Ocean of Mercy

Ocean o�
Mercy
Ocean o�
Mercy
A Search Fulfilled
Bhakti Chāru Swami
THE BHAKTIVEDANTA BOOK TRUST

LOS ANGELES • STOCKHOLM • MUMBAI • SYDNEY
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Current printing, 2019: 3,000
© 2019 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

All Rights Reserved
Printed in India
ISBN: 978-0-89213-533-6
This book is dedicated to
my glorious spiritual master,
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda,
an ocean of mercy, who came to this world
with the most sublime message of the spiritual world
to deliver the fallen souls of this age of
quarrel and hypocrisy.
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Contents
Preface ix
Foreword xi
Introduction xv
1. On the Road 1
2. In Search of a Guru 29
3. The Nectar of Devotion 43
4. Kumbha-melā 67
5. With Śrīla Prabhupāda in Māyāpur 81
6. Bombay 115
7. Risikesh 143
8. Vṛndāvana 163
9. Back Home 205
Afterword 239
Glossary 243
Sanskrit Pronunciation Guide 247
List of Illustrations 249
PREFACE
U ndeniably, it is love that is the most powerful force in life. And it

follows that at the core of all religion and genuine spirituality is
some form of love, some cultivation of the heart. The author of this work
shares the early events of his life that led him to the life of a monk in the
kṛṣṇa-bhakti tradition of the Caitanya school of Vaiṣṇavism—that part of
the Hindu tradition which focuses on the love and worship of Viṣṇu, or
more specifically the loving devotion taught and exemplified by the me-
dieval mystic and divine incarnation Śrī Caitanya (1486–1534) in His
ultimate vision of the intimate divinities of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.
Certainly, kṛṣṇa-bhakti is a tradition that resonates with the biblical
Johanine expression “God is love.” But the kṛṣṇa-bhakti tradition takes
this expression further, because it ultimately asserts that “Love is God.”
The expression is reversed because in the final vision love subsumes
both God and the soul—love conquers them both together. This is a tra-
dition that worships not only the personal, intimate, supreme feminine
and masculine divinity, but amazingly, even more than this, it worships
x Ocean of Mercy
the supreme sentiment of love (rasa) more than anything else, the su-
preme power of love (yogamāyā) that is exchanged between and yet sub-
sumes both Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.
The author of this book offers a glimpse into the key experiences in
his early family life in Bengal that would shape his relationships in his
devotional community later on in life. Our author loses the wonderful
love of his mother too early in his life, and the love of a father that was
never forthcoming. In his young adulthood, Bhakti Chāru Swami finds
a new family of devotional monks and their collective father, His Divine
Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the founder-ācārya of
the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, the first institution to spread kṛṣṇa-bhakti’s
principles, practices, and way of life globally.
This work recounts the author’s experiences in his relationships with
Śrīla Prabhupāda and with brother disciples during the last couple of
years before Prabhupāda passed away, in November of 1977. This work
also conveys how Prabhupāda guided the author to be a renunciant, a
monk in the Vaiṣṇava tradition, specifically guiding him away from the
worldly responsibilities of family life and from any connection with
women. But most importantly, this work describes how the author de-
veloped a humble love and dedication to Śrīla Prabhupāda, who gave
him a life of kṛṣṇa-bhakti and thus revealed himself to be truly “an ocean
of mercy.”
Bhakti Chāru Swami’s words are a testament to his discovery of a
source of the love that would, in effect, fulfill his search for lost loves in
the earlier portions of his life. The relationships with his mother, rela
tives, friends, caring godbrothers, and ultimately his spiritual master
represent phases in our author’s search for love. And thus A Search Ful-
filled is an appropriate subtitle for Ocean of Mercy. I would suggest that
the author is ultimately led to finding such an ocean in his own heart
through the various loves in his life, culminating in the love of his spiri
tual master, for his search would be comprised of unlimited acts of grace
(kṛpā-sindhu). These shifts between his different loves constitute his
“search,” and the fulfillment of such a search would bring our author to
Preface xi
the point of realizing that this ocean of love is within his own heart. Al-
though Bhakti Chāru Swami lost his spiritual master’s physical presence
so many years ago, I am very aware that the Swami has offered himself
very lovingly more and more as a spiritual father to so many who wish to
tread the path of kṛṣṇa-bhakti.

Graham M. Schweig, Ph.D. (Garuḍa Dāsa)
Author-Translator of Dance of Divine Love:
The Rāsa Līlā of Krishna from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa
(Princeton University Press, 2005)
FOREWORD
O cean of Mercy is a unique memoir. We are given entrance into a fas-

cinating story of tragedy, adventure, and grace through the eyes of
His Holiness Bhakti Chāru Swami. It begins with a young Indian boy
from Calcutta whose loving mother is stricken with a contagious disease
and soon passes away when the boy most craved her love and care. Al-
most immediately after her passing, his family fell from grand riches into
poverty.
Just after his basic education, he abandoned his home, seeking ad-
venture and friendship. He yearned to embrace the alluring promises of
the Western world, leaving behind what he considered the backward,
Third World society of India. While traveling over land and sea to Eu-
rope, he discovered everything he longed for and more.
But at the peak of his euphoria, something happened. While he was
in Germany, one of his new-found American friends insulted India, con-
demning its poverty, disease, and social atrophy. For the first time in
his life, the boy felt love for the country of his birth and feebly tried to
xiv Ocean of Mercy
defend the dignity of India. He realized how little he knew. It was then
that he first experienced a burning hunger to understand the spiritual
and cultural riches of his birthplace. After delving into book after book,
he decided to leave the West behind and return to India as a sādhu––a
wandering spiritual monk in the Himalayas.
While on his pilgrimage for truth, he came to the Kṛṣṇa conscious-
ness movement. At that time there were thousands of devotees in the
movement who had given their whole lives to serve their guru, His
Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Each of them
would give anything for even a moment of their beloved guru’s associ-
ation. A couple of months after joining, the author personally met Śrīla
Prabhupāda, who showered him with affection.
Upon their first meeting, Śrīla Prabhupāda requested him to trans-
late all his books into Bengali, the native language of the movement’s
spiritual heritage, as well as Śrīla Prabhupāda’s own mother tongue. A
few weeks later he was given the service of assisting Śrīla Prabhupāda
in all Bengali and Hindi correspondence, and he became Prabhupāda’s
personal secretary for all of India.
Śrīla Prabhupāda loved and trusted him. Within the first few months
of his practicing bhakti, loving devotional service to Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, he
became Prabhupāda’s personal assistant and cook and remained among
the three or four disciples who made up Prabhupāda’s personal entou-
rage. In those few months he was awarded harināma initiation, Gāyatrī
dīkṣā, and initiation into the renounced order of sannyāsa. What makes
this so special is that all three initiations were given to only a few senior
leaders, and then only after many years of sacrifice.
In Ocean of Mercy we are transported into the intimate pastimes of
Śrīla Prabhupāda as he preached to the masses, guided individuals,
and responded to various challenges as a powerful world ācārya, spiri
tual exemplar and teacher. Yet we are also shown how Śrīla Prabhupāda
would reveal his love as a tender-hearted, humble spiritual father and
friend. Bhakti Chāru Swami takes us by the hand and brings us into
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s private quarters and at times to his bedside during
Foreword xv
the final year of his physical presence. In doing so, through his own de-
voted eyes the Swami gives us entrance into what only few have seen.
As I read this book I was astonished and enlightened. I laughed and I
cried as I was carried into the personal presence of Śrīla Prabhupāda
through this beautiful gift of his loving servant.
Rādhānātha Swami
INTRODUCTION
T he ancient Vedas of India, which contain the world’s oldest and most
profound spiritual wisdom, state that human life begins when one
sincerely inquires, “Who am I? Where did I come from? What is the
purpose of my existence?” These three questions are called brahma-
jijñāsā, or spiritual inquiry. They can be properly answered only by a
bona fide spiritual teacher. Therefore, the actual search begins when one
starts to look for such a teacher. I was a student in Europe when I began
to feel the urge to find such a teacher, and I returned to India to begin
my search. Up until then, my life had been like that of a weary traveler
who had lost his way in the middle of the desert. I was running after a
mirage to quench my thirst, trying to enjoy this world of illusion, but the
more I ran after the mirage, the further it receded—and the more I tried
to enjoy, the more I suffered.
After a long and disappointing journey to many places of pilgrimage,
I finally met the divine personality who would lead me out of this world
of ignorance to the light of knowledge. That divine personality was my
xviii Ocean of Mercy
eternal spiritual master, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Prabhupāda. He informed me that I was running after a mirage, where
I would never find water to quench my thirst, and led me in the direc-
tion of an oasis—and not just an oasis, but an ocean of nectar: Kṛṣṇa
consciousness.
During one morning walk along Bombay’s Juhu Beach, Śrīla
Prabhupāda pointed to some beautifully groomed, well-behaved dogs
belonging to people walking along the beach, and he asked his disciples,
“What’s the difference between these dogs and those stray dogs, dirty
and unkempt, barking at the passersby?” When no one could answer,
Prabhupāda said, “These dogs have their masters, whereas those don’t.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda had described my situation perfectly. Before I met
him, I was a stray dog—unkempt and dirty, wandering around aimlessly
and engaging in useless activities. But as soon as I came into contact
with him, I found the purpose of my existence and was elevated to a life
that I could never have imagined.
In 1979, in New York, one of my godbrothers, Yogeśvara Prabhu, in-
vited me to a program on Long Island to speak about my days with Śrīla
Prabhupāda. When we were driving back to New York’s 55th Street
temple, Yogeśvara expressed how much he had liked my talk and how
everyone had appreciated it. He reminded me how important it was for
devotees to hear about Śrīla Prabhupāda, especially his final days, when
he withdrew from the world, a period when I had the good fortune of
spending many hours personally serving him.
Back at the temple, devotees asked me to relate my memories of Śrīla
Prabhupāda to them as well. Seeing their interest, the temple president,
Lakṣmī-Nṛsiṁha Prabhu, requested me to speak on His Divine Grace
one evening, which extended into three evenings.
From New York I traveled to Toronto, where Viśvakarmā Prabhu,
the temple president, had already heard about my classes and requested
me to speak to the devotees there. Again the evening programs went
on for three days. The descriptions became more detailed, and I could
see how they deeply moved the devotees. On the third day, when I de-
Introduction xix
scribed how Śrīla Prabhupāda left this planet, many devotees broke
down in tears.
From then on, wherever I went, devotees wanted to hear from me
about His Divine Grace and his final days. About ten years ago, one
of my disciples, Dīna Kṛṣṇa Dāsa from London, arranged a podcast of
me speaking about my experiences with Prabhupāda, and the podcast
was also well received. Further, Jayādvaita Swami, Ravīndra Svarūpa
Prabhu, and several other godbrothers of mine were encouraging me to
write a book. Few devotees knew about Śrīla Prabhupāda’s final days,
they pointed out. Still, I hesitated to commit myself to the task because
of my constant engagement as an initiating guru and spiritual leader in
the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
More recently, some of my disciples added their voices to those urg-
ing me to publish my memories of that time. Raṅga Rādhikā Devī Dāsī
transcribed the lectures I had given and arranged them into an eighty-
page manuscript, which would eventually form the basis of this book.
When I had completed a draft recounting my experiences with
Śrīla Prabhupāda, my dear friend and scholarly godbrother Garuḍa
Prabhu (Dr. Graham Schweig) recommended another friend of ours,
Dr. Carl Herzig (Kālachāndjī Prabhu), as editor. Kālachāndjī, a profes-
sor of English at an American university, accepted the assignment but
also suggested that I include a brief account of my early life. I was ini-
tially reluctant because the book was meant to be a glorification of my
spiritual master, not my autobiography, but he convinced me that read-
ers would naturally like to know about me and my spiritual journey be-
fore I met my spiritual master. That led to the first chapter.
Devāmrita Swami, a close friend and the manager of the Australia/
New Zealand branch of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT), sug-
gested that the BBT might be willing to print the book, and I was de-
lighted and honored when Svavāsa Prabhu, another dear friend and a
BBT trustee, agreed to print it through the North American BBT, with
the involvement of BBT editor Draviḍa Prabhu and designer and layout
artist Arcita Prabhu.
xx Ocean of Mercy
Mrityunjaya Chatterji, head of an advertising company in India, sug-

gested illustrating some of the book’s incidents. In that effort he engaged
Tapas Kanti Mitra, a well-known artist from Calcutta, who also painted
the cover image. Rādhā Vinodinī Dāsī, a disciple of mine from Australia,
gave some valuable input toward the end of the production work, when
I gave her the final manuscript to read. Rasavihari Krishna Das, a disci-
ple of mine from London, donated the cost of printing.
I am deeply indebted to so many dear devotees who have made it pos-
sible for me to make this humble offering to my spiritual master, Śrīla
Prabhupāda, who is indeed an ocean of mercy. The shelter of his lotus
feet has made my life’s mission a success.
1
On the Road
(1945 –1975)
I was always drawn to spiritual life. As a child, I loved to sit with my

mother on the roof at night, gazing up at the star-filled sky as she
pointed out celestial planets and fascinated me with stories about their
inhabitants: divine beings with incredible powers. I longed to go and
meet them.
A pious Hindu, my mother worshiped many gods and goddesses, but
she taught me to have faith in Kṛṣṇa and Rāma, to depend on Them and
call out to Them when I was afraid or sad or distressed.
My father was educated, progressive, and Westernized, with little
spiritual interest. He had found success in the pioneering stages of the
Indian film industry, and material prosperity was his main concern. We
lived in an affluent neighborhood in Calcutta, and though motorcars
were rare in those days, my father had two: one for local transport and
a jeep for outdoor work, such as shooting on location. While his broth-
ers took public transport and wore dhotīs and kurtās—traditional Indian
wear—he wore three-piece suits and was driven to work by a chauffeur.
2 Ocean of Mercy
He was my hero and I was proud of him, but most of his time was taken
up by his career, about which he was passionate. He worked late, and I
saw little of him.
When I was seven, my mother contracted tuberculosis and my fam-
ily was separated to avoid contagion. My younger sister was sent to an
aunt’s house, and my older brother and I went to live with my father’s
elder sister. She was a widow whose eight children were all grown up,
and she showered us with love and affection. She was also an excellent
vegetarian cook who loved to serve others, and I developed a liking for
her dishes. But I missed my mother. I knew she was sick, but I didn’t
understand why we could not be together.
One day during a birthday party for a cousin, I sneaked out to see
her. When I looked into her room, she was sitting up in bed, propped
up by pillows, with her eyes closed. I stood at the doorway, not sure
whether to approach her, but when she opened her eyes I could see her
look of happy surprise, and she beckoned to me to come closer. She
thought someone had brought me, but when I told her that I had snuck
away and come by myself, she hugged me and started to cry. I laid my
head on her lap, and she caressed me, tears coursing down her cheeks.
Then she drew me in and held me in a tight embrace, comforting me
with the warm beating of her heart.
A few days later, one of my uncles came to fetch my brother and me
from our aunt’s. I thought we might be going to see our mother, but
when we went to put on our shoes, our uncle told us not to. I could tell
that something was wrong. I didn’t know what had happened, but my
brother broke down crying. He understood that family members were
not supposed to touch any inauspicious objects—including leather—
when someone had died.
We arrived at the house to find several relatives gathered, all looking
grave. Upstairs, our mother was laid out on her bed—her eyes closed,
flower garlands around her neck and colorful bouquets surrounding
her body. Her face was decorated with sandalwood paste, and a bright
red sindūra dot marked the center of her brow. She looked so beautiful, I
On the Road 3
thought, so peaceful, as if she were sleeping.

