Guru-tattva[continued]

Devotee: Well, I said that about myself because I was first and second initiated by H. in the first place.

T S : Right, so, H. had no position to help her. So, she needed to get a Guru for her second initiation. So I suggested Sridhara Maharaja, now she has two Gurus. Prabhupada is her hari-nama Guru and Sridhara Maharaja is her Gayatri-mantra Guru. So, for Sridhara Maharaja to give her a name is totally fitting. Do you understand?

Devotee: Yes.

T S : The system in the Gaudiya Math was, anyway, that you didn't get your name changed at hari nama, but at the second initiation you got your name changed because Gaudiya Math primarily existed in India and everybody had kind of a Krsna type of name, a spiritual type of name. Prabhupada kind of changed it because you came and your name was Bob or Mary or Jim, so at the hari nama he'd change your name.

Devotee: So Sridhara Maharaja never actually gave re-initiation to second initiated Prabhupada disciples.

Devotee: What about Dhira Krsna?

T S : Yes, Dhira Krsna was initiated by Prabhupada, first and second and sannyasa he took from another devotee who also left the hierarchy. People may not think so, but he certainly did. So, Dhira Krsna, he, of course, developed a great affinity for Sridhara Maharaja; and he asked Sridhara Maharaja that he could take sannyasa from him because he had no regard for his sannyasa guru because he had no regard for Sridhara Maharaja. That's a good reason for not listening to him, I'll tell you, or anybody else. So, Sridhara Maharaja with due consideration gave him sannyasa and the system when you get sannyasa is regularly, that was in Gaudiya Math, that the named was changed at sannyasa. So, instances like that we're talking about.

Devotee: I see, okay.

T S : And this is how it's been misconstrued. There are some other examples, this is a good one. Sometimes someone would come to Sridhara Maharaja and he would say, "so what is your name? You are a disciple of?" "Prabhupada." "And what is your name?" " My name is such and such." And he'd say, "what?" "It's such and such." He'd say, "can't be. You know he was a Sanskrit scholar. That doesn't make any sense. Your name couldn't be that. " And then you know the system, Prabhupada initiated a lot of people and Prabhupada didn't give out the names and Prabhupada didn't chant on the beads sometimes. It was just too many disciples . Sometimes Prabhupada give me beads to chant on. Here, you chant on their beads. I mean, he's the Guru, I'm just doing it in a ritvic way and pick out the names. You would go through the Bhagavatam and pick out some names and he had a book of names of his disciples, you'd look in there and try not to get a repeat or something, although that happened. It's unavoidable, he had five, six, seven, who knows how many thousand disciples, formally initiated. So sometimes the thing, through that system, it got filtered down to someone and the name would be not quite right. It wouldn't make any sense. So Sridhara Maharaja, he might say, "I think that maybe your name is this, that sounds like what he must have meant there." And those that had faith in him would say, "yes, that makes sense. I don't want to have a name that doesn't mean anything, thats incorrect or something." So a couple of instances like that. And Sridhara Maharaja, of course, was known for that. For making a particular type of adjustment in terms of titles and things. And in fact the name Bhaktivedanta, that our Prabhupada had, came from Sridhara Maharaja. The title Bhaktivedanta, you know you talk about changing names, well Sridhara Maharaja changed Prabhupada's name from Abhay Charanaravinda to A.C. Bhaktivedanta. Sridhara Maharaja gave him the title. Later that title was further confirmed by Kesava Maharaja, who gave him the name Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja. So Prabhupada's name changed from Kesava Maharaja, whom he took sannyasa from, and before that from Sridhara Maharaja. Prabhupada was being called Bhaktisiddhanta, you know? Narasingha Maharaja has the papers for the League of Devotees in Jansi with two signatures where Prabhupada signed Abhay Caran Bhaktisiddhanta dasa Adkikary because I think Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaja had liked his writing and had started calling him that. The other Godbrothers complained and they went to Sridhara Maharaja, which was generally the system. "This Abhay Babu, he's calling himself Bhaktisiddhanta. We can't tolerate this. Who does he think he is?" Sridhara Maharaja said, "he's not calling himself, but Goswami Maharaja is, he likes his writing and it's fitting his title, after all. But then if it may offend you, it can be adjusted and we we can call him Bhaktivedanta. The meaning is the same." So everyone accepted, okay, so he can have the title Bhaktivedanta, fine. Then later on, when Kesava Maharaja, who is the sannyasa disciple of Sridhara Maharaja, initiated Prabhupada into sannyasa, he gave him the name Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja. So Sridhara Maharaja was doing those kinds of things, but never in effect saying, "your initiation from Prabhupada is not enough, it's not valid, therefore, you better get initiated by me." There are people like that in Navadwip. There's a lot of people like that, they say, "you want to hear something that your Guru never told you? Like who you are in the spiritual world? And get a real initiation." There's people like that and some of our disciples went to those people. They had their names changed, the whole thing, and they are rejected by us entirely. Sridhara Maharaja even tried to help some of those people. You may remember the godbrother who left Prabhupada and went to Lalit Prasad and he got some kind of so-called special initiation--rejected Prabhupada. Sridhara Maharaja tried to save him and a boy named Nadia, you know Nadia, they were walking around wearing the babaji dress in Navadwip and a waterpot like they were Rupa, Sanatana for a few years, bare-footed and everything, chanting 64 rounds a day, reading all the Goswami's books, you know, Lalita-Madhava and Ujjvala-nilamani and all these things, Krsna Karnamrita, even books that Bhaktisiddhanta disallowed his disciples from reading and Sridhara Maharaja, he tried to help them also. It is hard to cooperate with that kind of a thing.

Devotee: There's a saying actually that according to one's perception, ones ways may be imperfect, but there's always perfect intentions.

T S : What is that?

Devotee: Ways can be imperfect, there's such things as perfect intentions. Ways cannot always be perfect.

T S : Well, I would say this: that Prabhupada had perfect ways and perfect intentions. Sridhara Maharaja also had perfect ways and perfect intentions.

Devotee: That's what I say, according to one's perception. He might think this, that's how he thinks it's good.

T S : He gets confused.

Devotee: So hearing from that, then I, see 'cause my only doubt is I believe that Sridhara Swami's giving, you know, changing, and you know.

