Stefan, a friend of Oliver, had seen the devotees since they had arrived in Hamburg and had gradually been incorporating Kṛṣṇa consciousness into his life.
BHAKTI-BHŪṢAṆA SWAMI (Stefan): Like many of my contemporaries in the late ’60s, I experimented with LSD and mescaline—not to induce a state of forgetfulness but with the aim of gaining insights into a higher reality.
I was working in a graphics company. Although the job paid well, I felt empty and dissatisfied. I knew that life was meant for something else. In my frustration I even contemplated not letting myself becoming older than thirty—old age looked bleak and purposeless.
In my quest for meaning, I read books about mystical and spiritual subjects. I delved into the lives of Jesus and Ramakrishna, imagining myself to be them. After studying a book about Zen Buddhism I took a long walk with my friend Oliver. We walked all night, waiting for some realization.
When the flower power movement began to spread to Europe in late 1967, London became its center, so I went there in the summer of 1968 to get firsthand experience of it. But I soon returned to Hamburg frustrated. It must have been around that time that I first heard the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, because I remember a television show featuring Allen Ginsberg chanting the mahā-mantra on a small harmonium during a happening in London.
It was sometime in the fall of 1968 that I saw a devotee for the first time. I was about to cross a square near Reeperbahn when I heard the faint ringing of a pair of karatālas. Then I saw a bald figure dressed in a dark suit and white shirt sitting on a straw mat on the sidewalk, with a small basket in front of him. He had his eyes closed, and he seemed absorbed in his chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa. It was Śivānanda. As soon as the sound of the cymbals entered my ears, I sensed a certain familiarity with it—as if I had heard this before. I watched from a distance, then kept walking. But the sight made a deep impression on me.
Shortly after that, I saw Śivānanda again. He and Kṛṣṇadāsa were flanking the entrance to a rock concert and handing out a German translation of The Peace Formula. One of them was wrapped in a harināma chadar, a popular wrap among hippies, and the impression I had was that amid all the hypocrisy that these two persons dressed like monks were real. They had a mystical air about them, but they weren’t fake. They were genuine.
A few months later, in early 1969, Kṛṣṇa gave me another opportunity. I used to hang out in Hamburg’s most famous hippie club, Grünspan, which featured several displays on each side of the entrance hall, where bands and other publicity and news would be announced. I noticed that one of the windows was different from the usual displays: the devotees were using it to advertise Kṛṣṇa consciousness and the Sunday feast. There was a small picture of Kṛṣṇa in the center and lines going out in all directions, like a halo, and then there were statements by famous personalities about chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa: Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and Prabhupāda. Of course, I didn’t know about Prabhupāda. I had a hard time figuring it out, but because the invitation to the Sunday feast mentioned free food, I figured they were advertising a restaurant. Then I began living in various communes, and one day a young man joined us who believed in Jesus. This person turned out to be Uttamaśloka, whom Prabhupāda had sent to Germany to help Śivānanda. Because of some difference of opinion about the role or position of Jesus Christ, Uttamaśloka had disassociated himself from the devotees and became a member of our commune.
We had a big altar at one end of the main room, where everyone could place the picture of their worshipful object. There were photos of all kinds of so-called yogis and saints; there were mystic symbols, lights, and so on; and there was also a picture of Prabhupāda. Amid all the hodgepodge I felt a special attraction for Uttamaśloka because I sensed he was different. He wasn’t an ordinary hippie but was into something serious. He was a strict vegetarian, wasn’t frivolous with the opposite sex, and rose early in the morning. To me, he was fascinating.
One spring day in 1969 Uttamaśloka took me to the temple at Eppendorfer Weg for the Sunday feast. Tasting prasādam for the first time was an exciting experience, especially because sweet and salty preparations were served on the same plate. That, mixed with the smell of incense, made everything unusual and exotic. Śivānanda gave a lecture, but because he knew hardly any German, it was a real mishmash, and I guess very few visitors could make heads or tails of it. But we all were somehow attracted by the spiritual atmosphere. During the lecture some of us sat in yoga postures with our eyes closed, concentrating on the words of wisdom being spoken. We also sat like that during the kīrtana, imbibing the flow of transcendental vibration. Weeks later I began to visit the temple regularly for the Sunday feast, but I wasn’t thinking of joining. I was not yet ready to give up my ways.
One Saturday night in spring, as I was about to enter the Grünspan, I heard the familiar sound of kīrtana. I turned around, and there were the devotees across the street, seated on the sidewalk, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Besides Śivānanda and Kṛṣṇadāsa, now there was also my friend Oliver, who had joined them recently. Although this group of devotees acted like a magnet for me and I felt an almost irresistible attraction for the chanting, I preferred not to get entangled. Thus I walked a bit down the street and sat on the hood of a parked car to watch them from a distance.
