Thought of the week: Struggling alone, Srila Prabhupada in America

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Editor's Note: Sep 9 2001, Sunday is Srila Prabhupada's arrival in the USA.

This article is based on 'Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta' a biography of Srila

Prabhupada by Satsvarupa Goswami.

 

Butler, Pennsylvania

********************

"A slight brown man in faded orange drapes and wearing white bathing shoes

stepped out of a compact car yesterday and into the Butler YMCA to attend a

meeting. He is A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, a messenger from India to the peoples

of the West."

 

This is how, for the first time, Srila Prabhupada's arrival to the United

States was given a modicum of recognition. The Butler Eagle which printed this

article on September 22nd, 1965, was a local newspaper of Butler, a small town

in Pennsylvania. This was Srila Prabhupada's first stop in the United States,

at the home of Gopal and Sally Agarwal. Even though neither of them personally

knew Prabhupada, Gopal Agarwal, at the request of his father had previously

agreed to sponsor Prabhupada and was now dutifully playing host to him. In the

beginning Sally Agarwal, who came from a typical middle-class American family,

did not know how to relate to the Indian Swami. However soon she was charmed by

Prabhupada's affection, intelligence and inherent compassion and began to look

upon him with great admiration and affection.

 

Prabhupada after living for a month in Butler decided to move out. Even though

he had started a small preaching group and had also given some lectures in the

university and the local communities, he understood that the scope of preaching

there was very limited. In the mood of a true preacher, he left the relative

comfort of the only family he knew in the West and ventured into New York city,

hoping for better preaching opportunities.

 

New York City

*************

In New York, Prabhupada first stayed at the apartment of Dr. Ramamurti Mishra,

a rather flamboyant person who ran a yoga class in New York. Prabhupada had

been give the reference of Dr Mishra by a friend in Bombay, and when Dr Mishra

heard from Prabhupada, he graciously offered to host him in the city.

 

Even though Dr Mishra was philosophically at odds with Prabhupada, he could not

help but admire him: "His Holiness Prabhupada Bhaktivedanta Goswamiji really

knocked me down with love. He was really an incarnation of the love. My body

was a skeleton, and he really brought me back to life - his cooking and

especially his love and devotion to Lord Krishna."

 

However despite this affection, Dr Mishra, an impersonalist, was careful not to

let Prabhupada influence his students too much with his philosophy of pure

devotional service. Recognizing that this would be a hindrance to his preaching

effort, Srila Prabhupada decided to move out. For the first time, with only his

unshakeable faith in the mercy of Krishna, Prabhupada was entirely on his own.

However so firm was his conviction, that once during his solitary wanderings

when Prabhupada struck up a conversation with a Mr. Ruben, he confidently

predicted, "I am not a poor man. I am rich. There are temples and books. They

are existing, they are there, but time is separating us from them."

 

During his stay in New York, Prabhupada had also been corresponding with his

Godbrothers in India and other philanthropists about the possibility of

building a small Radha-Krishna temple in New York. However one by one, each of

them expressed their inability or unwillingness to provide any help. Finally,

Prabhupada came to the conclusion that if anything was to be done, he would

have to do it on his own, without any help from India.

 

Out Alone

*********

On February 15, 1966, Prabhupada moved out from the yoga studio to a room of

his own that was two floors down in the same building, room 307. The building

was in one of the poorer neighborhoods and even though Prabhupada had his name

on the door, no one came. The probability of a spiritual seeker coming to this

seedy part of the town and discovering a small room in a non-descript building

was very rare. Despite this, Prabhupada, began to give regular evening classes,

three days a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). The absence of any

participants did not bother him. His Guru Maharaja had instructed that even if

the rooms were empty one must chant for the bare walls, and so Prabhupada would

sit alone in the room, do kirtans and record his talks.