T S : Right. See, that's why, these are happy discussions. I mean, if we think like that, we have to think ill of a pure Vaisnava because we've heard in some way a distorted message and we see one of his disciples and we think, "Oh boy, the poor guys confused, he got initiated by Sridhara, you know, the sahajiya of Navadwip who... and it's just not true at all, it's the farthest thing from the truth and, you know, we may be implicated in these kind of things and this should be cleared up. It's a cloud that lingers over all of ISKCON, inhibits it, really, from being the dynamic movement that it was. It's a shadow of what it was. It's a shadow. Sridhara Maharaja said in 1982 they passed a edict, "anyone who have affinity for Sridhara Maharaja cannot live in ISKCON." You know, the house in which everybody can live in, everybody except those people. This is the edict they passed and they had a few other things they tried to do at that time-- like trampling on the faith of people and Sridhara Maharaja said, "I fear for the life of ISKCON. It is cracked at the foundation. It will become a shadow of what it was." Who with any eyes will not say it's a shadow of what it was, it is, it's a shadow and it's unfortunately lingering in the cloud of Vaisnava aparadha. So it should be cleared up. You should have happy kind of discussions. There's such a happier picture than the picture of ISKCON. The picture in ISKCON: some demon in Navadwip tried to destroy the movement. We tried to save it, but gee, we couldn't exactly and who knows what else, some Gurus came in and they tried to take over the movement and gather up worship for themselves and it's really like an ugly kind of scenario. We can talk like this, it can become a happy picture. Yes?

Devotee: I have another question. You made a very interesting point before, you say that Prabhupada could not delegate anybody to be an initiatior, only Krsna knows who the self-manifested Guru will be after Prabhupada. Then you said that he said that we should accept a Guru that's self...

T S : effulgent.

Devotee: effulgent, but we are in a lowly, fallen position, how are we to recognize who is self-effulgent?

T S : That's up to you, that's your qualification. Before you put the onus on guru, it comes back to you. You must know what is the temperment of a disciple? You have to have sufficient eagerness. There's no difficulty on the part of Godhead to reveal Himself to you. The shortcoming is not on that side. The shortcoming is on you, as you say, I'm fallen, how will I know? Understand how fallen you are and you will know. The more you understand how fallen you really are, the more you will have the need, the more you will have the necessity, the more the truth will become apparent to you. The truth may be in front of you, but you may not know. The necessity will have to develop in you. So you say, I am fallen, so how will I know? How will I see? And I say to you, know how fallen you are, really, and then you will be able to see. That will give you the eyes to see. You should really meditate on and understand and penetrate how much of a predicament you are in and how urgent is spiritual life. If you really analyze the situation thoughtfully you'll see that it is like the house is on fire. I need spiritual life now. Immediately. And the more this sense of urgency develops within you, you will then have the vision, the eyes to see, "oh, the truth has come to help me." So the burden lies with you.

Devotee: So I understand that your saying that all the disciples that accepted imperfect Gurus, in a sense it was their own lack of sincerity that they couldn't see.

T S : No, that's not what I'm saying. That, first of all, the plan of Krsna's will, we can draw back and see that in all of this, so many things are to be learned. So if we appeal to Krsna that I want to be used by you, we'll have to be prepared for anything. He may even use us in that way. So many young persons that came, they may have been used in that way. Now what are they asking for? You were initiated by Ramesvara, and this one came by H., so why did you come to Krsna consciousness? Did you come to be a servant of Krsna? Then you should be prepared for anything. If Krsna wants to use you like that, teach a lesson to others and to yourself then you be prepared for that and learn a lesson and go on and make that connection. We don't say that they're insincere, but if they are insincere that will be apparent with how they deal with that senario, when that becomes part of their life. They go away and say, "oh well, who cares for this anyway? This is nonsense. Well anyway, I don't need him anyway," or something like that, "I've got Prabhupada anyway." Or something like that, they say different things and so forth. In one sense I always apologize to all of them because that was our movement and there were my Godbrothers and so forth and that's unhappy for them, but another side, we can only blame ourself for anything that happens. We come to Krsna consciousness, we have certain amount of sukriti, so we may get connection proportionate to our sukriti. It may be also analyzed in that way. But I like to say further in this, you asked for service to Krsna, so the problems of ISKCON, so to speak, that all has some divine scheme behind it also. We have to see from the highest vantage point that, that something is to be learned from that. That a lesson is to be learned. So people may be sacrificed in the whole drama, someone may be a villain in a drama, it is possible, but it is only a drama. The lila of ISKCON, we have to also look at it in that way. Yes?

Devotee: A couple of things, first off, at a certain point of time many devotees, didn't they have no choice which Guru they would take initiation from in the zonal acharya system?

T S : Yes, we think in that sense they, there was no such initiation, because initiation is not something to be based on ecclesiastical considerations or something that's, they kind of contacted a misrepresentation, so to speak. It would be ungenerous to say they had no sincerity in the matter, so we try to put that in another way.

Devotee: And second of all, ISKCON seems to me, maybe I just don't have the intelligence, but it seems to me that's it's still going on and still preaching and still the devotee's are coming to the temple and it's just going through the process. I know Krsna consciousness is not a process, but it's still a evolutionary, dynamic process going on. We see some at reform within ISKCON, within the GBC and perhaps it's not the running stride of an old, established mainstream religion that we might see in India, in the Gaudiya Vaisnava Society which has had some hundreds of years, but still it's in the past twenty-five years, is it now, twenty-five years the child is starting to walk a little bit. It's walking, the steps may not be so steady, but it's still going on, I think Srila Sridhara Maharaja, he said, "if ISKCON goes, the whole Gaudiya Vaisnava Society goes."

T S : Yes, he said things like that. The thing is that that is a gradual thing, they have some power to make some connection. They're connected with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's movement throught Prabhupada's mission, an agent thereby and when that person is gone, whether there's sincerity, or the strength of their sincerity will be hit by that also. How they will deal with that subsequently. So it's part of their, my situation is different. We come to this with something also. We come to this with some background, that can't be denied. We come to this with some background and that background we have to deal with, some karma. We come and that will have to be dealt with. But to call it insincere, that is not a generous way of explaining the matter. So we have a certain amount of power to make a connection. Yes?

Devotee: I said, maybe immature but not insincere. On this ISKCON thing, it sounds like it's two seperate camps because the way you talk of ISKCON, it's like ISKCON to you means not Prabhupada but the GBC, the one who made mistakes and so on; but ISKCON is not just the GBC, it's all of Prabhupada's disciples.

T S : It's Prabhupada's ideal.

Devotee: Yes.

T S : We identify with the ideal.

Devotee: You can't judge ISKCON by the GBC and so many Gurus who made this and that mistake. ISKCON is a lot more than that, you know what I'm saying? It's like...

T S : Well, we agree with that.

Devotee: I just see separate camps. It seems to me...

T S : No, you see we agree. We say that ISKCON is the ideal and that's not, as I said earlier, limited to some geographical area or set of legislation, rules and regulations, it's not limited to what the GBC comes out with every year or something. Who ever reads those things anyway? We agree with that.

Devotee: Uh huh.

T S : But they are formally organizing the Society.

Devotee: Yes, but when I think of ISKCON, I don't think of the GBC or this Guru or that Guru.

T S : That's fine, but you're not me. If you walk over to the temple or you don't walk over to the temple, it doesn't make a heck of a lot difference to the GBC, but if I walk over to the temple, it'll go all over the whole movement.