At some point, I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and was ushered
out of the room. As I entered the living room, I heard some of my rela-
tives start to cry, but I couldn’t look at anyone. I just stood at the win-
dow, staring out at the next-door garden. That’s when it all came to me.
Tears streamed from my eyes, and I broke down, sobbing. I would never
see my mother again.
My mother’s passing affected all the circumstances of my life. My fa-
ther lost interest in everything, even us, and stopped doing anything to
earn money or maintain the household. He became depressed, feeling
that he was responsible for my mother’s illness and death, having ne-
glected her in favor of his career.
Even my aunt’s house was no longer the same. She and our cousins
were as affectionate as ever, but it just felt different. It was not my home,
I felt; I did not belong.
I had always been an excellent student and received praise for my
intelligence, so the plan had been to send me to one of the best boarding
schools in India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. But with my father’s
financial downturn, that was no longer possible, and I was enrolled in-
stead in the local day school. It was so common, I thought, so ordinary. I
wanted to attend the private school, where the students dressed in nice
uniforms and studied everything in English, taught by teachers from
England. I became obsessed with the idea; I wanted to learn English
and be like an Englishman, like my father had been before my mother’s
passing.
I just couldn’t generate any enthusiasm for my school or interest in
my studies. As had been true at my aunt’s house, I felt that it was the
wrong place for me, that I didn’t belong, and as a result I failed my an-
nual exams and didn’t get promoted to the next grade.
The day I found out, I sat alone in my classroom crying. I couldn’t go
home; I was too embarrassed. When I left school I wandered aimlessly,
eventually finding myself on the bank of the Gaṅgā (Ganges), consid-
ering what to do. Then I noticed the railroad station on the other side
4 Ocean of Mercy
of the river. That’s it, I thought—I would take the train to the boarding
school in the foothills, promise the principal that I would be good, and
beg him to let me stay.
Inspired, I ran back to my aunt’s. It was still afternoon, so the house
was quiet, and I sneaked in through the back door, grabbed some things,
emptied my piggy bank, and found more money in my cousin’s drawer.
Then I slipped out and dashed to the station.
Seeing a young boy alone, the ticketing clerk was suspicious, but I
told him that I was returning to school. When he asked why no one was
with me, I said that my mother had died and that my father had meant
to come with me but had been called away by some unforeseen business.
I was used to traveling alone, I told him; I could manage on my own.
So he gave me a ticket and let me pass. I used the same story on my
co-passengers, and an hour later I was heading north in search of the
boarding school of my dreams.
That night, still on the train after having fallen asleep, I was gently
awakened by someone shaking my arm. When I looked up, I saw that
the train had stopped at a junction and I was surrounded by a group of
passengers accompanied by a police officer. This time, when asked who
I was and where I was going, I didn’t dare lie. When the officer heard
my story, he took me to the local station and phoned my father. I didn’t
want to talk to him, but when the officer insisted, I took the phone and
then broke down crying.
After the officer explained the situation to my father, he took me to
his home nearby, where his wife fed me and put me to sleep. I stayed the
next day as well, almost entirely in bed. They were very nice to me, but
alone in the room, I felt like a criminal who had been arrested.
That night, my father came to take me back to Calcutta. There, he sat
with me and we had the longest talk I could remember having with him.
He told me how much he loved me and how much confidence he had in
me. No matter what I had done, he said, he knew that I was a good boy and
would never do anything really bad. My mother had loved me, he assured
me—she still did. Then he sat silently as I cried out the agony of separation.
On the Road 5
The next few days, I just stayed in my room, unsure what would
come next. My aunt was still loving and supportive, but things had
changed and everyone around me realized that something had to be
done. It was decided that I would be sent to an uncle in the small town of
Khowai, in Tripura, about five hundred kilometers east, across the bor-
der in Bangladesh.
Khowai was a quiet little town on the bank of a river, surrounded by
mountains. People knew each other and seemed to lead simple, happy
lives. Unlike his brothers, my uncle had chosen business over education,
and he had become quite successful supplying jute to the mills in Cal-
cutta. Everyone in the town treated him with affectionate respect.
Initially I felt that I was being sent to Khowai as punishment for my
“crime” of running away, but my experiences soon relieved me of such
misgivings. I had come from the big city, and the local people treated me
with some admiration. More importantly, my uncle and aunt accepted
me as if I were their son, and I was like a big brother to their three small
children. My aunt even told me that when for a long time she had not
been able to have a child, she had requested my mother to give me to
her, and now the Lord had fulfilled her desire. So I began to settle into
life in Khowai.
My relationship with my father had been quite distant since my
mother’s passing, but since my running off, we had become closer, and
I began to feel his love for me again. He wrote to me with life instruc-
tions and expressed his love and confidence that I would succeed. He
reminded me that my mother was always watching over me and that she
would feel proud when I had made something of myself.
Things went well in Khowai, and I was back on track, making friends
and doing well in school. I was not very big or strong, but I enjoyed
some success with athletics. I was the goalkeeper for the school’s soccer
team and did quite well in cricket, which I loved. In my final year, at
sixteen, I was the only student selected for the subdivision cricket team,
which other than myself was comprised of older players, mostly gov-
ernment officers. Our team played well, and we even reached the finals
6 Ocean of Mercy
of the interdistrict tournament. Early in the final game, we were being

outplayed and defeat seemed certain, but then I scored a half-century—
fifty runs in one inning—and won the game for my team. I was the star,
and the subdivisional officer honored me in the victory celebration at the
town hall.
My strongest subject was English. Most educated Indians, or at least
most of those I knew, believed the saying “West is the best.” Although
Britain’s rule of India had ended in 1947, two years after my birth, its
culture was still prevalent. As one of my teachers told us, “If you want
to learn English, you have to read in English, write in English, speak
in English, think in English—even dream in English,” and I worked
diligently to follow his instruction. Unlike most of my peers, I was not
shy about speaking English, and he and I would often spend hours
conversing.
My favorite instructor, Nirad Babu, had been a freedom fighter in
India’s struggle for independence. He’d been imprisoned and brutally
tortured by the British. I was told that they had damaged a vein supply-
ing blood to his brain and that as a result he’d lost his mental stamina.
He would often become exhausted and sit in pain, holding his head in
his hands. But when he was able to teach, he was brilliant. It was such
a contrast: he had been a freedom fighter and hated the British, but he
loved their language.
I loved literature and was fascinated by authors’ wordplay and sto-
ries. In addition to works by English authors, we also read English
translations of works by such famous authors as Homer, Tolstoy, and
Dumas. Their influence on me was so strong that although I appreciated
Indian authors, I naively presumed their writings had been influenced
by their Western predecessors and counterparts.
Those books by great Western authors ignited the urge in me to see
that world and become a part of it. Wisdom, I felt, came not from sitting
in a classroom or reading books but from going places and meeting peo-
ple. I had to go out and see the world.
On the Road 7
I could have continued my studies in Tripura, but I decided to attend a

college in Darjeeling, a beautiful hill station that the British had built
as their summer residence. One of my uncles was a successful lawyer
there, and when I expressed my desire to study there, he happily made
the arrangements. My plan was to become a scientist, so I registered for
an Honors degree in Chemistry, but after two years I was selected for a
scholarship to train as a pilot, with the possibility of enlisting in the In-
dian Air Force, and I opted for that instead.
Back in Calcutta for flight training, I met a group of boys I had
helped in Darjeeling. They had come from Calcutta for summer vaca-
tion without making prior arrangements, and when they had arrived
in Darjeeling, they had found that all the hotels were fully booked and
there was no available accommodation. One of them, Tulsi Sen, had
once met my cousin and had her phone number as his only contact in
Darjeeling. In desperation, he had phoned her and described their situa-
tion. She had not known what to do and passed the phone to me, and af-
ter making a few phone calls I had managed to arrange for them to stay
in the guesthouse of the local indoor stadium, which usually accommo-
dated visiting players. Tulsi and two of the other boys, Swapan Thakur
and Gaura Ghosh, had been especially grateful, and we had become
good friends.
Now the boys wanted to reciprocate, and so they introduced me to
their other friends and related how much I had helped them in Darjeel-
ing. They were all from very affluent families—Tulsi’s father was an em-
inent lawyer in the Calcutta High Court, Swapan Thakur was related to
the famous poet Rabindranath Tagore, and Gaura came from a family
of successful industrialists. They had all been educated in the kind of
school I had dreamt of attending. Tulsi introduced me to Anand Mohan,
the son of the chairman of the Indian Railway Service Commission, and
we three became close and spent most of our spare time together.
After my flight training, I was told that I was not good enough to
8 Ocean of Mercy
join the Air Force. I did not have the finances to get a commercial pi-
lot’s license, so I decided to earn some money and travel abroad, as I
had always dreamt of doing. I teamed up with a friend, Aloke Gupta,
and together we started a business promoting instant coffee. When we
had earned enough, he left to study in England, but although most of
my friends dreamt of going there, I had my eyes set on Germany, specifi
cally Hamburg, where I had a cousin who had encouraged me to come
and pursue my studies.
My choice of Germany was also inspired by a lifelong connection,
as my father’s close friend Vidyapati Ghosh, whom we called Vidyapati
Kaku, Uncle Vidyapati, had studied in Berlin and come back with a
German wife, our Dolly Kakima, Aunt Dolly. She had a Jewish back-
ground, and when the persecution of Jews had begun in Germany in
the 1930s, they had escaped on bicycles, riding more than four hundred
miles to the Swiss border. When they settled in Calcutta, Dolly Kakima
became absorbed in the local Bengali culture. She had been very close
with my mother and had always treated me with affection, especially af-
ter my mother’s passing. So when I heard that another of my friends,
Prasun, was going to Germany to study social psychology, I decided to
join him. Many young people from Europe and America were traveling
east in search of spiritual life, but I, like many other Indians, including
my father, was attracted by the allure of material prosperity, and so I
wanted to visit new places and broaden my views. Thus in the summer
of 1970 I headed west, in the opposite direction.
Like many of our friends, Prasun and I had read and been influenced by
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, so we had the idea that instead of flying to
Europe we would travel the roads, hitchhiking. It would be a challenge,
we knew, especially since Pakistan was off-limits to Indians, but Prasun
suggested that we take a ship to Basra, Iraq, and proceed overland from
there. So we took a train to Bombay, spent a few days getting visas for
On the Road 9
10 Ocean of Mercy
countries along the way—Iraq, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Switzerland