Then Śivānanda recognized me. He immediately waved his hand and indicated to me to come over. I had no other choice than to cross the street. I sat down beside him, and surprisingly, he handed me a pair of karatālas and asked me to chant. When we finished he said, “See? Your little lotus is already growing.” Today I can understand that he meant the creeper of devotional service, but at the time I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, although I liked it because it sounded so mystical.
Śivānanda helped me the most in the beginning; he acted as my vartmapradarśaka-guru. He had a sweet personality and was merciful. The others were more reserved, not prepared to give themselves so easily. He was kind and easily approached.
Next, I got a bead bag and karatālas, and I started to chant a couple of rounds regularly. The devotees had no German literature at that time, but I got some American BTGs that had wonderful drawings of Kṛṣṇa with a psychedelic touch, and these naturally appealed to me. Once, I went to a forest to meditate away from the bustle of the city, and I spent hours contemplating the drawings of Kṛṣṇa and chanting His holy name. I kind of tried to penetrate into Kṛṣṇa consciousness on my own strength, without surrendering. In fact, I felt more attracted to Uttamaśloka’s personality than to life in the temple. I thought I could be like him, learn the practices and do them myself.
Nevertheless, I was coming to the temple more often, especially at prasādam time, and so the devotees asked me at one point for a donation to help meet the expenses for my eating. I ended up in the kitchen helping Maṇḍalibhadra make capātīs. That was my first engagement in devotional service. I rolled capātīs for hours—they were the main staple in those days. The devotees used to eat huge stacks of delicious buttered capātīs. It was a real science to make them, and for me, it was a nectarean occupation. I was still living in the commune, and Śivānanda, dressed in a dhotī, used to visit me there with the hope that I would join the temple. In fact, he used to cook prasādam for everyone and invite us to chant with him. The commune was located in one of the sleaziest parts of town, St. Pauli, on the first floor of an old apartment building. Prostitutes who lived below and above us would often line the sidewalks at night.
In the early summer when the weather was quite pleasant, I took out my tiny karatālas, opened the window, and sat there to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. As soon as the holy name began to vibrate, I noticed its effect on my surroundings: the birds became quieter and the atmosphere peaceful. Having gained some confidence, I sometimes went to the city center or some other place to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa amid the passersby. I also went to the Alster river, where people used to sit and relax in the sun, and alone or sometimes with friends from the commune, chant the holy name there. For us, it was a mystical sound vibration, and we would observe how others reacted to the sound—the swans and ducks and people.
Once, I chanted all by myself on Gänsemarkt, a square in the heart of Hamburg with office buildings on all sides. Although I was chanting alone, the sound of the karatālas was so penetrating that people opened their windows to see what was going on. These were my first experiences of harināma—all by myself, as a hippie.
Then July came, and because Uttamaśloka had gone to Copenhagen, I decided to go there also with a young couple who had some interest in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and had become vegetarians. The hippies in Copenhagen had taken over an abandoned military base and converted it into an enclave, an imagined world of harmony—Christiania—and there were thousands of people living together, each one on their own trip, doing their own thing. I sat down in the middle of Christiania, as I had seen Śivānanda do in Hamburg, closed my eyes, and chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa. I felt a strong attraction for the chanting, and for me, there was nothing more important than chanting the mystical sounds of the holy name. But then my friends went somewhere else, and I was by myself again. I couldn’t talk to anybody about Kṛṣṇa because everybody was spaced out in their own world. So I decided to return to Hamburg.
I went straight to the temple—and there something really special happened, something that affected me deeply. When I knocked on the temple door, Śivānanda opened it, and as soon as he saw me, he exclaimed, “There he is!”, as if they had been waiting for me all this time. By this small gesture, he really won me over.
But I still had things to settle, and later I went home. As soon as I entered the house I got into a heavy argument with my father. He was complaining that I was useless and was taking advantage of their home for eating and sleeping. He told me to go and live somewhere else. I couldn’t believe it. It was something I had never expected, but the funny thing is that I immediately accepted it. I grabbed the few things I had and left. I went to the street and called a taxi. Then my mother came out crying, and my father, shocked that I had taken his words so seriously, begged me to stay, but I simply got into the taxi and left.
Life in the temple was extremely austere. The devotees were so poor that for breakfast we had only oatmeal with some sugar and water most of the time, and occasionally we added some milk, but rarely. But whatever it was, it tasted like nectar to me.
After moving into the temple I gave up my job and donated all my savings, which I had thought of using for a trip to India to find a guru. That idea had been part of my spiritual quest, but now I just turned over everything I had. I gave up trying to find enlightenment on my own. But I still had attachments. I kept my long hair and I didn’t wear a dhotī, for example.
After a short time, to my surprise, I was asked to get a job again, because the temple was in financial difficulty. The income from donations was small and insufficient to meet the daily expenditures. I was not happy to go to work and associate with non-devotees again, but I accepted it as a necessary austerity to maintain Kṛṣṇa’s temple and improve it as much as possible for a long-awaited event: the visit of His representative: Śrīla Prabhupāda.