Devotee: Are you preaching something different than Prabhupada's teaching.

T S : Well, I know you're here tonight, what do you think? I don't think so.

Devotee: The way I see it, you have directly said it, but what you're saying is that unless devotee's accept Sridhara as more or less...

T S : We're saying that unless they understand the reality of what happened, then they're not going to know the whole picture.

Devotee: So you don't get to know that picture just by being Prabhupada's disciple is what I'm saying, do you think that they have to have Sridhara Maharaja?

T S : I think only if you're Prabhupada's disciples or a disciple of his disciple that you can know about it because it's a spiritual thing. But what are you going to know about it, part of what your going to know...

Devotee: Prabhupada has other Godbrothers and there's other pure devotees.

T S : I know that and we should know who they are and how important they are in our lives.

Devotee: Don't you think that ISKCON in general respects all devotee's.

T S : No.

Devotee: Because they don't receive instructions? There's a difference between respecting somebody and getting instructions from somebody.

T S : Yes, but there's also a difference in this, there's a difference in respecting somebody because he wasn't sent to instruct you and taking instructions from somebody because they were sent to instruct you. So you can talk about, "well, Prabhupada had so many Godbrothers and we should respect them..." Sridhara Maharaja is not just another Godbrother and you don't really know about the relationship between Prabhupada and Sridhara Maharaja and what Prabhupada wanted, what role Prabhupada wanted Sridhara Maharaja to play in our lives; and we know about that and we're just pointing that out and it's like something else about Prabhupada that maybe you haven't heard yet. You want to serve Prabhupada, right? This is part of it. It's happy, it's not a unhappy thing. It's a happy thing.

Devotee: But that's not my point.

T S : And we don't say... we say that all you have to do is worship Prabhpada and follow him. That's all you have to do.

Devotee: Yes.

T S : And that's what we're doing, but this is also part of it, that's all; and I'm saying that we're worshipping Prabhupada and following him...

Devotee: This means respecting all Vaisnavas.

T S : It does. It means respecting all Vaisnavas, thats right. And it also means that different Vaisnavas have different positions too, because there's different kinds of Vaisnavas, right. And then you have to analyze what is the kind of Vaisnava that Sridhara Maharaja is and what is his relationship with Prabhupada and how should I deal with him. Just like you respect all Vaisnavas, right?

Devotee: Uh huh.

T S : So you've got friends, right?

Devotee: Yes.

T S : You respect them in a certain way, you have lady friends that you hang out with or whatever and you respect them and male friends and you know, your husband at one time, you have a relationship with him, it's different now, you respect him in a particular way and I expect that you deal with me in a different way, but you respect them all.

Devotee: Mm hmm.

T S : That's the basic thing, but then depending on who they are and where they are situated formally and substantially, there's going to be some difference. You might have a conversation with a girlfriend who's a Vaisnava who you should respect and I should, but it's going to be different in the kind of conversation you might have with me as a sannyasi and so forth. So similiarly, you have to respect all Vaisnavas, but then you' have to take into account who they are. Who is Sridhara Maharaja? What kind of role did Prabhupada want him to have in relation to us.

Devotee: Didn't he say, I mean, I didn't personally read anything he directly said about Sridhara, at least not to myself and I never personally heard a tape made when he was there, but he said, if you have, if you question, if you need advice, you can go to Sridhara. He didn't say you have to go to Sridhara, now that I'm gone, you have to go to Sridhara for further advancement.

T S : Right.

Devotee: So, it's a personal choice. If I feel like I want to know something I can approach either my Godbrothers, an advanced sannyasi, or whoever I feel...

T S : Right.

Devotee: He didn't say you have to. Otherwise you're doomed.

T S : That's what we say.

Devotee: But that's what it sounds like you're saying. You said if ISKCON doesn't accept Sridhara then it's like this ISKCON--this other entity that's doomed.

T S : No, you misunderstand.

Devotee: That's what it sounds like.

T S : No, Sridhara Maharaja himself said that you shouldn't come to me unless, you know, you really think you need to come to me.

Devotee: Or you want to, or whatever.

T S : Right. But what we're saying is this. The present stance that the formal ISKCON society takes towards Sridhara Maharaja is hardly the generous respect to all Vaisnavas.

Devotee: Where does that come from? Does that come from him or does it come from some of his disciples because, you see, you take a pretty heavy stand.

T S : Listen, you want to talk about a heavy stance, in 1982 we were told, "if you have any affinity for Sridhara Maharaja, you can't live in this movement." So we're being told if we like Sridhara Maharaja, get out. We got out because we didn't think that that was what Prabhupada wanted. We were thrown out for that. Now you call that generous?

Devotee: No, no.

T S : Okay, we don't either. That should be corrected.

Devotee: But still that enmity is there.

T S : Now what a minute, where is it coming from? I'm Prabhupada's disciple. I do what Prabhupada wants me to do, as far as I can understand. I understood that Prabhupada wanted me to also hear from Sridhara Maharaja after he left. So I went, I heard. The powers that be in ISKCON didn't agree with that, so they kicked me out. Alright? Fine, you know they won't let me give a talk over here at the temple or any other ISKCON temple, so who's got the problem? It's not me, I don't mind going and giving a talk. I have no problem with it. So who do they have a problem with? They've got a problem with Sridhara Maharaja and I don't think that that's what you call respect for all Vaisnavas. I don't think they have it. I don't think as a policy they have that. Therefore, we say that policy should be corrected.

Devotee: So what started the whole, why in particular did they...

T S : Make that policy.

Devotee: Yes.

T S : Because, I talked about this earlier, because they had personal interests and they thought they were the Gurus of the world. They divided the whole world up into different zones and Sridhara Maharaja told them, "I think you're all students, to be honest with you and that you haven't graduated yet." And they went to him just to get information and some of it they used to support their erroneous conclusions and he said, "I'm not going to be a party to that. I'm not sitting here just to give ditto to everything you say. I've got my own understanding of this, fifty years in Gaudiya Vaisnavism and I'm going to tell you what I think the philosophy is, " which is what, you know, Prabhupada said, we should hear from him for philosophy. So they didn't like that. That's why. Not for a good reason. There's no good reason for it, it's a bad reason. That's the problem. I mean, what do you think? Do you think it's respecting all Vaisnavas that one of the GBC hires someone to kill Sridhara Maharaja? Do you think that's good?

Devotee: I never heard of that.

T S : Well then, you know, there's a lot of things you didn't hear about.

Devotee: No, but see, the GBC hears about these things because they're in that, you know, that association. I'm not in the association.

T S : Well, you don't seem to respect the GBC very much.

Devotee: I just don't get political. I don't like the politics.

T S : Politics means you've got to discuss policy, so we're here discussing policy. We think it's not a good policy to offend Vaisnavas and you seem to agree. Only we're just pointing out that some people are doing it and we don't want to be part of that.