all required them—and embarked one morning on a cargo ship from
Ballard Pier.
After a week of stopping at what seemed like every port in the Per-
sian Gulf, we were thrilled to land in Basra and get our feet back on
solid land. I had never ventured outside India, and I was enchanted,
filled with images from my reading about the Assyrian and Babylonian
civilizations on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, and the hanging
gardens built by King Nebuchadnezzar to soothe the afflicted heart of
his homesick queen.
We had heard that there was a Sikh temple in Basra where we could
stay for free, and some young local boys showed us the way. We immedi-
ately became friends with them, and they said they would pick us up the
next morning and show us around the city.
We had not planned to stop for long, but we had such a good time
with our new companions—seeing their college; meeting their friends;
and visiting the mosques, the old Latin Church, and the India Mar-
ket—that we decided to stay a few more days. In the evenings we all sat
around talking and drinking tea in the open-air cafés—known as “casi-
nos,” though there was no gambling—on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab
River.
Three days later, Prasun and I took a bus to the highway on which
we would hitchhike to Baghdad. No one would stop, though, and it was
extremely hot, so after several hours—dejected over the failure of our
attempt to hitchhike across the continent but also relieved to be out of
the scorching sun—we got on a bus.
An American traveler in Basra had told us about a French church in
Baghdad where one could stay for free, and when we found it—a beau-
tiful cathedral in the middle of the city—we received a warm welcome
from a middle-aged French priest.
In Baghdad, as in Basra, Prasun and I made friends quickly. We con-
nected with a group of affluent university students who showed us the
city and hosted us at restaurants, responding to our expressions of grati
On the Road 11
tude by saying, “No thanks for duty.” They were fun-loving but strict
Muslims, so they did not drink or smoke, and we visited them in their
homes practically every day, sipping tea from small, fine gilded glasses
in their large villas and beautiful gardens. One of their mothers washed
and pressed our clothes for us, and when we got them back I found that
one of my socks, in which I had worn a hole, had been perfectly mended.
Even with our friends’ warm hospitality, however, I was determined
to resume our journey. I tried to convince Prasun to come along, but he
was adamant on staying back. He seemed to want to be on his own, free
from my association and influence. He had left India to experience the
world, he said, and wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity
to spend time with our new friends. He was enjoying himself, and he
wanted to stay on. So we agreed to part ways. I would leave the follow-
ing morning.
Mark, an English traveler Prasun and I had met in the church, had
witnessed our conversation and asked if he could join me. We had al-
ready developed an amiable relationship, so I agreed. When one of our
Arab friends, Ahmed, heard that we were heading north, toward the
Turkish border, he suggested that we visit his family in Zakho, in Kurdi
stan. So that was our first destination.
Having found hitchhiking in Iraq practically impossible, I suggested
that we travel by bus. Ahmed had alerted his friends that we would be com-
ing, so when we arrived we were greeted by a warm reception and brought
right to his house. His father, an old man with a long, flowing beard,
greeted us with a broad smile. He didn’t speak any English, but Ahmed’s
sister was fluent, and both she and his friends took great care of us.
Zakho was a small town with little to see, but we were drawn in by
its ruins, which bore signs of a rich history and culture. Few of Ahmed’s
friends spoke English, but we developed a simple bond of friendship
with gestures and smiles. We played soccer together and afterwards
would cool ourselves in the shallow waters of the local river. Orchards
of apples, pears, and figs grew on its banks, and we would sit beneath
the trees and enjoy their fruits.
12 Ocean of Mercy
When after three days the time came for Mark and me to move on,
many of our Zakho acquaintances came to their doors to bid us farewell.
After my experience in Basra I was not optimistic about hitchhiking, but
this time Mark insisted.
Several of the boys walked with us to the highway, and as we tried
to hitch a ride they stood nearby watching. As hour after hour passed
without success, I gave up whatever little hope I had. Finally, one of the
boys got an idea, and the next thing I knew, a few of them had stopped a
passing truck, spoken with the driver, and were waving at us. Somehow
they had convinced him to take us to the Turkish border.
As the truck pulled out, Mark and I looked back gratefully at our
friends waving from the side of the road. The driver spoke a few words
of English—just enough for us to carry on a friendly conversation. He
was going into Turkey, to Diyarbakir, he said, and would take us there.
When we reached the outskirts of the city, Mark suggested that we
not enter but stay on the road. It was already quite late, so we decided
to spend the night on the roadside. I had never slept out in the open,
and it was a wonderful feeling to rest on the bare ground under the
star-studded sky.
Our plan was to stop in Malatya on our way to Ankara. There were
two possible routes. On the map, one looked longer, the other shorter
and straight, so we decided to take the shorter one. Only after riding
some distance did we realize that we had embarked on a mountainous
road, but by then it was too late to turn back. Our ride took us up into
the mountains and dropped us off at what seemed like the middle of no-
where. We waited under a walnut tree on the side of the road for hours
without anyone stopping. In fact, hardly anyone even passed, and we
doubted that any of the drivers knew about hitchhiking.
Still, I was excited to see the interior of Turkey, and the place was en-
chanting. The mountains were cut from red rock, with only sparse veg-
etation. A river flowed along the valley below, with banks of lush green.
Clusters of village houses dotted the landscape.
I suggested to Mark that we go down to the village and see if we
On the Road 13
14 Ocean of Mercy
could find something to eat. He said that one of us should stay on the
road and try to stop a car. I offered to stay; it would not be such a long
way down to the village, but I did not know how I would communicate
with the people there. “Why don’t you go?” he said with a smile. We fi-
nally decided to settle it by tossing a coin. I lost and had to go.
I climbed down a winding path, but even in the village there were no
shops. I walked up to a house and knocked. A woman came to the door,
but when she saw me she screamed and slammed the door in my face.
Giving up hope of finding food, I climbed back up the mountain to the
road and told Mark what had happened.
We sat for a few more hours under the walnut tree, shading ourselves
from the sun. Our stomachs burning with hunger, we discussed our mis-
take in taking the mountain road and considered going back to the other
route. Suddenly several boys came into view. They silently approached
us with two large, covered metal plates and placed them before us.
When we removed the coverings, we found homemade Turkish bread,
raw green vegetables, and large pieces of goat cheese. We thanked the
boys profusely and then ate while they sat around us, watching and
speaking among themselves in a language we couldn’t understand.
After a short while, several village women came up and sat behind
the boys to watch. One of them was from Lebanon and asked whether
we knew French. Mark was fluent, and we learned from her that when
the woman who had shut the door on me had seen that I was climbing
back up to the road, she had called to the other women and told them
what had happened. They presumed that I had been looking for food,
and, spotting the two of us, they had sent the boys with the plates. The
other residents, the woman said, had hardly seen a foreigner in their en-
tire lives, so the arrival of an Englishman and an Indian was quite an
event.
The women’s hospitality was wonderful, but we still could not get a
ride, and we stood by the road the rest of the day. Finally, toward eve-
ning, an elderly shepherd tending his flock spoke to us. From his ges-
tures, we made out that he was inviting us to spend the night in his
On the Road 15
16 Ocean of Mercy
home. We happily accepted. He was a simple, poor shepherd, yet he of-

fered us what he could—food and a place to sleep.
In the morning, Mark and I decided to make our way back down the
mountains to a more populous place where we had a better chance of
being picked up. Once we were back on the main roads, hitchhiking in
Turkey was not as difficult as it had been in Iraq, and we soon got a se-
ries of short rides. Near Ankara we were picked up by three English
boys from York University in an old station wagon, and we rode with
them through the entire stretch of Turkey and into Istanbul, where Asia
and Europe meet.
Istanbul’s Sultanahmet district, near the Blue Mosque, didn’t look like
Turkey; it was full of young Americans and Europeans. Their alterna-
tive hippie lifestyles were new to me, but most were quite broad-minded
and friendly. The dormitory-style “hotel” was so cheap that we could af-
ford to stay for a while, and we made many friends, including a young
American, Larry Baker.
Every morning, Mark, Larry, and I would go for breakfast at the
Pudding Shop, a restaurant popular among young travelers, where we
spent a good deal of our time. The food was delicious and cheap, but the
most interesting feature for me was the atmosphere—it was alive with
freethinking youth who were open to meeting people and sharing their
experiences. Some of them had been in Istanbul for months, living day-
to-day, playing music and just hanging out.
We roamed the city, visited historic sites, and just sat and chatted
on the banks of the river. One morning Mark suggested that we go
see Topkapi Palace, an hour away. I was struck by the name, because
top meant “cannon” in Bengali and was included in many Bengali
words and names. It was, I realized later, a Turkish word that had been
incorporated into Bengali during the Persian invasion of India.
Mark took the role of tour guide. The palace, which was actually an
On the Road 17
enormous cluster of buildings and courtyards, had been the seat of the
Ottoman dynasty that had ruled over Asia Minor and a significant part
of Europe for centuries. We spent the day there, admiring the classic ar-
chitecture and ornate decorations and amazed by the sheer magnitude
of the place.
Mark and I stayed in Istanbul for a full week. The day before we
were going to leave, we were sitting in a park with Larry when two
young men approached us and asked if we would like to smoke some
hashish. Neither Mark nor I were interested, but Larry left with the
men. He didn’t come back that night, and the next morning, worried,
we told the manager of the Pudding Shop. We were concerned that the
men could have been police in plain clothes and that Larry might have
been arrested. The manager told us not to worry. If anything, the police
would frame Larry to get a bribe. Drugs were not a big deal in Turkey
unless you were caught smuggling large quantities.
Larry didn’t return that morning, but reassured by the manager, we
posted two notes on the Pudding Shop’s notice board—one for Larry
and one for Prasun—and then left for Greece.
Like many Indian boys, I had been enchanted by Alexander the Great.
My brother had told me the story of Alexander and the massive, legend-
ary horse Bucephalus. No one had been able to tame Bucephalus, but
Alexander spoke to it soothingly and turned its head toward the sun so it
could not see its shadow, which had been the cause of its distress. With
Bucephalus thus subdued, Alexander was able to ride it, and the horse
served as his mount until it died during his invasion of India.
I had also loved hearing about Alexander’s encounter with the Per-
sian king Darius. Darius had a huge army, five times larger than Alex-
ander’s, so when he had been challenged by Alexander, whom Darius
considered a mere boy, he was so confident of victory that he brought
his wife and mother. But Alexander attacked him unexpectedly, at a
18 Ocean of Mercy
mountain pass, away from the battlefield. Darius ran away, leaving be-
hind his wife and mother, who were taken into custody. When he then
offered a huge ransom in exchange for their freedom, Alexander replied
that he was not interested in the ransom but would release the women if
Darius appeared before him and knelt in submission. Darius did as or-
dered, and Alexander set the women free.
Once, when Alexander was away from his kingdom, his minister
wrote to him that his mother was meddling in affairs of state. Alexander
wrote back, “One teardrop from my mother’s eyes can wipe out all your
letters complaining against her.”
Mark and I were headed to Thessaloniki, Macedonia’s capital, near
Alexander’s birthplace in Pella. One of our rides was from an educated
French couple who spoke fluent English—one of three families travel-
ing together in three cars. They stopped at a beach in Alexandropoulos,
where we all had an ocean swim and a picnic. They were the first Eu-
ropean families I had met on the road—all the Westerners in Istanbul
had been young travelers—and I found them pleasant and friendly. I
was impressed by the cultured and generous attitude of the couple who
picked us up, and I wondered how often I would get rides from such
people. “Would you have picked me up if I had been hitchhiking alone?”
I asked.
They paused. Then the man looked at his wife and smiled, and she
said that they generally did not pick up hitchhikers at all, but that seeing
me, an Indian, they had been curious.
In Thessaloniki Mark and I stopped in a youth hostel, but to stay there

I needed a membership card, and to get one I had to prove that I was a
student. Mark and I tried to reason with the manager that no one car-
ried a certificate while traveling, but the man was adamant. Finally,
having overheard the conversation, a few young Americans sitting in
the nearby lounge came up to the counter and practically shouted at the
On the Road 19
20 Ocean of Mercy
manager on my behalf, and he succumbed to the pressure.

From there we hitchhiked during the days and stayed in youth hos-
tels at night, passing through Yugoslavia and into Italy, where we spent
a few days in Venice and Milan and then stopped in Turin.
At that point Mark was supposed to head back to England and I
would continue into Germany, but he changed his mind and decided to
visit a friend in Dijon, France. I was already feeling sad at the thought
of us parting ways, so when Mark proposed that I accompany him, I
agreed, and thanks to his pleading at the border, I was able to get an
emergency three-day visa.
Mark’s friend Pierre was in Dijon studying at the university, and he
hosted us in his apartment, which he shared with a female roommate.
Their arrangement was unusual, I thought, even a bit shocking; I had
not seen anything like it before. It was also my first experience of a Eu-
ropean university. Although we had found that people in France gener-
ally didn’t like to speak English, the students were quite different. Their
English was not fluent, but they seemed to take an amused delight in
conversing with us.
From France we went to Switzerland, and in Basel Mark and I fi-
nally had to part. We sat in a meadow near the border, reminiscing over
our days together and making plans to meet again. We embraced, our
cheeks pressed tight, and then he stood watching as I crossed the border
into Germany, turned, and waved goodbye.
My cousin Babida (his name was Babi, and “da” was short for dada, the
Bengali term for one’s elder brother) had been living in Germany for
over a decade. He had studied engineering there and risen to become a
director of a prosperous firm. His marriage to a German woman, Maria,
had strained his relationship with his conservative family in India, but
I found her to be very nice. I was reminded of my Dolly Kakima, who
had also married an Indian man. When I told Maria that I would call
On the Road 21
her Miradi (the “di” being short for didi, an elder sister), she gave me a
big smile. We became close in no time, and she accepted me as part of
the family. She took me to the University of Hamburg to get me admit-
ted, and when we learned that the semester had already begun, she con-
vinced them to enroll me as a guest student.
One of the first people I befriended in Hamburg was Bill McCabe, an
American exchange student from the University of Dayton. In India I
had been a member of the United States Information Service, which had
a good library and promoted various aspects of American culture. One
of its features was a jazz club, and every Saturday afternoon my friends
and I would listen to swing and bebop and challenge each other to iden-
tify each musician. America House, where I met Bill, was the German
counterpart—beautifully located in the middle of a large garden near
the university. I went there frequently, mostly to read in the library, and
one day Bill just walked up to me and introduced himself. He was inter-
ested in India, he said—many of his friends had already been there—
and wondered where I was from.
Bill introduced me to his group of friends: Chuck, Ray, Jack, Connie,
and Susan—all Dayton students. My German was still not very strong,
so I did not develop such close relationships with many local students,
but my friendship with this group developed quite spontaneously.
After staying with Babida and Miradi for a couple of months, I de-
cided to move out on my own. The family with whom Bill was stay-
ing had another student staying with them, and when she moved out,
Bill asked whether I, one of his friends, could move in. The landlady
agreed, but when she learned that I was Indian, she expressed some
reservations.
The next day Bill had to go to Kiel, a city on the North Sea, and he
didn’t tell his landlady that he was going. After he had been away for
two days, she thought that he was so upset with her because of her re-
fusal that he was not returning. So when he got back, she said, “Yes, of
course your Indian friend can come and stay!”
From then on, Bill and I lived in the same house, and our bond of
22 Ocean of Mercy
friendship became deeper. On Saturdays I would cook Indian food,

which he loved. After hearing his rave reviews, all our friends wanted
invitations, but not wanting to abuse the family’s hospitality, I invited
them only one or two at a time. Still, the house was a nice alternative to
our usual meeting place, a discotheque called the Mad House.
One Sunday during the summer, when the whole group was sitting
together in a restaurant near the harbor, Chuck asked me in a rather
condescending tone how many people died of starvation in India each
year. His disrespect was insulting, but I tried to control my anger. Many
people in the West had that misconception, but no one had ever put it so
bluntly.
“Although I was born and brought up in India,” I said, “I have never
seen anyone die of starvation.”
“Oh, come on,” he persisted. “Everyone knows that. You don’t have
to defend your country’s honor. After all, a fact is a fact; a reality is a
reality!”
“India is not poor,” I protested. “She may not be so advanced or af-
fluent materially, but she is not poor. If she were, why would Columbus
have ventured so far to find her? Why was she considered the crown
jewel of the British Empire?”
“You may claim whatever you want,” he argued, “but everybody
knows India’s poverty-stricken condition.”
“India is not interested in material prosperity,” I countered, “but in
developing her spiritual riches. Because material wealth was not her
first priority, foreign invaders found little resistance and stole all they
could.”
“What are your so-called spiritual riches?”
“That the real goal of life is to achieve emancipation—elevation to a
higher consciousness.”
“By smoking pot?”
“No, by performing austerities—negating the demands of the body.”
“That’s just the excuse of useless bums.”
When the others saw that the argument was spiraling out of control,
On the Road 23
they suggested we stop, but the encounter had left me wounded. De-
spite my protests, I was painfully aware of how ignorant I was about the
heritage and glory of the place of my birth. My patriotism, I realized,
was only a sentimental attachment. Although I had a deep connection
to India as my motherland, I was unaware of her actual splendor and
opulence.
That argument, and my desire to establish India’s greatness, led me
to probe deeper into my country’s spiritual culture. I already knew the
importance of spiritual life and was aware of the existence of the soul,
but now I felt compelled to learn about life’s actual nature, purpose,
and ultimate goal. I wrote to my friend Hitu Malkani, whose family
had a bookstore in Calcutta, and he sent me a copy of Paul Brunton’s
A Search in Secret India. At first I was vexed by having to read about In-
dia’s glory from an Englishman, but the more I read, the more I appre-
ciated. Brunton was a journalist who had gone to India on assignment
and while there had been drawn in by its spiritual heritage. He had met
many sādhus and finally surrendered himself in discipleship to a well-
known spiritual leader from South India, Ramana Maharshi. When I
asked Malkani for books that described India’s spiritual philosophies
in greater depth, he sent me a few by Swami Vivekananda, Patañ
jali’s Yoga-sūtra, Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi,
Dr. Radhakrishnan’s Bhagavad-gītā, and a copy of the Vedānta-sūtra.
Over the next few years, I learned more about the real source of In-
dia’s greatness, but in the process I also became aware of a higher knowl-
edge: the futility of material existence and the need to become free from
its bondage. Why struggle to achieve something that will be lost at the time of
death? I wondered. Better to strive for something that would lead to liberation and
last forever. And as my interest in and understanding of this wisdom from
India grew, my fascination with the West began to wane. What had been
my life there receded, like a memory fading into a dim and distant past.
I had always had the feeling that one day I would leave everything
behind and become a sādhu. I had thought it was just a fantasy—prob-
ably everyone felt that way at some point, but no one I knew had gone
24 Ocean of Mercy
ahead and surrendered entirely to spiritual life. But during my travels