 

Gradually some of Dr Mishra's students sought him out and began to attend his

classes. By word of mouth some people became interested and came to check out

the 'far out Indian Swami.' Attendance was still sporadic, but he was for the

first time really preaching in the West.

 

Bowery, New York

****************

One day when Prabhupada's room was broken into and burglarized, he decided to

move some where safer where he could attract more mainstream people. One of the

person who had been attending his classes was moving to California and offered

to let Prabhupada share his loft in Bowery. While Bowery was not much better

from where Prabhupada was currently living, it was closer to downtown and

Prabhupada decided it was worth the risk. Carrying his minimal luggage

Prabhupada moved into the loft which he shared with another young man named

David Allen.

 

In Bowery, externally Prabhupada was not much different from the hundreds of

the derelicts that inhabited the place. He was in abject poverty with no fixed

income and very little social contacts. Yet his consciousness was vastly

different. He would sit for hours, translating the Srimad Bhagavatam in English

and make plans for spreading the Krishna consciousness. Whether in Bowery or in

Vrindavana, he was always a Vaikuntha person.

 

News of the arrival of Prabhupada spread by word of mouth, specially at the

Paradox restaurant, a meeting place for people inclined into spiritual affairs.

Most of the people who came were musicians, attracted by the kirtans of

Prabhupada. Some of them would stay back for the classes and Prabhupada would

lecture on the basics of Krishna consciousness.

 

However, Prabhupada's stay in Bowery would also be very limited. Even though he

had showered his roommate, David Allen, with fatherly love and spiritual

advice, David remained too much into drugs. One day under a drug-induced haze

he turned violent and Prabhupada left the loft and the only preaching center

that he had.

 

Matchless Gifts

***************

This move put Prabhupada into much trouble, for he ended up sharing a small

room with another person, who though a well-wisher, would often store his cat

food right next to Prabhupada's prasadam and had to frequently pacify his

girl-friend who looked upon Prabhupada as an intrusion into their privacy.

However, Prabhupada bore it with his usual equanimity. Finally Michael Grant,

one of the musicians who had frequented Prabhupada's kirtans in Bowery found

him a place on Second Ave, close to 26th street. The place had been a store

that sold odds and ends and had finally closed down. There was still a sign on

the window declaring the name of the store, "Matchless Gifts". It was almost

prophetic, since from here would the fledging Krishna consciousness movement

take shape. Here, the first set of eleven disciples would take formal

initiation from Prabhupada, the tradition of the Sunday 'love-feasts' would

begun and ISKCON would become a registered legal entity. From here the firs!

t sankirtan in the Western world was conducted and the first copy of the Back

to Godhead magazines in the West printed. The gift of Krishna consciousness

that people would receive and will continue to receive would indeed be

matchless.

 

Attracted by his purity, the intoxicatingly sweet kirtans, the sumptuous

prasadam that Prabhupada would personally prepare, more and more people began

coming to the Matchless Gifts. Soon, Michael Grant, who had been initiated as

Mukunda dasa, established a small preaching center in the West coast in the

Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Prabhupada, always eager to preach,

left the relative comfort of his center in New York and immediately left for

California. Even though Prabhupada had now made a beginning, his struggle was

by no means over. His vision was never limited by his circumstances and his

enthusiasm inspired his followers to travel far and wide, armed only with the

conviction about the infallibility of the instructions of their dearmost

spiritual master and start establishing new preaching centers around the world.

 

What followed was a story of remarkable success marked with extraordinary

endeavor. In the next ten years that Prabhupada lived, he would open more than

a hundred centers around the world, write more than sixty books, initiate more

than four thousand disciples and travel around the world more than a dozen

times bringing Krishna consciousness to remote places like China, Africa and

the USSR. His greatest achievement was the legacy of disciples he left back to

continue his preaching mission and continue spreading the mercy of Krishna to

the souls all over the world.

 

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!!

 

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Sep 13 2001, Thursday Ekadasi Indira (Break fast 05:49-09:59) (Fast)

 

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