Devotee: See, on a higher level there's subtleties that I myself cannot understand. You know, there's subtleties of etiquette. There's this, this, and that. There's things going on that are not obvious to us, that are not black and white, to a lot of us, you know. So, on that level I can't say that I understand what's going on. I don't know what's going on.

T S : Yes, but I've got something to say to you, you're finding out. It's happening. This is still going on. We're sitting here in a house right now and this is being discussed and it's not just going to go in one ear and out the other. You've got a little different angle of vision and, you know, something is going on. We're making progress in spiritual life, however slow. We're making progress, somethings happening and if we're sincere whatever misconceptions we have about things are going to get cleared up in time and the true picture's going to come out. It's not over. You can't just say, "Well, heck, I don't want to deal with this anyway. I don't want to talk about Sridhara Maharaja. He had nothing to do with me. I respect him, he's a Vaisnava. I don't know anything about him. I'm going on with my spiritual life." But it just doesn't exactly work like that because he happens to be in the hierarchy of the place we're trying to get access to. So it keeps coming up and the Society over here has taken a wrong posture in relation to that and it's caused havoc. It's been created, people are suffering from that.

Devotee: Why do you think they are all like that? I mean, you are generalizing.

T S : Yes, I am. I'm generalizing and I'm also saying to you that Vaisnava aparadha has very far reaching effects. I mean, let's take yourself. You are a real nice person and you come here and talk and hear and listen and a lot of people like you, maybe not just like you but similiar, they don't have much information about the subject. They never paid much attention to it and they hear some things like Sridhara Maharaja re-initiated people and so they don't like that very much and they hear my name and their face turns white, you know. Someone's having a conversation, "hey, hare krsna, where have you been prabhu?" "I've been here and there." "What are you doing?" "Well, heck, I'm traveling with T. Maharaja." "Oh yeah," because some of them know, he's with Sridhara Maharaja, and say, "Well, I've got things to do." You know, so these things are happening, you say I'm generalizing. I am. Some people committed offenses. Everyone may also be affected by that to some extent, in terms of their conceptual framework.

Devotee: Because in ISKCON, everybody was taught from the beginning to surrender to the superiors and not even ask any questions and they were taught to surrender to the temple president and just believe what you hear and don't ask any questions basically. That was the concept of surrender, you know, and people trusted the GBC so you really can't, I think a lot of the devotee were immature and...

T S : Well, listen to me, I'm not blaming anybody, I'm just saying this is a reality.

Devotee: Yes.

T S : I'm not blaming you or anything, I'm just saying that we should do something about it. We should clear these things up, because it's not happy. You know, it's, I mean, gee, you meet somebody that's a disciple of Sridhara Maharaja and you've got these thoughts that have been fostered on you, you know, third and fourth hand information or something, and you think, "that poor guy," or something, or. "I don't want to talk to him." You know, it's weird, he's a pure Vaisnava. He's got so many disciples, he's got disciples who have got disciples, you know, and it's going on. Life goes on. Krsna consciousness is going on. We've got a big family. We should be happy about that. And I'm not blaming anybody. I know there's a lot of nice people in ISKCON, who don't understand this, but they're not going to be able to just say, "Well, I don't want to hear about it anyway." It's going to keep coming up, because we're talking about the eternal world. Sridhara exists there. He's our uncle. Now, if you feel, "look, I like to read Prabhupada's books and chant and follow the basic guidelines of Prabhupada," then I'm happy with that. Well, I think that's great. I think that's very good and I think if you have that attitude and you really do that then you'll appreciate Sridhara Maharaja if you hear about him or of him and you may not want to read his books, or not find any interest at the time and you're not supposed to, or that's fine. And you might meet some people, you know, give you a book, you might read it, you might find it interesting, regard him in a particular way. I mean, you can look at persons like Prabhupada in different ways also. Appreciate him with different sentiments and so forth. But what we really say is this, that's an offense posture, that's not healthy; and at large the ISKCON Society in principle, at it's administrative level, authoritarian level, it has an offensive policy. I mean, I did a lot to help this temple over here. I lived here for years, in this temple. For something like three years Rukmini and Dwarkadish was my Diety. The first Diety I ever offered arotik to. I spent a lot time there, even when I left and travelled at Prabhupada's request. I was coming back to Los Angeles and in those days, Prabhupada was staying for like months at a time. He stayed one time for six months in Los Angeles. Three months in the spring, three months in the fall, like two years in a row; and I went on walks with Prabhupada, I stood next to his Vyasasana every day, and I stood up through every class, so that I wouldn't fall aleep. Just to be right next to Prabhupada and hear and this means a lot to me, this place, but I know, if I walk over there, some people will look at me like, "what's that guy doing here," and I don't want to put them in that position and made to feel uncomfortable myself. I mean, I'm going there tommorrow morning, mangal arotik, but 'surprise!' you know, "here I am," but that doesn't make me happy. Should it make you happy, I don't think it should make you happy. I'm not such a bad person.

Devotee: Well, I personally don't understand how anybody could be banned from the temple.