I had experienced the pleasure of freedom, of just being present in the
world, floating with time and appreciating whatever came. I felt satis-
faction in simple achievements and relished meeting people who were
open and receptive—being invited to their homes and sharing our
thoughts and feelings, as if we had known each other for years. Often,
not getting a ride until nighttime, I would lie down in my sleeping bag by
the side of the road and take rest under the stars. The following morn-
ing, I would greet the new day with joyful anticipation, not even know-
ing what lay in store. I began to realize that this was what I had wanted
to do since childhood—venturing out on my own, seeing new places,
meeting new people. In this way my fantasy could become a reality, and
I decided to see it through.
Winston Churchill had urged young men aged twenty to twenty-five
to go out into the world and do things, to make mistakes and learn. His
statement had made a deep impression on me, and I regretted only that
when I read it, at the age of twenty-three, I was already three years
behind.
From my other readings I understood that to take to spiritual life I
had to surrender myself to a guru, and I was convinced that I would find
one in India.
Bill was the first person to whom I disclosed my plan, by letter. He
was in America for summer vacation, but when he received my let-
ter he wrote back immediately, asking that I wait until he returned. I
couldn’t, I knew—I had made up my mind and did not even reply—but
he also wrote to our friends in Hamburg, and when Susan and her Ger-
man boyfriend Peter heard about my intentions, they tried to dissuade
me from going. All I could do was explain to them that the real purpose
of life was spiritual emancipation and that the time had come for me to
strive for that goal. They eventually saw my point of view, but they in-
sisted that there at least be a farewell party, and I agreed.
So on the following Friday we all got together at Peter’s apartment.
Most of our friends attended, and toward the end of the evening Peter
On the Road 25
asked me to tell everyone about my plans.

I was already feeling sad. As had been true wherever I had been, I
had found kind, nice people and developed wonderful relationships. I
could see how dearly the group valued our friendships and how deep
the connections had become. Still, I could see that the relationships were
short-lived—we had met, become friends, and were about to part, prob-
ably never to meet again.
I told my friends how I had always admired the West and how, living
in Germany and becoming close with people there, I had been enriched
in many ways. I had become aware that despite people’s physical dif-
ferences, we were all closely related. But the most precious gift I had
received from the West, I told them, was actually the love and appreci-
ation I had gained for India, for the place I had left behind. The wisdom
of India, which I’d had to come to the West to discover, had made me
aware that life in this world was temporary and that the actual purpose
of our existence was to conquer death. I was therefore returning to my
homeland—to go deep within myself, beyond the consciousness of my
body, in the solitude of the Himalayas.
Before leaving, I had to meet one other group of friends. Hitchhiking
near Stuttgart on a holiday excursion some months earlier, waiting for a
ride on the Autobahn, I had heard honking—a car had stopped just past
me and was trying to get my attention. When I had turned, I had seen
a man get out and wave. So I had picked up my rucksack, jogged over,
and jumped in.
The middle-aged couple in the car had started to speak to me in En-
glish, but when they learned that I could speak fluent German, they had
switched over and the conversation had taken a more natural flow. I was,
they told me, the first hitchhiker they had ever picked up. When I asked
why they had stopped, they said that they had noticed that I was Indian,
which had reminded them of an old friend. They had lived in London for
some time and had developed a nice relationship there with an Indian
student. So when they had seen me—a young Indian on the road hitch-
hiking, an uncommon sight—they had decided to give me a lift.
26 Ocean of Mercy
The husband, Walter Bein, was a customs officer; his wife, Marian,
had been a schoolteacher but had given up her job to take care of their
two daughters, Kerstin and Astrid. Kerstin was studying Russian and
wanted to become a translator. We had gotten along so well during the
drive that they had invited me to their home in Bremen and I had hap-
pily accepted.
I had stayed with the Beins for three days, and we had become close.
Afterwards, we had been out of touch for a few months, but when I had
sent them a postcard from Berlin, I had heard right back from Marian,
telling me how much they had missed me and requesting that I visit. I
had been so touched by her letter that I had decided to return.
This second visit had been even more remarkable than the first; they
had treated me like a member of the family. Kerstin had even started
telling me about her problems with her mother, and Marian had com-
plained about Kerstin’s not listening to her and acting so independently.
I had tried to mediate, and both of them had listened to my suggestions.
Subsequent visits to Bremen had deepened our relationship even fur-
ther, and when Marian heard that I was leaving Germany, she begged
me to come and see them before I departed.
They were sad over my leaving—especially Marian and Kerstin.
Marian kept trying to persuade me that I could pursue a spiritual life in
Germany. I had so much appreciation for Jesus Christ, she pointed out;
why didn’t I put that into practice, follow him?
Indeed, I had felt an appreciation for Jesus since childhood, but I had
never thought of actually becoming a Christian. I saw him from an In-
dian perspective, as someone close to God—a great saint, a prophet. But
that was quite different from his portrayal in the Christian faith.
Marian did not always agree with me, but she listened without pro-
test and appreciated my understanding. The three kings who came to
see Jesus at the time of his birth, I told her, were likely exalted saintly
persons from India who were addressed as “maharajas,” kings. They
had come to see him based on astrological calculations of the movement
of the stars and planets. And then, from the time Jesus was about twelve
On the Road 27
28 Ocean of Mercy
years old, people did not know where he went or what he was doing.
He reappeared when he was twenty-nine, but where had he been for
all those years? Where had he acquired the mystic powers by which he
could turn water into wine, cure lepers, and revive the dead? He spoke
about a place where he had been treated as a king, and about his dis-
appointment and frustration over the inability of his audience to un-
derstand his teachings. He allowed himself to be crucified so that their
gross mentality could appreciate his compassion and mercy. And finally
they did.
When Marian asked why I was not conveying my ideas to the Chris-
tian world, I replied that no one would be interested. After all, who was
I? And anyway, my only consideration was my search for liberation—to
free myself from the bondage of birth and death. And for that I was be-
ing called by my motherland—my glorious India.
So it was with great expectation and excitement that I returned. I had
been back to India once before—for my sister’s wedding—but this was
different; I was embarking on my spiritual journey, in search of my spiri
tual master.
2
In Search of a Guru
(June 1975 – July 1976)
W hen I landed in Delhi, I went straight to Haridwar—one of the

holiest places in India, in the foothills of the Himalayas, on the
banks of the Gaṅgā. I had been fascinated with the place since child-
hood; my grandmother had gone there for Kumbha-melā, the great
spiritual festival, and had returned with captivating stories about her
pilgrimage.
My first evening, I went down to the river ghats, where I joined thou-
sands of pilgrims in grand worship, offering lamps to Mother Gaṅgā.
I was already thrilled to be back in India, and I was elated by the dis-
play of spiritual conviction. The people around me, I felt, cared less for
their material prosperity than for their spiritual lives. And in my heart
I shared their happiness and was moved by their inner contentment. I
walked through the crowd without speaking with anyone—just smiling
at those around me and receiving their smiles in return.
Before dawn the next morning, I went down to the Gaṅgā to bathe.
It was cold, and I was shivering even before I entered the water. When
30 Ocean of Mercy
I submerged myself, however, my whole body felt rejuvenated—warm

and clear and light, as if I could fly—and an incredible joy suffused my
entire being.
I do not know how long I stood there, half submerged, in bliss. When
I came back to myself, I sat on the bank and let my thoughts float with the
river’s current. My mind drifted back to my childhood: I was lying by my
mother’s side as she told me about Mother Gaṅgā. She did not flow from
any place on the earth, my mother told me, but came from the heavenly
planet, Svargaloka, brought by Bhagīratha, the great-great-grandson of
the illustrious King Sagara. When King Sagara performed a horse sacri-
fice, Indra, the king of heaven, became worried that Sagara might take
away his throne with the power he would gain from his sacrifice. So he
stole the horse, took it to a lower planetary system, and tied it to a tree
next to the āśrama of Kapila Muni, an incarnation of the Supreme Lord.
King Sagara had two wives, Sumati and Keśinī. He had sixty-four
thousand sons from Sumati, and they searched everywhere for the
horse. They dug up the surface of the earth, creating a great trench that
became known as the sāgara, the ocean. Eventually they came to Kapila
Muni’s āśrama, and seeing the horse tied up to a tree, they thought that
Kapila Muni must have stolen it. With this offensive understanding,
they tried to attack the sage. His meditation interrupted, Kapila Muni
opened his eyes, and as a result of his glance, King Sagara’s sixty-four
thousand sons were burnt to ashes.
King Sagara had another son, Asamañjasa, from his wife Keśinī, and
Asamañjasa’s son Aṁśumān also went in search of the horse and eventu-
ally came to the āśrama of Kapila Muni. When Aṁśumān saw the horse
and the pile of ashes, he understood what had happened and, recogniz-
ing Kapila Muni’s exalted position, offered him prayers. Pleased, Kapila
Muni instructed Aṁśumān that his sixty-four thousand uncles could all
be delivered by water from the Gaṅgā flowing in Svargaloka.
Aṁśumān performed great austerities to bring the Gaṅgā down to
earth from the heavenly planets, but he could not do it. And after his
death, his son Dilīpa tried to bring the Gaṅgā to this material world,
In Search of a Guru 31
but he also failed. Finally, Dilīpa’s son Bhagīratha was able to bring
the Gaṅgā to earth by practicing great austerity and penance. Mother
Gaṅgā appeared before Bhagīratha and offered him a benediction.
When Bhagīratha told her he wanted her to come down to earth to de-
liver his forefathers, she said that if she were to descend from the heav-
ens to earth, she would pierce through the earth and end up in the lower
regions of the universe. To prevent this, someone would have to bear the
force of her fall.
Bhagīratha told Mother Gaṅgā that Lord Śiva could bear such a
force. Once again he performed great austerities, and as a result Lord
Śiva agreed to bear Mother Gaṅgā’s fall on his head. This, my mother
told me, was how the holiest of all rivers, Mother Gaṅgā, came to earth
from the heavenly planets and delivered the fallen souls.
This childhood tale now became for me a profound and glorious re-
ality. I was grateful to be back in my holy motherland, which had been
graced with so many spiritual benedictions. All I wanted was to float
endlessly in the river’s sublime current.
When I returned to the lodge where I was staying, I heard a beautiful
recitation of Sanskrit mantras reverberating from the room next door. I
just sat there listening to the vibrant, melodious sound. My neighbors, it
turned out, were a South Indian family of four—a husband and wife and
their two children. Mr. Subramaniam, a government official, brought
his family to holy places of pilgrimage during his vacations. He invited
me to their room to talk, and the children—two sons, aged nine and
six—listened with great attention, respectful and well-behaved.
Through that family I was able to have another glimpse of the glories
of India. Although he was a high-ranking government officer, Mr. Su
bramaniam wanted only to visit holy places. He had little interest in ma-
terial achievements but put a premium on spiritual life and development.
I was especially impressed by the way he was bringing up his children.
This, I saw, was an important part of India’s spiritual heritage—alive
and well in contemporary family life.
From Haridwar I went upstream to Rishikesh, which was quieter—
32 Ocean of Mercy
more natural and less commercial—with many yoga āśramas and spiri
tual seekers from around the world. Sādhus gathered on the banks
of the river—some stark naked, others just in loincloths. Most were
smoking hashish, and some invited me to join them, but I declined. In
the West many of my friends had smoked hashish, and I had seen how
stupid they became when they did. With the activities of their brains
subdued, the activities of their hearts became prominent, giving them
a feeling of ecstasy. So when I saw the sādhus smoking, I knew not to
waste my time; they were not for me.
The most prominent yoga school in Rishikesh was the Shivananda
Ashram. A young resident student told me that their teaching was that
in order to make spiritual progress one had to give up one’s ego—one’s
preconceived notions, ideas, prejudices, and selfish interests; they were
obstacles to spiritual progress. By giving them up and practicing yoga,
one could progress toward one’s spiritual goal and eventually become
liberated from the bondage of matter and achieve mokṣa, liberation. I
liked what he said, but I wondered why one had to practice yoga in such
a commercial atmosphere. I had always heard and read that yoga should
be performed in a solitary place, away from material culture. So I did
not feel inclined to join the āśrama.
I kept looking. One day, wandering aimlessly down a deserted road,
I saw a saffron-robed figure coming from the other direction. As he ap-
proached, I saw that it was a young, handsome man with long black
hair and a beard. I smiled at him as we passed, and he responded with
a gentle smile of his own. We stopped and exchanged greetings, then
walked for some distance together before he suggested that we sit on the
riverbank and talk. He was from Punjab, he said. His father was a cloth
merchant, but he had not been interested in a life of commerce; when
his brothers had gone into business, he had continued his education in
college and then at a university. But he had not found fulfillment in aca-
demic life. And when he had returned home and his family had tried to
get him married, he had found that he was not interested in married life
either. So without telling anyone, he had left home.
After traveling to various places of pilgrimage, the man had landed in

Rishikesh, in the āśrama of his family’s guru, and had been living there
ever since. When I asked about his guru’s teachings, he said that their
path was human welfare and meditation. Their external mission was to
help others—the world’s suffering and poor. Their internal activity was
to meditate to become one with the spiritual light. When he heard that
I had returned to India to pursue spiritual life, he became excited and
suggested that I could stay in their āśrama and practice there. I thanked
him but declined his offer, explaining that I wanted to explore and see
more of the spiritual landscape.
From Rishikesh I traveled through the Himalayas—to Devaprayag,
Alokananda, Rudraprayag, and finally Joshimath. I wanted to continue
on to Badrinath, but winter was approaching and the road had been
closed. Considering Joshimath’s altitude—over six thousand feet—it
was not very cold, and I liked its beautiful atmosphere, so I decided to
stay.
In Joshimath I became friendly with the manager of my guesthouse,
who would entrance me with stories of the area’s saintly personalities.
One day he told me about an American couple who were living high
up in the mountains. They had been there meditating for at least two
years, only rarely coming down from their retreat. I wanted to meet
them, I said, but he told me that they did not meet anybody; if anyone
approached, they would chase him away. Still, I insisted, they probably
would not mind meeting me, since I was a seeker, too, and could benefit
from their experience. They had a close connection with a doctor, the
manager said. He sometimes visited the couple; maybe he would take
me with him.
Dr. Lal turned out to be a middle-aged respectable-looking gentle-
man. When I asked him about the American couple, he told me that they
were named Lawrence and Collette and were from California. They
were serious in their practice and had found the area to be conducive to
meditation. They had arranged for money to be sent to him periodically
from America, and he supplied them weekly with provisions. Generally
34 Ocean of Mercy
he sent the supplies through his servant, but since I was so keen to meet
them he would take me there himself.
I was thrilled to have the opportunity to enter into a remote corner of
the Himalayas and meet these unusual people who had dedicated them-
selves so fully to their spiritual purpose that they had cut themselves off
from the rest of the world. So one morning we set out.
Outside town we came to a narrow path, which turned into an almost
invisible trail that eventually led to the ruins of a temple. Dr. Lal asked
me to wait, and then he entered.
Standing alone, I could see the sparkling white mountaintops
stretching from one end of the horizon to the other. All around me the
hills were changing colors with the season—a festival of greens, yellows,
purples, and reds. Songbirds called from the trees, and water streamed
down from the side of the mountain and settled in cold, shimmering
pools. I cupped my palms under a small waterfall and drank. It was nec-
tar—better than anything I had ever tasted.
The place was exquisitely beautiful; I could understand why the cou-
ple had selected it for their meditation to achieve the goal of life—free-
dom from the bondage of this material world. I wondered at the depth of
their commitment to their spiritual quest, which had drawn them from
their homes in California to this holy site in the Himalayas, on the other
side of the world.
I was awakened from my reverie when Dr. Lal emerged with a tall
handsome man with long hair and a beard. The man smiled at me, folded
his hands together, and said, “Namaste.” He introduced himself as
Chidananda—a name, I thought, that must have been given to him by
his spiritual master. The three of us sat on a boulder facing the broad
expanse of the mountains. I apologized for intruding into his sādhana,
his meditative practice. I had many American friends, I told him, and
like him I had traveled—through the Middle East and Europe—and
had spent a few years in Germany, but I had returned to India in search
of spiritual wisdom. I had not been able to really start my spiritual life,
however; I was still looking for a guru. I wanted to gain insight from his
36 Ocean of Mercy In Search of a Guru 36
pilgrimage in the mountains and his life practicing meditation in such a

solitary place.
Chidananda told me that he was from southern California. In the
late sixties he had been involved in the American counterculture and
had decided to come to India to explore her spiritual culture. After
traveling through Goa, Benares, and other places of pilgrimage, he had
come to the Himalayas, where he had met his guru. He had lived with
his girlfriend in his guru’s āśrama, learning the process of yoga medi-
tation, but when his guru tried to seduce her, they lost faith in him and
left. Chidananda was not so much angry as disappointed. His guru had
often spoken about the importance of celibacy in practicing yoga. He
had explained how the kuṇḍalinī energy arose from the mūlādhāra-cakra
at the base of the spine and penetrated through different cakras to the
sahasrāra-cakra, the “thousand-petaled” or crown cakra, at the top of the
head—how that was the way one achieved samādhi, fully matured medi
tation. In spite of all his instructions, however, he had approached his
student, who treated him like her father, for sex.
Although Chidananda had left the āśrama, he still considered the
man to be his guru, because he had taught him so much about the sci-
ence of yoga. After leaving, Chidananda had not known where to go,
but one thing he had been sure of was that he wanted to stay in India
and continue his spiritual practice. He had already reached the stage
where he could practice on his own, so he had gone up to Badrinath and
stayed there throughout the summer. In the winter he had come down to
Joshimath.
Then he had found this spot—the old temple in the middle of the
mountains—and decided to move there and practice his sādhana. He did
not keep a watch or calendar, so he did not know exactly how long he
had been there, but he knew that it had been quite a while. Time was
passing, but outside his awareness.
Dr. Lal said that he had known Chidananda for more than two years
but that Chidananda had been living at the temple ruins before they met.
At first, Chidananda would occasionally go down to the market to get
provisions, but Dr. Lal had recently been taking care of the couple’s sup-
plies. They subsisted on only fruits and vegetables—no grains or beans
or even nuts.
When I asked Chidananda about his spiritual progress, he said that
the process of āsana, sitting in yoga positions, was effective at the ini-
tial stage but then did not make any difference. Prāṇāyāma, however—
control of the breath—was very effective. Practicing kumbhaka, the
stoppage of breathing, helped him control his mind and become fixed in
meditation. With his guru’s training, he could now hold his breath easily
for a few minutes and was getting better. When I asked him if he would
teach me, he just smiled and said that he was still a student, not yet in a
position to instruct.
As Dr. Lal and I climbed back down to Joshimath, he told me, “That
was probably the most Chidananda has spoken to anyone other than his
girlfriend in months.”
My encounter with Chidananda was one of the most memorable ex-
periences I had in my time in the Himalayas. But I had not yet found my
guru, and I was still searching.
Next I descended to the Gangetic plains. I stayed at many āśramas and

monasteries and associated with many spiritual practitioners, and all of
my experiences were unique and educational, but one stood out in its
depth. I had known about the female saint Anandamayi Ma from my
childhood. One of my aunts was her disciple, and she had told us many
fascinating stories about her. So when I came across one of her āśramas
on the banks of the Gaṅgā, I decided to stop for a visit.
The atmosphere of the āśrama was serene, and the residents were
friendly. The āśrama head, Svarupananda Swami, took a liking to me
and treated me with warmth and great care, and we spent a lot of time
together. Seeing my sincere search for a guru and inclination toward
spiritual life, he considered me a ripe candidate for discipleship and
38 Ocean of Mercy
decided to take me to Anandamayi Ma, who was in Benares.

The Benares āśrama was packed with Anandamayi Ma’s followers
and admirers. But she treated me with special kindness and affection
and spent considerable time answering my questions and offering ad-
vice. Every evening, she would have a public darśana, which hundreds
of people would attend. Most of the time she simply sat there in silence,
and people were happy just to see her. Senior disciples would speak
about her glories and discourse on various spiritual topics. Sometimes
there would be kīrtana, congregational chanting, and during the kīrtana
Anandamayi Ma would sometimes fall into a trance. Since she would of-
ten sit there with her eyes closed, I could not always tell when she was in
a trance, but her assembled disciples would make a sound in unison—a
kind of howling that sounded strange in such a solemn atmosphere. At
first, I didn’t understand its meaning, but then I found out that it sig-
naled that her trance had begun.
I felt a deep respect for Anandamayi Ma and considered her to be
an exalted spiritual personality, but most of her answers seemed more
like riddles, and I did not know what to make of them. One day I asked,
“What is the meaning of sādhana?”
“Sādhana is sva-dhana,” she replied, “one’s own wealth.”
When I asked, “Then what about siddhi, the ultimate achievement of
sādhana?”
She said, “Siddhi will be achieved according to one’s own spiritual
accomplishment.”
I did not say anything, but in the back of my mind I began to wonder.
Wasn’t the guru supposed to lead the disciple through proper practice of
sādhana in order to achieve spiritual perfection?
I also had many discussions with Svarupananda Swami. I knew he
was keen for me to join the āśrama and become a disciple of Ananda-
mayi Ma, but I asked, “What would I gain spiritually by doing that?’’ He
had spent many years as one of her most prominent disciples. What had
he gained?
Svarupananda became thoughtful and told me that he had found a
purpose in life and that he was internally content in that position.

I asked whether that inner contentment was everything or if one
should strive for spiritual perfection and become free from the material
world and go somewhere beyond it and experience an endless bliss.
“Yes,” he answered, “and that will happen by the mercy of the
Mother.”
I liked the āśrama. I liked Svarupananda Swami, and on top of every-
thing I had developed a deep appreciation of Anandamayi Ma. Finally I
decided to join.
So one evening Svarupananda took me to see Anandamayi Ma in her
room. When he raised the topic of my joining the āśrama, however, she
looked at me, smiled affectionately, and declared, “He is not meant for
this āśrama. He belongs somewhere else, and when he surrenders the
whole world will come under his feet.”
Her statement hit me like a bolt from the blue. I was amazed and
somewhat embarrassed by her prophecy, but I was also devastated by
her rejection. I wanted to beg her to let me join and eventually become
her disciple, but my pride would not allow it.
Svarupananda sympathized with me and told me afterwards that al-
though Ma had spoken like that, I could continue to stay in the āśrama.
But almost as soon as she had spoken, I had decided to move on. She
was not my guru, I realized; I had to continue my search.
The next afternoon, Svarupananda accompanied me to Ananda-
mayi’s room to tell her that I was leaving. She was meeting with a few
close disciples from different parts of India and was handing them
prasāda, sanctified food, with her left hand, which seemed strange, since
in India the left hand is never used to handle prasāda or for any spiritual
activity or exchange. When she saw me, she stopped, smiled beautifully,
and blessed me that my spiritual quest would be rewarded with a won-
derful result. Then, with her right hand, she handed me an apple. Then
she turned back to her guests and resumed distributing prasāda.
I left the āśrama despondent. Svarupananda drove me to the railway
station, on the way to Calcutta, and before we parted he told me, “You
40 Ocean of Mercy
are very fortunate. You have received the special mercy of Ma.”
It sounded like he was just trying to console me, because it was quite
obvious to me that she did not want to accept me. It was not that I really
wanted to join her āśrama, but I was hurt by her rejection. “Why do you
say that?” I asked.
“Generally she gives her prasāda with her left hand,” he replied, “but
to you she gave it with her right hand.”
“Yes, I noticed that,” I said. “What does it mean?”
“When she just gives her blessings, she gives it with her left hand.
But when she gives her special mercy, she gives it with her right.”
“Does it have anything to do with karma?”
“Yes, you can say that,” he said. “When she gives it with her right
hand, she actually offers her good karma.”
“And she does have a lot of it,” I said with a smile.
“Yes,” he agreed, “there is no doubt about that. But when too many
people touch her feet, she becomes sick. Therefore we do not allow any-
one to do so.”
“Why does she become sick?”
“Because when people touch your feet, they give you their sinful re-
actions and take away your good karma.”
Even with Svarupananda Swami’s supportive comments, however,
Anandamayi Ma’s rejection had disappointed me, and by the time I ar-
rived in Calcutta I had decided to suspend my search. Rather, I thought,
I would wait for my guru to come to me. I was feeling some anger mixed
with pride. I had been searching for my guru but could not find him.
Did I really have one? If I did, I considered, I would let him come and
find me. I was not going to search for him anymore.
Shortly thereafter, I received a letter from Mark saying that he was
coming to Calcutta to meet me. When he arrived, I was happy to see
him and brought him to my father’s home, where I was staying. He had
changed quite a bit, though—not only in his appearance but also in his
attitude. Previously, he had been so averse to smoking that when we
were hitchhiking he would sometimes ask the driver to put out his ciga
rette. I would tell him that he should be grateful for their kindness and
not be so demanding, but he had argued that he would rather be asked
to leave the car than be surrounded by cigarette smoke. Now, I discov-
ered, he had not only started to smoke cigarettes but was also smoking
hashish.
One day when Mark and I were sitting on a lakeside bench, he told
me that he had come back to India to get a supply of hashish and mari-
juana. He was working with a group in the UK, but he needed a steady
supply from India and Nepal. He proposed that I become his partner,
taking care of his supply. I was shocked and hoped that he was joking,
but when I saw he was not, I refused. I was relieved when he simply ac-
cepted my response, and we agreed to go trekking together in Nepal. I
tried to make it a condition that he would not indulge in hashish or mari-
juana during the trip, but finally we agreed that he could, but only in the
evenings, after the trek.
Soon after we arrived in Pokhara, however, I realized that Mark
wanted to go to the Himalayas not just for trekking but also to find sup-
pliers for his drugs. Still, we trekked for ten days or so, all the way to the
Annapurna base camp.
When we returned to Calcutta, I introduced Mark to some of my
friends, but when I found out that he was trying to talk them into serv-
ing as his suppliers, I told him that we would have to part ways. I was
sad, but this was not the same earnest and innocent Mark with whom I
had traveled six years before.
3
The Nectar of Devotion

(July 1976 – January 1977)
T his period in Calcutta was among the most difficult of my life.