T S : Well, that happens, you know. To me it happened when one of my friends was Ramesvar Maharaja and I was telling him, listen, you're making some mistakes, you're doing the wrong thing. He said, "what do you mean, I'm doing the wrong thing," and I said, "well, look, let's not kid around, it's me, T. Maharaja. I've known you for years and certain things you are doing are not up to the standard here" and he said, "how can you say that?" I said, "hey, come on, there's nobody else around, right, it's just you and me. I'm not going to go tell the world or something, I'm having a man to man talk with you. You're my friend, you've helped me in the past. I'm offering some help to you, Maharaja. I want you to continue in this and I'm ready to help you and support you, but what you're doing here is not right. This isn't going to work." He said, "Well, I don't know what you're talking about." I said, "Maharaja, it's me." But that was it, that was the end of the relationship basically. So, I said, "alright, fine, you go and do it as you want to do it, but I can't be a party to this. I can't be bringing people to you and telling them they should be initiated with you, or I can't be taking people to Bhavananda Maharaja and telling them they can be initiated, you know, I can't do that. That's not the teaching, okay, you want to change, fine, I don't know, Bhavananda, I don't think he can change too quickly, but some of the things you do could change, now I'm willing to help you. I'll be a part of it, to help you, but otherwise I can't be a party to it. So he wouldn't listen to me. So I gave up all administrative positions in ISKCON and I just travelled around and I couldn't have any enthusiasm to participate to make devotee's, even to sell books. I thought, "I sell a book, I guess if you're going to come join this organization and who's going to be, who am I going to lead them to and so forth." This was like 1984 or something like that. So then I got a book (Sri Guru and His Grace) of Sridhara Maharaja. I read the book, I read the first part, I thought, "well, I'll find out what this is about. Okay, I hear everything about these people, I'm going to find out for myself now, what it is. I've got to look into it myself." So I looked into it for myself and I thought, "there must be something wrong with Sridhara Maharaja, because they all reject him. I don't know why," so I read the book, first chapter, second chapter, and things that I thought in my heart, I found to be confirmed in this book. This was confirming what I was thinking and more than that even; and I got about half way through the book and my attitude changed; from reservation, I was reading it eagerly and when I got to the last chapter, I cried and I paid my obeisances. I thought, "no one can talk like this except my Prabhupada. No one can speak like, no one can move me like this. This is the same thing I came in touch with with him. This is the Divine current in a very powerful, forceful presentation. He's not just giving information here. He's calling on me to surrender to the ideals in a powerful way. I must go there." So I called up the person that published the book first. I thought, well, "Vaisnava dasa anudasa. I'll go there first." And he told me, well, at that time we thought ISKCON was about to be changed, many devotee's were, there was a grassroots movement for reform and change in ISKCON and I had much to do with that. Wherever I went, temple presidents were asking me, "what to do Maharaja, there's problems." I said, "we should have a meeting, we should have a meeting." I didn't know it, actually Sridhara said they should have a meeting, all the Godbrothers, they should sit and meet and air out their feelings and so forth. So the meetings were arranged and of temple presidents and then they made some policies and so forth and it was a grassroots movement for some change, dealing with issues and open wide and so forth. And then, so we thought, things were going to change, so the fellow that published the book, he told me, "well, look. Now you've understood who Sridhara Maharaja is, so stay in ISKCON and move around and talk with people because I was like a big catch, you know, I was a well-known, well established person who was always known to be very dedicated to Prabhupada, very overtly and so forth, so he thought, "This is an important figure, he can influence people." So I moved for a few months until I was caught, so to speak. I was in the Seattle temple, preaching to two devotee's and I had just gotten into it and I just keep going and going and going and somebody else came in and heard me and closed the door and went back out. I didn't even know; and he called my old friend, he said, "T. Maharaja is here in the temple and he's preaching about Sridhara," which was the heresy of the day. In five minutes, well, as long as it took him to call every temple in the United States, which wasn't long, he was pretty good on the phone. I was black-balled from every temple in ISKCON. Then I got a call from the temple presidents reform movement, who were in just about two days going to have their second big meeting. They said, "Maharaja, don't come to the meeting." I said, "what do you mean, don't come to the meeting?" "Don't come to the meeting. You know, now you're into Sridhara Maharaja, we don't want anything to do with you." And that was it, I guess that's how you get kicked out of ISKCON. Yesterday I was in, today I'm out. And it's not like it is today, you see, things were a little heavier then. Now you can say, "who cares about the GBC, or this or that." It wasn't like that. People had a very strong control over areas and I was black-balled. I was out. I was out of ISKCON. Well, now what do you do? That's what I did, I mean, I'm still doing, I'm just, evolving, progress. I went to Sridhara Maharaja. I got advice. What was his advice? You do what Prabhupada wanted you to do. If they cannot understand, if they are so hard-hearted, he didn't even say this, but this is what he meant.

How did Sridhara Maharaja get involved in ISKCON? Even if you don't know that Prabhupada really told us to go there, you could be stubborn about that, okay, fine. Still, we went there. He didn't come over to us and say, "Okay, I'm here to take over your movement and tell you what to do." It's all of us that went to him and dragged him into the whole thing. So what's his reaction? "Out of affection for ISKCON, I was drawn in, they came to me, they were asking advice, because I cared about them I tried to advise them and now anyone that ends up liking what I said, they're kicking them out and me out." He said, "and you call this Vaisnavism?" It was the idea, "this is Vaisnavism?" You know, what is the meaning of you go to arotik, you chant, you read the book, but then you deal with somebody like this and it kind of shows what you've [mis]understood about Vaisnavism. It all comes down to dealings. So the dealings were rather rough and avaisnava, not Vaisnava. So we're for gentler feelings, happier times. Those were hard times, you know, they were hard times for you too, I don't know where you were at that time. Each of us was in a different situation, different position and we had to deal with it differently. You know, I was a preacher and I couldn't go along with the policy. At the time I thought, new people are coming. I'd like to take them to Sridhara Maharaja, instead of the others. That's what I thought. Is that a bad thing? What do you think? I don't think it is. You understand? And their policy was no. I said, well, you know, the heck with your policy. If that's what you call ISKCON then forget it, because I don't think that is ISKCON. I don't think that's the big ideal of my Guru. That's not the kind of thing I joined. That's your narrow interpretation of it. Yes?

Devotee: Are you saying people are still in control of the GBC, no.

T S : Some not, but I'll tell you something. Many of the same, the GBC that Prabhupada picked were the best men he had. That's why he picked them largely. I mean, they're all kind of sincere people on all levels, but he picked them, they were good men and a lot of the men that replaced them aren't that much different. Their realization is not much better, they're dealing with the situation differently, so there's not such, so overt of a problem, but there are many problems. Covert problems. Understanding and so forth. Look at their policy towards Sridhara Maharaja still today. I was in Vancouver, I was invited to Vancouver by Dharmaraja, to preach in his house and he invited some friends who were all devotee's who did a lot to build the Vancouver temple over the years, but they're estranged from the temple, they just think it's small-minded, the present administration. So they're not interested to go there, they're talented people and all and they are married people and the temple thinks they're in maya because they live outside or something. They don't come to mangal-arotik every morning. They just can't relate to it. They have children to raise, they have things to do, they're talented people, they want to participate, they want to serve, but ISKCON there is just not big enough for them. So they came, some of them came to Dharmaraja's house and I was speaking and they were getting encouraged, they invited me back. Next thing, they had a program at another person's house and we were moving from house to house, every weekend, chanting Hare Krsna, discussing philosophy and they were getting encouragment and becoming enthusiastic. Well the temple started hearing about this; and we weren't even talking about it and we weren't even talking about the temple or anything. The temple started hearing that some people were getting, that some of these people used to come maybe on Sunday's and instead they were going to Maharaja's program on Sunday and that they thought it was valuable. They flew the GBC up there, this was like two weeks ago, they had a special meeting in the temple to tell everybody that T. Maharaja, he may look good, but he's not, because he's preaching about Sridhara and Prabhupada in such a way to be construed that Prabhupada liked Sridhara. We know, you know, that Prabhupada didn't want us to have anything to do with him, whatsoever and this is maya and ...I mean, this is ridiculous, and this is still going on. Not everywhere.

Devotee: Don't you see that the individual devotee's that are called the GBC are just a manifestation of some immaturity, some lack of consciousness.

T S : I do. I think we're addressing that.

Devotee: If you are just at that level then.

T S : I think we agree, but what should I do?

Devotee: Huh?

T S : I agree with that. So what should I do?

Devotee: Well, there's different ways of looking at it. I mean, it seems like your condemning that kind of consciousness, you condemn it but I think that ISKCON in general, not on a specific level, is at a adolescent stage. Let's take it to the understanding that we've only been in spiritual life for at the most twenty-five years which is really nothing.