I could neither adjust to the world around me nor step into spiri-
tual life, for which I yearned. I knew that to follow the spiritual path I
needed a guru—someone who would take me by the hand and lead me
onto the spiritual path—to a world of knowledge, emancipation, and joy.
But I had not been able to find him, and now I was waiting. The inci-
dent with Anandamayi Ma had given me hope; if I had a guru, I felt, he
would reveal himself to me.
One evening I received a visit from my old friend Prasun. I was
happy to see him, but he looked different. The Prasun I remembered
had long hair and dressed in Western clothes, but now his head was
shaven and he wore a dhotī and kurtā. I knew that in Germany he had be-
come a devotee of Kṛṣṇa in the International Society for Krishna Con-
sciousness (ISKCON), so his change of appearance didn’t shock me,
but the glow from his face was striking; his whole demeanor radiated
peace and tranquility.
44 Ocean of Mercy
When I had first heard that Prasun and his German girlfriend Corne-
lia had joined ISKCON, I had not taken it seriously, since he and I had
not had a very pleasant experience when we had visited the ISKCON
temple in Hamburg. As I had been coming out of the university canteen
one day, I had seen a group of young Westerners—the women dressed
in saris and the men in dhotīs and kurtās—chanting and dancing. The
sight had delighted me, but it had also made me long for home. I was
far from Calcutta, and these young men and women dressed in tradi-
tional Indian attire had filled me with pride for my culture. One of them
was giving out magazines, and I walked up to him and bought one, and
we talked. He told me about their mission and invited me to their tem-
ple, just a subway stop from the university. I had visited and befriended
some of them, and when I had shared my experience with Prasun, he
and I visited the temple together a few times. Once, we were talking to
one of the American devotees there, and because we were doing most
of the talking, another devotee, who may not have liked that we were
talking more than listening, started to criticize us, saying that Buddha
was a swindler and Ramakrishna, a popular spiritual personage from
Bengal, was a cheat. Prasun had looked at me with surprise—neither he
nor I had mentioned Buddha or Ramakrishna—and I had silently indi-
cated that we should leave, which we did, and we had never returned.
Since then, whenever I had seen the devotees, I had avoided them. If
I saw them on one side of the road, I would move to the other. And when
I had returned to Calcutta, even though the ISKCON temple was not
far from my house and I had passed it many times, I had never entered.
So when I heard that Prasun had joined, I did not think he was se-
rious. Seeing how he looked when he came to see me, however—how
effulgent he was—I had to revise my impression. “Are you really serious
about your involvement?” I asked him.
He answered with a gentle smile: “Yes.” He told me how he had
joined ISKCON in Berlin after reading a book—Śrī Īśopaniṣad—by its
founder-ācārya, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. He had been
initiated and received a spiritual name: Sarvabhāvana Dāsa Adhikārī.
The Nectar of Devotion 45
Now he had returned to help the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement in In-

dia and was serving as vice-president of the temple in New Delhi. He
invited me to go to Delhi, but I remained noncommittal. He did not try
to persuade me or preach to me; we just spoke and enjoyed each other’s
association.
I was impressed with the life Sarvabhāvana was leading—abstaining
from meat-eating, intoxication, sex, and gambling. But what impressed
me most was his love and respect for his guru, whom he called Śrīla
Prabhupāda. When Sarvabhāvana spoke about him, his eyes lit up and
his face radiated joy. I thought his attachment might be merely senti-
mental, but I was impressed nonetheless.
The next morning, Sarvabhāvana and I got together again, but when
I offered to take him to lunch, he declined. I assured him that the food
would be vegetarian, but he said he would go home and eat there. When
I insisted, he told me that although the food would be vegetarian, the
kitchen and utensils would have been used to cook other preparations.
Again I was impressed with his standards and conviction. I had many
friends who were strict vegetarians, but Sarvabhāvana’s standards were
on another level.
That afternoon, I accompanied him to the nearby ISKCON tem-
ple, where he introduced me to a group of young American devotees.
We had a wonderful discussion about various aspects of spiritual life,
and I was especially impressed by two of the devotees, Kuṇḍalī Dāsa
and Anirdeśya-vapu Dāsa. Both struck me as extremely intelligent, but
whereas Kuṇḍalī—short and plump—was full of humor, Anirdeśya—
tall, slim, and saintly looking—was quite sober. I was attracted to his
gentle and compassionate nature, and we immediately became friends.
He told me about chanting the holy name in the form of a mahā (great)
mantra and said that the benefits of eating kṛṣṇa-prasāda, food that had
been offered to Kṛṣṇa, were far greater than those gained by performing
thousands of sacrifices.
I marveled at Anirdeśya’s knowledge of Vedic scriptures and was
beginning to appreciate the wisdom he related. When he asked me if I
46 Ocean of Mercy
would like to render some service, I immediately agreed, and he took

me to a room next to the altar, where he showed me how to cut fruit that
would be offered to the Deities. He told me about the benefits of render-
ing devotional service—the ultimate engagement for a living entity, with
rewards that could not be measured by material calculation.
We cut up quite a bit of fruit, and after a few plates were offered to
the Lord on the altar for some minutes and then returned, we mixed that
fruit with the rest, brought it all out to the balcony, where devotees were
sitting in a row, and served them. Anirdeśya then made a plate for me,
and another for himself, and we sat together and ate while he described
how the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement could solve the world’s prob-
lems by delivering the suffering, conditioned souls “back home” to serve
the Lord.
I was touched by Anirdeśya’s words—and by him engaging me in
this way. The inner sanctum was a sacred place, and he had brought me,
a total stranger, into this sacred place to render personal service to the
Lord. I savored his every word.
Over the next few days I returned to the temple regularly. One eve-
ning, after attending the sandhyā-ārati, the evening worship service, and
a class on the Bhagavad-gītā, I wanted to buy a copy of the book. They
did not have one on hand, but when I said that I would appreciate any
book they had, a devotee gave me a free copy of The Nectar of Devotion,
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s English summary study of a Sanskrit work by Śrīla
Rūpa Gosvāmī, a sixteenth-century saint, poet, and scholar.
The minute I got home, I opened the book and began to read. I felt as
if another reality was unfolding before my eyes. Right from the begin-
ning of the book, Śrīla Prabhupāda stated that God was a person—the
Supreme Person, Kṛṣṇa. I had maintained a deep attachment to Kṛṣṇa
since childhood, but I never had such a clear understanding that He was
the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Throughout my spiritual quest I
had been under the impression that liberation was the ultimate goal of
life. But Śrīla Prabhupāda very clearly explained that one who engages
in devotional service to Kṛṣṇa achieves liberation automatically.
48 Ocean of Mercy
I had never read anything like it. This was what I had been look-
ing for all my life. When I was younger I had been influenced by Ayn
Rand’s philosophy, objectivism, portrayed in her novel Atlas Shrugged,
which depicted what I had thought was an ideal society. But The Nectar
of Devotion, I now understood, presented the ultimate perfection of an ac-
tual ideal society. Within its pages I found a society based wholly on the
highest ideal of life—selfless service to the Supreme Lord. I read until
I fell asleep, and when I woke up the next morning, the first thing I did
was pick up the book and start reading again.
Śrīla Prabhupāda explained that there are five kinds of liberation:
becoming one with the Lord, living with the Lord on the same planet,
having the same features as the Lord, enjoying the same opulences as
the Lord, and living as the Lord’s companion. But such liberation,
Prabhupāda pointed out, held no attraction for a devotee engaged in
serving the Lord. Devotional service yielded a far greater joy.
Everything was becoming clearer. And the more I read, the more
absorbed I became. I lamented having wasted so many years searching
without even knowing what I was searching for. Śrīla Prabhupāda was
answering all my questions perfectly. He explained the cause of our suf-
fering and showed the way out.
I could not put the book down. I read all day, and that night I
dreamed of Śrīla Prabhupāda. He was sitting on a thronelike seat, and
a brilliant light emanated from his body. There was a crowd of people
sitting at his feet. I did not ask him anything; I simply offered my obei-
sances and said, “I surrender myself completely at your lotus feet. Please
accept me and guide me.”
When I woke, my heart brimmed with a wonderful feeling of fulfill-
ment—I had found my spiritual master.
As I continued reading, I learned more and more about Kṛṣṇa and
His greatness. He was the supreme creator, proprietor, and control-
ler, and I realized that the goal of my life was to surrender to Him. I
felt in my heart that I would no longer have to worry about anything:
Kṛṣṇa would take care of me in all respects. I was almost overwhelmed
with relief, free from any anxiety or distress.

Convinced that I had found my guru, I could not wait to return to the
temple. The next day I went and asked Kuṇḍalī Dāsa if he knew where
Śrīla Prabhupāda was. After inquiring from other devotees, he told me
that Prabhupāda was in America and would not be back in India for a
few months, probably not until October. He generally stayed in America
during the summer and returned to India in the autumn.
Looking forward to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s return, I decided to travel
in the meantime to Bengal and visit the places where Śrī Caitanya
Mahāprabhu—Kṛṣṇa in the mood of Rādhārāṇī, His eternal consort—
had some five hundred years earlier taken birth and engaged in His
transcendental activities. I felt fortunate that I had been born so close
by.
First I went to Māyāpur, the place of Lord Caitanya’s appearance,
just 130 kilometers from Calcutta. The evening I arrived, an ārati was
going on in the temple, and the large hall shook with the resound-
ing beats of mṛdaṅga drums. The room was full of devotees—nearly all
Westerners—dancing, each in his or her own style but all in rhythm
with the kīrtana. The scene was ecstatic, and everyone, even drenched in
perspiration, appeared divine.
After the ārati, several of the devotees came over to speak with me.
All very friendly, they arranged for my accommodation at the guest-
house and invited me to attend a Bhagavad-gītā class that was just about
to begin.
The class was in a large conference room upstairs, led by a devotee
named Rāghava Paṇḍita Dāsa. The atmosphere was inspiring—all the
bright young devotees listening with rapt attention. I felt like I was get-
ting a glimpse of the spiritual world.
Rāghava Paṇḍita seemed quite learned, and he spoke beautifully, ex-
plaining the importance of spiritual life, of understanding the futility of
our materialistic endeavors and the rewards of becoming absorbed in
spiritual activities. By surrendering to Kṛṣṇa and engaging in His ser-
vice, he said, we could experience the real joy for which we were always
50 Ocean of Mercy
hankering. And Śrīla Prabhupāda had created a perfect arrangement

for all of us to achieve that ultimate perfection in the serene atmosphere
of Māyāpur and in the association of the Lord’s devotees.
I felt that Rāghava Paṇḍita was speaking directly to me; it was all so
appropriate to my situation. And I was impressed that a Westerner had
so much knowledge about the Vedas and was quoting Sanskrit verses
from the Bhagavad-gītā as if he knew the entire scripture by heart.
After class, we all sat conversing. Not many people visited Māyāpur
in those days, and the devotees were curious about what had brought me
there. They were very encouraging and requested that I stay and become
a devotee, or at least give it a try. One of the brahmacārīs, the single young
male devotees, brought in a large plate of sweets and other delicacies and
served all the devotees as they sat on the floor, eating off leaf plates. The
food was mahā-prasāda, I was told, prasāda that had come directly from the
Deities. I had never tasted anything so delicious. Even though the physi-
cal facilities in Māyāpur were quite basic, I felt very much at home.
I arose early the next morning—well before sunrise—and attended
maṅgala-ārati. Afterwards I sat with the devotees and chanted japa for
the first time. I had been familiar with the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra
since childhood—I had heard it sung and had joined many kīrtanas, and
Anirdeśya Vapu had explained its spiritual significance to me in Cal-
cutta—but I had never chanted quietly, counting my rounds on beads.
At 7:00 we all participated in śrṅgāra-ārati, greeting the Deities. Then
we worshiped Śrīla Prabhupāda in guru-pūjā, and afterwards we gath-
ered in the upstairs room for class. I was told that a sannyāsī, a senior
male renounced devotee, was going to speak on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the
most important Vaiṣṇava scripture, which Śrīla Prabhupāda had trans-
lated and on which he had written extensive commentary. In the room,
a handsome young American on an elevated seat sang “Jaya Rādhā-
Mādhava.” I had never heard the prayer, but I had learned that the tem-
ple Deities were named Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava, and now I saw that
there was a link between Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and the Deities. It sounded
amazing, sublime.
The young sannyāsī, like the devotee giving class the previous eve-
ning, was clearly knowledgeable, and he recited Sanskrit ślokas (verses)
fluently and with authority. It was the first time I had experienced West-
erners having such command of the Vedic scriptures. I was both awe-
struck and painfully aware of my own inadequacy in the subject, and I
was also beginning to comprehend Śrīla Prabhupāda’s profound influ-
ence on his disciples.
After class, the sannyāsī greeted me with a smile and introduced him-
self as Śatadhanya Swami. He had already heard about me, he said, and
he expressed his pleasure in meeting me and joined the others in re-
questing that I remain with the devotees and become one myself.
All the warm invitations, along with the wonderful, spiritual atmo-
sphere, attracted me greatly. Since I had already made up my mind to
surrender to Śrīla Prabhupāda, I thought, Why not commit myself and stay?
It was not difficult. I just went to a barber and had my head shaved,
purchased a dhotī-and-kurtā set, took a bath in the Gaṅgā, threw away
my old clothes, and put on the new ones.
When I returned to the temple, everyone was surprised and delighted
at my transformation. The first to see me was Pāṇḍu Dāsa, a talented
painter from America whom I had befriended the previous evening.
“Hey,” he exclaimed, “you shaved up and became a devotee!” But then
he added, “No—you have always been a devotee!”
The Māyāpur temple and community were managed by two co-
directors—Jayapatāka Swami and Bhavānanda Goswami, both from
America. Jayapatāka Swami was quite young, Bhavānanda somewhat
older. I was introduced to them in an office, where they sat side-by-side
on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by devotees. After a brief initial
exchange, they gave me a form to fill out, asking my name, address, and
other details. One point on the form especially impressed me—that I
should never act in such a way that would bring dishonor or disgrace to
Śrīla Prabhupāda. That became deeply ingrained in my heart.
Next I was introduced to a young Italian brahmacārī named Madhu
sevita Dāsa, who served as the temple commander. Like a military
52 Ocean of Mercy
commander, he appeared grave and stern, which I thought was quite be-
fitting. He was responsible for assigning services to devotees, and the
first service he gave me was to help cook kicharī, a mix of grains, dāl, and
vegetables that was distributed every afternoon to local villagers as part
of a food-distribution program.
When I went to the kitchen and reported to the elderly Bengali devo
tee in charge of cooking, he examined me from head to toe. I could tell
he was not impressed. He took me out back, pointed to a pile of fire-
wood, directed me to bring the wood to the kitchen, and left.
He had not told me how much to bring, so I just kept carrying one
armful of wood after another, and by the time he returned, half the
kitchen was filled. He gave me a disapproving, disgusted look and told
me to take most of the wood back to the pile. Then he led me to the
storeroom, asked me to bring bags of rice and dāl to the kitchen, and
again disappeared.
The bags must have weighed a hundred kilos each; there was no way
I could even pick them up, let alone carry them to the kitchen. So I got
hold of a bag and started to drag it across the floor, but along the way
it became stuck between the staircase and a pillar. I pulled as hard as I
could to dislodge it, but it would not budge, and when I gave it one last
heave, the bag broke and dāl scattered all over the floor.
Just then, of course, the managing devotee returned. When he saw
the mess I had made, he became so exasperated that he did not say a
thing; he just gave me that look again, letting me know without words
that he thought I was the most useless person he had ever met.
My fumbling attempt at service, I felt, had caused only disappoint-
ment to the devotees. That was the beginning of my spiritual life in
Māyāpur.
The next day, I was assigned to go out into a field with a few other
devotees and cut the grass. Finally, I thought—a service I could execute
without trouble. But when Bhavānanda Mahārāja heard what I had
been assigned to do, he got upset and chastised Madhusevita for engag-
ing me in such a menial task.
54 Ocean of Mercy
Madhusevita came to me and apologized. He told me that there was

a practice that when someone joined the temple he was given various
tough jobs to test his sincerity. I said that I actually liked the idea. I was
starting my new life, and I was prepared to accept any service I was
given. It was one of my first lessons in Kṛṣṇa consciousness—that our
life is meant for serving and pleasing Kṛṣṇa.
Our understanding lasted only so long, however, and one afternoon,
when Madhusevita found me reading in the library, he ordered me to go
out and do something. I knew that everyone was allowed to take some rest
in the afternoon, so I told him that I was reading and would prefer to con-
tinue to do so. If he could not find anyone for the work, I would do it later.
Perhaps no one had ever responded to Madhusevita in such a way—
especially a newcomer. He flared up, calling me the most arrogant per-
son ever. I did not argue but walked right up to Bhavānanda Mahārāja’s
room and told him about how I’d been treated.
Bhavānanda immediately went down and again chastised Madhu
sevita, who became embarrassed and said that Śatadhanya Swami had
told him to keep me constantly engaged so that I wouldn’t have any time
to slip into māyā, the illusory aspect of the Lord’s energy that takes one
away from Him. So then Bhavānanda called Śatadhanya and blasted
him too, asking whether he thought he was running a Nazi concentration
camp.
From then on, things went more smoothly. The devotees all seemed
favorably disposed toward me, I was getting closer with all of them, and
Madhusevita and I were becoming good friends. He was a sincere and
serious devotee with an upright and straightforward manner, and he did
not waste any time. His commitment to Śrīla Prabhupāda was obvious,
and he was completely focused on his service.
Initially, Bhavānanda Goswami seemed quite exalted and un
approachable, but in time I became close with him as well. He was an
impressive, vibrant personality, and with his powerful build and boom-
ing voice, he was a natural leader who inspired spontaneous admiration
and respect. He was older than most of the other devotees, and whereas
most had rather bohemian and carefree backgrounds, he had been a

well-established and prominent figure in New York fashion and film.
Just a brief encounter with Śrīla Prabhupāda had led him to surrender
and changed his life.
I still did not have a steady service, so devotees from different de-
partments would invite me to serve with them. Sāttvika Dāsa, a young
Italian who took care of the cows in the gośālā, the cow barn, invited me
to join him. I loved the idea, but I also knew that caring for the cows was
one of the most coveted services. So I asked Bhavānanda Mahārāja, but
he said that I was not really meant for that kind of service. I was dis
appointed, but I accepted his decision.
Then Hiraṇyagarbha Dāsa, the head of the gurukula—the children’s
school—and his assistant, Nadia Dāsa, invited me to come teach with
them. Again I went to Bhavānanda Mahārāja and requested the posting,
but again he said that the service was not right for me. And again I was
disappointed. Teaching, I thought, was the best service for me, but he
considered me unqualified for it.
My pride was wounded, and I protested: “Do you think I am
good for nothing? Any service that I am proposing, you think I’m unfit
for it!”
“It’s not a matter of your qualification,” Mahārāja shot back. “When
you see that the students are a bunch of village kids who pass urine in
their beds and that the classroom stinks, I’m afraid your idealistic dream
will be shattered.”
I had a roommate, Tīrthapāda Dāsa, an extremely serious young
American devotee. He never wasted a minute. If he had any free time, he
would read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books, and he took prasāda only after he
had finished chanting his prescribed sixteen rounds of the mahā-mantra,
which took almost two hours. I was glad to be rooming with such a com-
mitted devotee.
My biggest challenge was getting up early every morning. At home
I rarely got up before 8:00, but in Māyāpur everyone was expected to
rise before 4:00 and attend maṅgala-ārati at 4:30. Tīrthapāda got up
56 Ocean of Mercy
every day by 3:30 and would wake me up before going to bathe. When
he returned to the room, he would often find me still lying in bed and
have to urge me to get up. I would beg him to let me sleep just a little lon-
ger, but he would grab the end of my mattress and lift it with me still on
it, and I would have to jump out to avoid falling on the floor—both of us
laughing all the while.
Tīrthapāda and his brother had joined ISKCON together, but his
brother had recently left the movement, and he was sad about that. He
was very affectionate with me, as if he were trying to recover his lost
brother by fixing me up in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Life in Māyāpur was very simple in those days. Everyone, irrespective

of age, nationality, or position, attended maṅgala-ārati, chanted their
rounds in the temple room, and then attended śrṅgāra-ārati, guru-pūjā, and
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class. We were all engaged in service throughout the
day, except when the afternoons got too hot, in which case we would
stay indoors and read from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or Kṛṣṇa, The Supreme
Personality of Godhead, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s summary study of the Bhāga-
vatam’s Tenth Canto. In the evening we would attend sandhyā-ārati and
Bhagavad-gītā class, and after prasāda we would often sit up late into the
night sharing our experiences and realizations in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
After the morning Bhāgavatam class, we would have a simple break-
fast of kicharī and a vegetable preparation. For a time after I arrived,
the next meal wasn’t until 5:00 p.m., but at some point Bhavānanda
Mahārāja saw that the gap between meals was too long and arranged
for a lunch to be served at 1:30, when everyone would sit together on
the veranda of the kitchen for vegetables, dāl, and fresh hot chapatis—a
sumptuous meal that felt like a real luxury.
There were several excellent female cooks, including Kiśorī-vallabha
Dāsī and Didima, an elderly widow from a high-class Bengali family.
All the sweets for the Deities were made by Vṛndāvana-vilāsinī Dāsī, a
South African devotee who had settled in Māyāpur and mastered the art
of preparing Indian sweets, which were usually offered before maṅgala-
ārati and at night before the Deities were put to rest.
The most delicious food was the mahā-prasāda from the evening offer-
ing. After being offered to the Deities, it was transferred to a large plate
and brought to the three resident sannyāsīs—Jayapatāka Mahārāja,
Bhavānanda Mahārāja, and Śatadhanya Mahārāja. Once they were
served, the plate would be brought down to the conference room by
Madhusevita Dāsa and distributed to the rest of us, who after the Gītā
class would circle around, eagerly awaiting our shares.
One evening the mahā-prasāda did not arrive. After waiting for what
seemed like a very long time, we went upstairs to investigate. On the
top floor we found Madhusevita, sitting on the back balcony, helping
himself. We all had a hearty laugh, and after that he always brought the
plate down immediately after the sannyāsīs were served.
There was only one completed structure in Māyāpur at the time—the

Lotus Building. The temple room was on the ground floor; a conference
room, a few offices, and the Deity kitchen were on the next floor; Śrīla
Prabhupāda’s quarters and a room for his secretary and servants were
above that; and the top floor held a few rooms for guests. On the roof were
two large rooms for Jayapatāka Mahārāja and Bhavānanda Mahārāja.
The rest of the Māyāpur compound was still undeveloped. We lived
in rows of rooms along the front boundary wall, on either side of the
main gate. There were no bathrooms; our only shower was a set of four
hand-pumps on a cemented area in the middle of the open field, and the
toilets were holes in the ground surrounded by walls of jute cloth on
wooden frames.
The area was full of poisonous snakes—vipers, cobras, and kraits.
Just walking to the pumps and toilets, one risked death at every step.
When Māyāpur flooded, the water rose to ten feet and the snakes came
58 Ocean of Mercy
out from their holes and swam and slithered around railings, gates,
trees, and even into the building—everywhere.
Wanting to get rid of the snakes, one devotee, Pradyumna Dāsa,
from Orissa, started killing them. He killed over fifty and would have
slain more if we had not stopped him. Then one day a devotee saw
Pradyumna walking along a veranda with a cobra following behind. The
smooth cement floor slowed down the snake, so the devotee was able to
stop it, but had he not, Pradyumna would have been bitten. Cobras were
extremely vengeful, I was told. They could look into a dead companion’s
eyes and see the identity of its killer, and then go after him.
I was standing on the back veranda one day when I saw a large black
cobra sliding across the paved drive. Suddenly a mongoose ran out and
confronted it. As soon as the snake saw the mongoose, it hissed and
spread its hood. For a few seconds, the two faced off, almost motion-
less, but then the snake turned and slipped away into the rice paddy, the
mongoose in close pursuit.
Another devotee, Sītānātha Dāsa—a tall, quiet, frail-bodied Ameri-
can—was terrified of snakes. He would imagine that there were snakes in
his room, even during the day. Among a small group of us in his room one
morning, Bhavānanda Mahārāja told him, “Sītānātha, if you’re so afraid of
snakes, you will never make it to the spiritual world, because there Ananta
Śeṣa is a snake.” I couldn’t gauge Sītānātha’s reaction to Mahārāja’s state-
ment, but I benefited immensely: from then on, whenever I saw a snake or
even thought of one, Ananta Śeṣa came to the forefront of my mind.
Somehow, none of the devotees were ever bitten, and even in the aus-
tere conditions of the weather, the snakes, and the accommodations, we
were quite content and enthusiastic in our Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
After some time, I was finally assigned a service that was approved—to
help Pañcaratna Dāsa, a dynamic young American who was supervis-
ing construction of the Long Building (named for being, at 750 feet, the
60 Ocean of Mercy
longest building in West Bengal), which would have 165 rooms to ac-
commodate visiting devotees. I paired up with his assistant, a Canadian
devotee named Bhūmna Dāsa, to buy materials in Calcutta, receive train
deliveries of building materials, and deal with local government officials
to get clearances.
When I was free from service and had the time, I would go to differ-
ent Gauḍīya maṭhas, āśramas in other Vaiṣṇava organizations, to meet
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s godbrothers and other advanced devotees. I wanted
to find out more about him—and about Vaiṣṇavas and Kṛṣṇa conscious-
ness. During one such visit—to the Devānanda Gauḍīya Maṭha in
Navadvīpa—I discovered some of Prabhupāda’s early Bengali writings
in their monthly magazine, Gauḍīya Patrikā, which he had edited in the
late forties and early fifties.
Prabhupāda had written several series of articles for the magazine,
the first of which was entitled “Bhagavāner Kathā” (“Knowledge of the
Supreme”), in response to an editorial in a popular English daily, the
Amrita Bazar Patrika. The author of the editorial had stated that although
India had become independent from British rule, the country’s situation
had not improved, as if in the dispensation of providence mankind could
not have any rest. Śrīla Prabhupāda countered that real peace and pros-
perity could not be achieved by political or other material arrangements.
The only way to achieve real peace was to surrender to Kṛṣṇa, the Su-
preme Personality of Godhead. His argument was brilliant, and I could
see that even in 1948, when Prabhupāda was still a householder, he
was already perfectly situated in his conviction and pure devotion. Af-
ter consulting with Pañcaratna and Jayapatāka Mahārāja, I decided to
compile Śrīla Prabhupāda’s articles in a book, which came to sixty-four
pages—Bhagavāner Kathā: Words about the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
So, things were going well, but I very much wanted to meet Śrīla
Prabhupāda. I loved hearing stories about him. One devotee, Kamala
Nārāyaṇa Dāsa, was a middle-aged educated Bengali gentleman who
one day had just happened to hear Śrīla Prabhupāda at a program in
Calcutta. He had been so impressed that he had handed his business
over to his son, made him promise that he would take care of his mother,
and left home to join ISKCON. He had just immediately surrendered.
Kamala Nārāyaṇa told me about how loving and caring Śrīla
Prabhupāda was. When Prabhupāda had learned that Kamala Nārā
yaṇa had left his family to join ISKCON, he had become so concerned
about Kamala Nārāyaṇa’s wife that whenever he would meet him, he
would ask how she was.
Kamala Nārāyaṇa also told me how much he admired the dedication,
love, and loyalty the Western devotees had for Śrīla Prabhupāda. If
Prabhupāda asked them to jump from a skyscraper, Kamala Nārāyaṇa
said, they would do it without batting an eyelash.
One especially dynamic group of devotees was the Nāma-haṭṭas, led
by Guru-kṛpā Swami. They were a boisterous bunch of about fifteen—
mostly Americans—who had come from preaching in Japan, and just
their presence brought an infectious vibrancy to Māyāpur’s normally
quiet atmosphere. When they danced during kīrtana, the entire temple
reverberated with ecstasy.
Many of us would go to the nearby bank of the Gaṅgā together, and
sometimes there would be wrestling matches between the Nāma-haṭṭa
and Māyāpur devotees. One day I had to wrestle one of the Nāma-
haṭṭas, and when he defeated me (quite easily), his group cheered in ju-
bilation. Jayapatāka Mahārāja was watching, however, and he would
not accept the humiliation. He sprang up like a lion and roared a chal-
lenge to anyone who would dare face him. For a moment there was to-
tal silence. Then Guru-kṛpā Swami gestured to one of his men—a tall,
powerful-looking devotee, an appropriate match for Mahārāja—to take
up the challenge. It was quite a sight: Jayapatāka Mahārāja looked like
he had been empowered by some special potency, and after a bit of grap-
pling, he simply picked up the devotee and smashed him to the ground.
We were all sitting in Jayapatāka Mahārāja’s room one night, read-
ing Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the transcendental biography of Śrī Cai
tanya Mahāprabhu, when Abhimanyu Dāsa, an English devotee who
had been appointed head of security due to his military training as a
62 Ocean of Mercy
commando in the British army, came running in with an alert that da-
coits (bandits) were coming to attack the temple. But Mahārāja did not
believe him. A little annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of our
reading, he said, “Abhimanyu, that’s just your paranoia.” But Abhi-
manyu was upset and argued his case, and finally, just to pacify him,
Mahārāja got up and said, “Okay—let’s go and meet the ‘dacoits.’”
Sticks in hand, with Mahārāja leading the way, we all walked to the
main gate. And when we got there, we could see a crowd of people in
the distance with burning torches, coming our way. As they approached,
however, we heard shouts of “Bolo Hari, Hari Bol!” the customary invo-
cation of the Lord’s mercy while carrying a dead body. It was a funeral
procession—judging from its size, for someone important. Jayapatāka
Mahārāja did not say a thing. He just turned and strode back to his
room, the rest of us following behind.
Mahārāja was a natural leader—full of energy and working from
morning till night. But we had a lot of fun together, too. At one point he
received bows and arrows from America, and we used to practice ar-
chery in the garden in front of the Lotus Building. He was an excellent
marksman and hit the bull’s eye practically every time. He was an ex-
pert swimmer too, and he not only crossed the Gaṅgā effortlessly but on
more than one occasion saved devotees who were drowning. And when
there actually was a threat of attack from dacoits, Mahārāja would be
standing right in front to face them. We always felt well protected under
his leadership.
The Māyāpur Deities, Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava, were eighteen inches

tall and made of eight auspicious metals. They had been personally in-
stalled by Śrīla Prabhupāda. I began to develop a relationship with
Them, and whenever I could, I sat in front of Them, trying to appreciate
Their transcendental beauty.
I was chanting in front of Them one morning after breakfast
64 Ocean of Mercy
when I was overtaken by a profound realization: by chanting the