T S : Well that's fine, but that doesn't mean I don't talk about it when it comes up. I don't talk about these things every night.

Devotee: I'm trying to understand it, you know, more as a big picture. You see, I don't know anything about the GBC. The only people who know anything about the GBC's are the sannyasis and the GBC's and those who have been to the meetings. Most of us don't know anything about it.

T S : But you have to understand, you're going to deal with the situation differently than I am. You are a lady, I'm a man. I'm a sannyasi and an older Godbrother and I'm a preacher and I have some credentials to do something, so I'm going to deal with the phenomenon of ISKCON's immaturity a little differently than you are. For you, it just say, okay, well, you think that's their immaturity. You may not know everything either. You may be more immature in some ways spiritually than they are also. They may make some crazy policies that may be an expression of their immaturity, but they may understand more of Krsna conciousness than you do. A lot of people are in your situation and I generalize. I don't know your situation, but a lot of devotee's have a certain attitude towards the GBC that I wouldn't neccessarily agree with. I would give them more credit than they do. You know, they practice, they come to the temple, they try to read and chant, and I hear people all the time saying, "you should read Prabhupada's books," that don't read them. I don't know how much you read them, or anything, but anyway, there's a lot of different angles of vision. You may have a certain angle about their immaturity and adolescence and I may agree with that, but I may also see you to be a adolescent in a way, from another angle of vision.

Devotee: Obviously you have different dealings with them than I do.

T S : Right, so, your a certain person, you're going to deal with what you see to be ISKCON's adolescence, in a particular way. I'm going to have to deal with it differently, obviously. I got thrown out. So I have to deal with it differently and I'm just telling my story, so, I'm not upset or anything, I'm quite happy, I've learned quite a lot as a result of it, I benefited immensely as a result of it, but if you are going to ask me about ISKCON's adolescence, I'm going to explain it in this way. This is what it means, this is what it comes down to, as far as--what do you have as a solution to ISKCON's adolescence? You see, that's another question. I saw myself as a adolescent. How did I deal with it, in the absence of my father? I went to my uncle. You chose to deal with it in another way. Now you think about it, in terms of a material example, do you have any children? Well, a lot of people like you have got teenage children, right? You've got a seventeen year-old boy, he's an adolescent, we sit here and talk to him sometimes, he's quite interesting, he's a adolescent, he told us things that his dad doesn't even know, but his dad probably suspects, you know, because his dad did a lot of those things too. So, we talked to him and it's interesting to see the phenomenon of adolescence and especially within the context of his being born as a devotee and so forth; and he's dealing with a lot of things. If his dad should leave today, his dad should die today, you know, we shouldn't even say it, but just to use the example, we pray that won't happen, but if something like that should happen, what would be the best thing for that boy to do? Just deal with his adolescence as a seventeen year-old boy? Well, if that's all he's got, fine, but if a uncle appears on the picture to help him, I think that's a better way to deal with it personally. That's the way I chose to deal with it, now you didn't see that as an option, that didn't appear to you at the time. It did to me, I dealt with it that way. We can use a material example, and maybe we can get some light from it. Now look at it from a spiritual point of view, it makes even more sense. If a spiritual uncle appears to help you, then I think the people who took the help like that have matured much more beyond adolesence than those who haven't and therefore, at the highest level of GBC, you've still got this kind of adolescent attitude that you see yourself and I see; and I'm just like, this is the way I deal with it. I try to explain it and I'm explaining the solution to it also. I think, if hearing from the uncle is the solution, a practical solution in terms of our example, then okay, why don't they do that? Their uncle left too. Okay, your uncle left and you didn't get to meet him and it's too bad, but it's not over yet. Everything the uncle had to offer, to say to us in our adolescence, has been preserved by one or two of our brothers in the form of these books. This is advice to adolescent ISKCON, spiritually adolescent disciples of Prabhupada. That's what Sridhara Maharaja addressed. Do you know who Sridhara Maharaja talked to for six years? Six, seven years, whatever it was? To us, to Prabhupada's disciples, you know, what other reason was he remaining on Earth for? He couldn't figure it out. Everybody had gone, why am I here? That's what he was there for, to talk to us. To give us insights that would help us to do what Prabhupada wanted to do; and therefore, we say that these books are good. You admit, ISKCON is adolescent, but your solution is that we'll flounder around and make mistakes and grow; and that is one process, no doubt, but there's another angle, another way; and if we really want to overcome the adolescence, our own spiritual adolescence and ISKCON's adolescence, we might want to try another way too. It doesn't hurt, it's bonafide, it's fine, it's good.

Devotee: What does the term "guardian of devotion" mean?

T S : Sridhara Maharaja is called the guardian of devotion, Bhakti Raksaka, it means guardian of devotion. He's trying to guard and protect the valuable thing that Prabhupada put in our hearts. The adolescence goes a lot further than that because, I don't know about your life, but a lot of other people, say in the L.A. community, they feel that the GBC is somewhat immature. So they don't take them so seriously and they don't take some of the policies so seriously, they take it with a grain of salt, say, "anyway, they'll get over it."

But another way, as I said, they're immature. They are immature in terms of their understanding of the philosophy and they gravitate towards this or that; like there's a big New Age party for example going on here and put on by a devotee named G. and a flyer came here and it's very flakey to be honest with you. It actually has nothing to do with Gaudiya Vaisnava siddhanta and the teachings of Prabhupada. You didn't miss anything, I'm telling you. I mean, I didn't go to the party, but I read the flyer, you know, and I know what Gaudiya Vaisnavism is about and that was like really flakey and I know, I published a magazine called Clarion Call, I don't know if you ever saw it, but it was like addressing New Age and alternative thought and I investigated it real thoroughly from the point of preaching to these people and there's so much pseudo spirituality in there that is pathetic, it's just pathetic. I met Godbrothers who said that they were channeling some entity that was telling them what Prabhupada wanted and they believed it. I said, "did he tell you to follow the four regulative principles?" "Well, that wasn't on the agenda, Maharaja." Or, you know, something like that. I mean, it's like ludicrous. They got into past-live hypnotic regressions and all kinds of stuff and I thought that, my God, they're not very heavily grounded in this thing. They're lagu, acting as guru, lagu means light, guru means heavy. I thought, let me write some of these articles to help some of my Godbrothers to give them some foundation. They interpreted Krsna, they were just taken by the winds, so to speak, of maya, in the absence of their Prabhupada and it's going on right here in the L.A. community and those people may be over there and they may go, "Hare Bol! I haven't seen you in a long while," and they've got some New Age entertainment or something, or somebody's rubbing crystals on, you know, your chakras or something, who knows what they're doing. This is the kind of thing that goes on at New Age parties and whatnot, but they're all Hari Bol! and Hare Krsna! And maybe they chant Hare Krsna for a few minutes too and something; and then they'll say, "yeah, the GBC, who cares for them? You know, they're trying. They'll mature in time and they'll get out of their adolescence," and the GBC's looking at them like, "I hope these people will mature in time and understand what Prabhupada's teaching." So it goes on in different ways. It's a big mess in a sense and these books are very grounding. Prabhupada's books are too, but if you really read Prabhupada's books, you'll see that they refer to other books, then what do you do. Prabhupada says, "for more information about this, you can refer to this." In one purport in Caitanya Caritamrita, Prabhupada says, "it is impossible for anyone to become Krsna Conscious without reading the Brhad Bhagavatamrta of Sanatana Goswami. Sridhara Maharaja happened to be like the personification of the Brhad Bhagavatamrta in particular. Brhad Bhagavatamrta talks about the gradation of spiritual evolution. Prabhupada's "Temple of Understanding" in Mayapur was supposed to be a representation of Brhad Bhagavatamrta, you go up each level of the building, at the top is Radha and Krsna in Goloka, madhurya rasa, and the temple was a way of showing that. That idea came from Sridhara Maharaja in consultation with him, to do it like Brhad Bhagavatamrta. Sridhara Maharaja happened to be, that was like one of his preoccupations spiritually, to talk about the gradations of spiritual understanding, from Vaikuntha to Dwarka, Dwarka to Goloka, within Goloka, you know, Mathura then Vrindaban. There is a conversation in the Folio about this between Prabhupada and Sridhara Maharaja. This is very interesting. So if you read Prabhupada's books you'll see it takes us to these things. These books in particular, they're heavy books, I mean, heavy, very heavy. Philosophically very heavy and very heavy in terms of pressing on you for commitment and involvement in what we know to be Krsna Consciousness, it's like powerful, it's like, "wait a minute, I don't know if I'm ready for the kind of commitment that's being talked about here." But that's the kind of commitment that our Prabhupada had and that's what love of God is about. So we can wade around in this kind of thing and we can talk about it and say we're devotee's or we can come to the ideal of divine slavery and it sounds cute and everything, but it's not such a easy pill to swallow, it's not so easy to digest; and these books are heavy in that regard. So some people, they're interested in the thing and all, they're genuine and all, but they're not interested in surrendering completely right now maybe, really getting down to the business and these books call on us for that. So some people may be put off for that reason and some people answer the call there and those people I think have good prospect for maturing beyond what you called, and I also agree, adolescence; and I think that, you know, aside from myself, I may be of some help, but I know other Godbrothers of mine who have assimilated these ideals and so forth, and they can be very helpful. They're helpful to me. You know, you don't have to listen to me or anything. You can go there, you can go hear from them, you can hear from Paramadwati Maharaja, you know Paramadwati Maharaja? He's our Godbrother, he has fifty temples around the world. ISKCON threw him out, they could have had another fifty temples. This is not a small time preacher. Me, you know, I'm a small person. I move in small circles these days. I don't have a big group or following or anything. I've got one friend in L.A. Now you are my friend too, I hope. You know, a few other people, but I think that you should consider availing yourself to something like that. Or you can go hear the standard fare at ISKCON and hear the Bhagavatam class. You probably don't go because they're probably not that interesting to you.

Devotee: Depends on the speaker.

T S : Yes, some people speak better and so forth. So, you know, I try to give my angle on it, a little history, you can appreciate. There's some books you can take, you can read. I'm still trying to sell books. You know there's also other nice people, like new people come and they also feel inspired. They think, " well, it depends who's speaking," and maybe somebody comes and speaks and they're not in ISKCON and they hear them and they think, "well, what's wrong with this? I like this. This is good," and ISKCON says, "Well, you know, it's not that good. It looks good, it sounds good, but it's not." It just doesn't make any sense to them. They see this, they see, "hmm, this is a sectarian policy." Isn't it? And they think, oh, maybe they'd like to be T. Maharaja's disciple, I've got a few people like that here. So what am I supposed to say to them? Okay, so let's go for it then and spread Krsna Consciousness. You want to help me? Then alright, we'll go; and I readily tell them there's help in other places. They're finding their help here, some of them are finding their help through me, so I have to honor that. They feel that, I have to honor that. That's my service to Guru; and they don't think that there's anybody in ISKCON they could get any help from. They may know there's some help possible, but it's kind of hard when most everyone says that their Guru isn't bonafide to give much help from them. Most of them, some of them have been in situations where they had to be like in a ISKCON temple or something and people have told them, like I've got one disciple, he is in the Miami temple right now, he's trying to get his green card so he can join me in India and he's flat and he's getting help through that in Miami. So I said, alright, you can stay at the temple if they let you. He's doing a lot of service there as a pujari and so forth. The temple president told him, he said, well I'm only going to be here for a couple more months because my Guru Maharaja wants me to come to India and they were getting a green card and so forth and then the temple president told him, who's our Godbrother, "well, you know, that's fine. Whatever will make you happy is fine with me. I just want you to be happy, that's all. I just want you to be happy. At the same time, you know, I have to tell you, you know, that T. Maharaja is not bonafide because, you know, he's not in ISKCON and he's not doing what Prabhupada wanted because Prabhupada wanted us to all be in ISKCON and follow the GBC, but he's not doing that so I want to let you know." He's talking to my disciple, right? So my disciple is just thinking, I have to listen to this, you know. My Guru Maharaja says I've got to stay down here to g et this done. I've got to listen to this, well, okay, I think I want to do what he wants, I think I want to stay here a couple months, you know, go to India and Hare Krsna. What to do, it's embarassing to me, because I've got to tell my disciples that my Godbrothers and Godsisters are senior to them, but when they make fools of themselves like that then, what do you do then? They're not blind people who come here, they're also sincere, they're also coming to give everything and they're not blind. They also have eyes to see what is maya. They're being instructed about that, just as we were instructed about that. I can't tell them to turn a blind eye to maya. They're not second class citizens. All of us, we're all students of this high ideal. We should all respect one another and wherever we see maya, we should point it out, help one another. I think that I can get help from my disciples, so why can't my Godbrothers get help sometimes also. Children also help their father sometimes, isn't it? You have to experience.

Devotee: Well I did sometimes fire authority under conditions.

T S : And sometimes the student may also; and what will the student think if he helps his Guru in some way? It's possible. What will the student think? He'll think, "Oh, by my Guru's power invested in me, I was able to give some advice." I ask my disciples for advice, what do you think? So what do you think? Sometimes they give good advice about something and they think, "Well, Guru Maharaja, anything I know about Krsna Consciousness comes from you anyways." They think this is some kind of game or something, they're always asking me for advice. But Prabhupada asked us for advice too, so what do you think? Most of them say, "well, I don't know," and Prabhupada said, "my only difficulty is I have no one to consult with." He wrote that in a letter to Sridhara Maharaja. "My only problem is I have no one to consult with. I'm surrounded by all these people." So we are all one big family, really; and sometimes some of our brothers and sister, they get a little sick or something like that. So we should try to help them--in some way have a broader and happier conception. We're all the followers of Prabhupada, they're also followers of Sridhara Maharaja whether we know it or not. The sannyasa mantra that Prabhupada accepted came through Sridhara Maharaja, so how will we think of that also? He's there, he's part of our family. So it's a happy thing really, it's not a sad thing, it's a happy thing. We have a movement for preaching Vaisnavism, if a preacher Vaisnava comes and we're unhappy because we see him, that's a problem and we just want to address that in a thoughtful way, that we'll become more happy and that we'll really embrace the teachings in a genuine and sincere way and go forward. Prabhupada didn't want us to linger in Los Angeles. He wanted us to live in Vaikuntha. One morning Prabhupada gave the talk here like so many mornings. I had my place right next to his ear, I stood right there and I always found my place right next to the Vyasasana and I could stand there, watch him play the kartals. Focus there. So one day he turned in the lecture and he said, "you should know," and he looked at me, he said, "that we are not living in Los Angeles, this is Vaikuntha." And the whole place turned into Vaikuntha and that night I took rest in the brahmacari ashrama and I got up in the night, I thought, to pass urine. What was really happening was Prabhupada wanted to show me again and I walked down the hall and the whole place, the whole of Los Angeles turned into Vaikuntha. I thought, "oh, this is not just words. It's a real thing." More than Vaikuntha. On this property, here, front lawn here I had many nice experiences by Prabhupada's grace. When Prabhupada walked on the ground, in this temple in Los Angeles, when Prabhupada came out and walked on the ground, what I saw was the whole earth went like this, it was as if the ground was tipping with every step that he made. He was, he showed me some kindness here in Los Angeles in particular and wanted all of us to understand that, come within that. Prabhupada was very kind to everyone. Sometimes though, it was like a cloud came over your head and just poured rain there. Everyone sincerely tried and nothing goes unnoticed. Nothing went unnoticed by him, nothing will go unnoticed by our Guru, except some of the bad things, then they go unnoticed, but any sincerity, that will never go unnoticed. One time, I had heard that Prabhupada was going to instruct all the devotee's here how to dance properly because he had seen some dancing here that he didn't like, or something. So I thought, "oh, that's really neat, I want to see that." Then it turned out that he wasn't going to do this. Then I thought, well anyway, I would like to dance in such a way that Prabhupada would be pleased with the way I'm dancing. I want that every movement will be pleasing to him. So he was chanting Jaya Radha Madhava and I was standing in front of the Vyasasana about ten, twelve people up and we used to be in two rows, like the women on one side and the men on the other side; and Prabhupada here and the Dieties here and there would be an aisle, I don't know if they do like that now, but that was what it was like in the old temple. So anyway, he was chanting and I was chanting Jaya Radha Madhava and I began to dance. So I held my hands up like this and I moved this leg across this and this like back and in a simple way, sometimes you could see him dance. So I thought, what do I know about dancing, whatever I saw from him and I want it the right way, I want to please him by dancing nicely and chanting. So I thought like that and so that was the end. So then about two, three months later, one servant of Prabhupada, I think Nanda Kumara at that time was sent in advance to Los Angeles and another devotee went to be his servant. So he came and of course he was telling stories about Prabhupada. He had been with Prabhupada for the last few months, we asked him what had happened, what did Prabhupada do and so forth and so on and I came in the room, he said, "Oh, Prabhu," I wasn't a sannyasi that that time, he said, "Prabhupada was talking about you the other day. He was saying how you had said this, he had heard you were saying this in the streets and selling books like that and he was repeating that line," I was saying something like "you've heard of the energy crisis? There is none. Take this." And I was giving the Reservoir of Pleasure; and Prabhupada was speaking about energy crisis, energy crisis. So Prabhupada liked that, some simple thing and he was repeating it. "He was saying this." and he was laughing and then he said, Prabhupada was mentioning you like that and then he said, "Yes, and he's also a very good dancer." And I thought, "Oh, did he?" Nothing goes unnoticed. If you try to please him, it cannot go unnoticed. So if we try to please Prabhupada, then that will not go unnoticed and he will show us his grace. The shape and the form in which it will come, then we will have to come to identify this as such. How that mercy is coming to me, in what way. It may come through a friend also. It may come through a Godbrother, it may come through a Godsister, it may come in a different way. We should be open to that and if we think, yes, I do want that, I'm interested; then if something happens in our life we may put two and two together, oh, maybe it's coming in this way, possibly, the message is coming to me like that. But the nicest thing about it, I think, is that sometimes we're not even that interested and it comes anyway. We're not even that interested and it comes after us, Krsna comes after us to grab us, our Guru comes. Some of us, Prabhupada went after us to make us disciples. For me, it wasn't like that, but some disciples of Prabhupada, Prabhupada preached to them for a long time, long time, before they finally understood and became his disciple, some Indian people in Bombay, in particular. Prabhupada used to walk on the beach with every morning when he was in Bombay. They would argue with him and argue and argue, mayavada this and Krsna that, back and forth. Prabhupada for years tried and then they became disciples and they understood in the end, "oh, that's who he was and I was arguing with him on the beach." I mean, one of my Godbrothers met, more than one, but one in particular I can think of, Prabhupada came to one hippy type of commune and he greeted him with a beer in his hand, stark naked, "welcome, Swami, to our gathering." This was his introduction. He didn't recognize Prabhupada as his Guru and it took some time. After that he was a little embarrassed. Of course Prabhupada thought nothing of it. For me it was a little different that before I met Prabhupada, he appeared to me in a dream. I knew of him throught the devotee's and I kind of joined with some devotee's, so to speak, in Santa Cruz. There was no official temple or anything and then and it was a simple dream, but he had a very lasting impression upon me and then I came to Los Angeles and because Prabhupada was arriving there at the airport and when he came off the plane, I began to cry profusely and I felt as if after a long time I'm meeting an old friend, someone I have known a long time. He's come, like I'm waiting here and he's coming after me. I'm lingering here or something, this is my honest, just simple kind of impression, old friend. So yes, I think like that and my relationship with Prabhupada, that's eternal. We pray no offense will come to interfere with that; and I think also that he sent me to Sridhara Maharaja and Sridhara Maharaja tried to send me back to him, in a sense, with new enthusiasm, more enthusiasm, more understanding, join him and the way Srila Sridhara Maharaja dealt with me was that, "Oh, maybe Swami Maharaja, he wanted me to help you in some way. So, he tried to further establish me in that relationship. So for that I'm indebted and moreover I have a relationship with him too, as a result. That is a happy thing. So, to me it's very wonderful. What do you think? Am I crazy or what? Anyway, I think you're all very wonderful. You are so patient to listen to all this. So, should we chant Hare Krsna?

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