mahā-mantra—
Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare

Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare
I was actually communicating with Kṛṣṇa, and He was listening. I

moved closer to Śrī Mādhava, appreciating His features. All at once I
truly, fully knew that He was the supreme proprietor and controller—
the Supreme Personality of Godhead. I had gained a rational under-
standing of this from my reading, but my new awareness was different
and went beyond thought; it was a deep realization.
Then it came to me that I could ask anything from Him and that He
would grant my request. Thoughts began to flash through my mind—
What should I ask from Him? Should I ask for wealth? Position? Recognition
and fame? I was entirely convinced that whatever I asked for I would re-
ceive. But then I considered, If I die tomorrow, what will be the use of any of it?
With great relief, I decided to ask for something that would be with me
forever. I prayed, Please allow me to become Your devotee and remain engaged
forever in Your loving service.
A profound tranquility washed over my heart, and I was suffused
with an indescribable joy. I prostrated myself on the ground and lay
there for a long time, filled with gratitude and love.
Anirdeśya Vapu had also come to Māyāpur, and my friendship with him
continued to flourish. We took long walks and would sometimes go a
kilometer up the Gaṅgā and float back downstream with the current.
We talked about various topics, but mainly our spiritual lives. He was
from Los Angeles, and his father, like mine, had been in the film indus-
try, just in America. He too had been spiritually inclined from child-
hood, and in his late teens he had come across the devotees and been
immediately attracted, especially after reading Śrīla Prabhupāda’s

books. Soon thereafter he had joined ISKCON and traveled to India
to commit himself to the cause. He was extremely curious about In-
dian culture, for which he had a great appreciation, and would ask me
many questions about my homeland. He liked to tell the others how he
had known I would become a devotee from the first time we met. And I
would tell them how he had immediately engaged me in cutting fruits for
the Deities and that it was only due to that service that I had become a
devotee at all.
During breakfast one morning Madhusevita announced that Śrīla
Prabhupāda had just arrived in Bombay. My heart leapt, and I ran to
Bhavānanda Mahārāja and told him that I had to go there to see him.
But Mahārāja did not approve of the idea. “Even if you go,” he told me,
“you won’t be able to get near him. No one knows you there. And be-
sides, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s health is not good; he is hardly seeing anyone.
Wait till he comes here. He will come soon, and you’ll have a lot of op-
portunities to see him.”
I accepted Mahārāja’s advice and tried to be patient. Then one day
we got the news that Prabhupāda was going to Kumbha-melā in Alla-
habad, about eight hundred kilometers northwest, a three-day bus ride.
Guru-kṛpā Swami was going with his Nāma-haṭṭa boys, and some of us
from Māyāpur, headed by Bhavānanda Mahārāja, would join them. I
really wanted to go.
4
Kumbha-melā
(January 10– January 18, 1977)
K umbha-melā, held in Allahabad every twelve years, is the world’s

largest gathering of humanity, attracting up to a hundred million
people to the confluence of the Gaṅgā, Yamunā, and Sarasvatī rivers.
To attend, we had to be immunized against cholera and other conta-
gious diseases, but my body reacted to the vaccination, and the day be-
fore our planned departure I was still running a high fever. Bhavānanda
Mahārāja did not think I should travel, but there was no way I was go-
ing to miss the opportunity to meet Śrīla Prabhupāda, and seeing my
determination, Mahārāja agreed.
The next morning, medicated with Excedrin, I joined a group of
thirty devotees as we boarded a bus in Navadvīpa, the town on the other
side of the Gaṅgā, and, led by the lively Nāma-haṭṭa devotees, we spent
the three-day ride absorbed in vibrant kīrtana, laughter, and abundant
prasāda.
Although I had a basic idea about Kumbha-melā, I decided to read
more from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books before going. Prabhupāda had
68 Ocean of Mercy
described the churning of milk ocean by the devatās (demigods) and

the dānavas (demons) that led to the festival. The devatās were cursed
by Durvāsā Muni, an extremely powerful mystic yogī, and having lost
their power, they were defeated by the dānavas and had to flee their as-
signed abode, the heavenly kingdom. They approached Lord Brahmā
with their predicament, and Brahmā, along with all the other demi-
gods, approached Lord Viṣṇu on the shore of the milk ocean and of-
fered Him prayers. The Lord appeared before them and advised them
to negotiate a truce with the demons for the purpose of churning nectar
from the milk ocean. According to His instructions, the demigods es-
tablished peace with King Bali, the king of the demons, and proposed
that they churn the milk ocean jointly to obtain the nectar, which they
would share. They decided to use Mandara Mountain, a celestial moun-
tain situated in the higher regions of the universe, as the churning rod
and requested the king of the serpents, Vāsuki, to serve as the rope. The
demigods and demons tried as hard as they could to carry the mountain,
but they could not take it very far. Being compassionate, the Lord ap-
peared on His carrier Garuḍa, placed the mountain on Garuḍa’s back,
and took it to the milk ocean. What the demigods and demons could not
accomplish even together, the Lord’s carrier, Garuḍa, did easily alone.
The demigods and demons then attempted to churn the milk ocean,
using Mandara Mountain as the churning rod and Vāsuki as the rope.
The demons positioned themselves near the mouth of the great snake,
the demigods at the tail. With great effort they began pulling Vāsuki in
both directions, but since Mandara Mountain was so heavy and was
not supported by anything, it sank into the milk ocean. The Supreme
Personality of Godhead then appeared as Lord Kūrma (the Lord in the
form of a tortoise) and supported Mandara Mountain on His back.
The first thing produced from the churning was a huge amount of
deadly poison. The Prajāpatis, the original progenitors of the universe,
realizing the poison’s danger to the entire creation, requested Lord Śiva
to drink it. Lord Śiva gathered the devastating poison in his palms and
drank it. He was not harmed, but his throat turned blue, which is how
Kumbha-Melā 69
he got the name Nīlakaṇṭha, “the blue-throated one.”

A small quantity of the poison dropped from Lord Śiva’s hands to the
ground and was imbibed by some creatures—giving rise to venomous
snakes, scorpions, toxic plants, and other poisonous things.
As a further result of that churning, a surabhi cow, the celestial horse
Uccaiḥśravā, and the magnificent elephant Airāvata appeared, as did
the Kaustubha jewel and other auspicious objects, and then Lakṣmī-
devī (the goddess of fortune) appeared and accepted Lord Viṣṇu as her
husband. Finally, Dhanvantari, an incarnation of the Lord, appeared
with a pot of nectar.
The demons immediately snatched the nectar and began to fight
amongst themselves to be the first to drink it. During their struggle
some of the nectar spilled onto four different places—Prayaga, Hari
dwar, Nasik, and Ujjain—and in these four places the nectar becomes
available every twelve years, at Kumbha-melā.
During Kumbha-melā, it is said, the water from the Gaṅgā, Yamunā,
and Sarasvatī turns to nectar, and one who bathes at their confluence at
that time becomes free from the cycle of birth and death.
Sādhus (saintly persons and spiritual practitioners) come from
throughout India and all over the world. Yogīs suspend their medita-
tions and descend from their remote caves deep in the Himalayas, and
I heard that Śrīla Prabhupāda had said that inhabitants of the other
planets also attend, hiding their identities and mingling with the crowd.
Kumbha-melā always attracts millions of people, but that year it was a
special pūrṇa-kumbha-melā, when the pot of nectar becomes completely
full, which occurs only once every 144 years.
ISKCON had acquired a piece of land at the Kumbha-melā site,
which stretched over many square miles, and erected tents for programs
and accommodations. In other areas, yogīs demonstrated their skills and
achievements. One had himself locked in a trunk and buried for several
days. His emergence unscathed created a huge sensation, but I was not
interested; my purpose for coming was to meet my spiritual master.
As soon as we arrived, I dropped my bag in our tent and ran to see
70 Ocean of Mercy
Śrīla Prabhupāda, who was staying in a large tent surrounded by corru-

gated tin fencing. When I tried to enter, however, a big-bodied Western
devotee guarding the gate stopped me and told me to return in the eve-
ning, when Śrīla Prabhupāda would give darśana (audience).
Disappointed, I headed back. But on the way I ran into Bhavānanda
Mahārāja carrying a basket of vegetables he had brought from
Māyāpur. “Come!” he said. “I’m going to see Śrīla Prabhupāda.”
Excited that I’d be able see Prabhupāda after all, I joined him. When
we got to the gate, the guard, recognizing Mahārāja, offered his obei-
sances and stepped aside. As we approached the tent, I could just barely
see Śrīla Prabhupāda inside, sitting on the floor behind a desk. The light
was dim, so I could not see clearly, but even a glimpse of Prabhupāda’s
saffron form was enough to fill my heart with joy. I had been waiting
for this moment for years and felt that I had achieved the ultimate goal
of my life. Tears sprang from my eyes as I fell flat on the ground and of-
fered my obeisances. When I rose, dazed and overwhelmed, I moved to
go inside, but Rāmeśvara Swami, Prabhupāda’s secretary, stopped me
and said that Śrīla Prabhupāda was taking his lunch and that I should
not enter.
My reverie broken, I snapped back to the reality of my surroundings,
both disappointed and regretful. Why did I offer obeisances from outside? I
chided myself. Why had I not entered with Bhavānanda Mahārāja and
bowed down inside? It would have been fine, and no one would have
stopped me.
Again I turned back to my tent with a heavy heart. I was starting to
realize that it was not so easy to get close to Śrīla Prabhupāda. He had
thousands of disciples all over the world, and many were highly qualified
and had been serving him for years. Who was I, compared to them? I
had only just joined and had hardly rendered any service. Accepting the
reality of my situation, I decided not to try to approach Prabhupāda di-
rectly; I would admire him, worship him, and serve him from a distance.
That afternoon, Śrīdhara Swami, a Canadian sannyāsī, gathered
together some devotees to go out and distribute Śrīla Prabhupāda’s
Kumbha-Melā 71
books. The festival was a great venue—we were surrounded by millions

of pilgrims, all inclined to spiritual life—and we had learned about the
potency of Prabhupāda’s books, how a person could derive spiritual
benefit just by coming in contact with them. I had experienced their ef-
fect: reading The Nectar of Devotion had awakened me to spiritual reality
and brought me into the association of the devotees and to Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda’s lotus feet.
Jayapatāka Swami had often led us out from Māyāpur to distribute
books in towns nearby, and sometimes we would go out for weeks in the
Mercedes Benz van that had been brought from Germany for that pur-
pose. A half-dozen of us would drive to nearby towns, distribute books
throughout the day, and invite people to evening programs, at which
Jayapatāka Mahārāja would give class. His Bengali was not fluent,
but people were still impressed to see a Westerner speak on Bhāgavata
philosophy.
There was only one book in Bengali—Gītār Gān, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s
poetic rendition of the Bhagavad-gītā—so in Māyāpur we were limited in
what we could distribute, but at the Kumbha-melā we also had books in
Hindi and English.
The response was amazing. Most of the pilgrims were quite poor, but
many bought books, and almost all responded favorably.
I became so absorbed distributing books that I almost forgot that
Śrīla Prabhupāda was going to give darśana in the evening. When I sud-
denly remembered and ran back to his tent, it was totally packed. There
must have been a thousand people in the tent, but I managed to squeeze
between the last row and the back wall. Just the sight of Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda filled me with incredible joy, and all I could hear was the insistent
pounding of my heart, which felt like it would burst from my chest. My
body began trembling, and tears clouded my vision. I had never felt any-
thing like it—I was totally ecstatic.
When I came back to my senses, I saw Śrīla Prabhupāda just as he
had appeared in my dream after I had been reading The Nectar of Devo-
tion; he was as brilliant as the sun, sitting on a vyāsāsana that looked like
72 Ocean of Mercy
a throne. He sat upright in a lotus position, with a flower garland around

his neck. His chin was slightly raised as he looked over the crowd—a
transcendental aristocrat, fully confident in the knowledge of Kṛṣṇa that
he was about to share.
People were asking Śrīla Prabhupāda questions, and he answered
them all in Hindi with the ease and confidence of authority. Some of
the questions were challenging and even unpleasant. One respectable-
looking middle-aged man asked, “Why are you building all these new
temples when there are so many old temples needing repair?”
Rather than answering him directly, Prabhupāda asked the man,
“Who is that lady sitting next to you?”
“She is my wife.”
“Why did you get married?”
The man paused, considering how to respond.
Prabhupāda continued, “Putrārthe kriyate bhāryā—one accepts a wife
in order to have children. But why do you want to have children when
there are so many orphan children loitering in the streets? Just as you
want to have your own children, the devotees of the Lord want to build
temples for Him, in order to show Him their love.”
The man had nothing more to say.
One young man, whose dress identified him as coming from Bharata
Sevashram Sanga—a Bengali group involved in social-welfare activi-
ties, who helped when there was a flood, famine, or earthquake—asked
Śrīla Prabhupāda what he was doing to benefit the public.
He asked his question in Bengali, but Prabhupāda answered in
Hindi, stating that true welfare activity—the real way to benefit peo-
ple—was to give them Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Providing people food and
shelter and helping them in distress were temporary fixes that would
not solve their true dilemma. The real problem, he said, would be solved
only when they developed their loving relationship with Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the
Supreme Personality of Godhead.
The man asked, “When people are in distress, shouldn’t one go to
help them?”
Kumbha-Melā 73
Śrīla Prabhupāda responded that welfare help, though good, was

temporary—all the people’s problems would remain as long as the peo-
ple remained attached to material nature. Only surrendering to Kṛṣṇa
could permanently free people from all material sufferings by freeing
them from their material bondage and elevating them to the spiritual
world, which was full of endless joy.
But the man could not understand Prabhupāda’s words of wisdom.
“I asked you the question in Bengali,” he challenged. “Why are you an-
swering in Hindi when you yourself are Bengali?”
Śrīla Prabhupāda raised his voice. “Whether Bengali or Hindi, that
doesn’t matter,” he declared. “What really matters is whether or not you
understand what I am saying.”
The man seemed devastated, and I doubted he would ever come any-
where near ISKCON again. But years later, after Prabhupāda’s dis
appearance, I actually saw him in Māyāpur; he had become a devotee.
My time at the Kumbha-melā was going wonderfully, and I was feel-

ing uplifted. Three hundred or so devotees had come from all over the
world, and I was relishing their association. One morning when I was
brushing my teeth in the washroom, a young American devotee next to
me gave me a sweet smile and asked who I was. I introduced myself and
told him that I was from Māyāpur. His name, he said gently, was Giri
rāj Dāsa; he had come from Bombay. Just from that first encounter, I
felt a deep appreciation for this kind devotee. Later, I learned that he
was the president of the Bombay temple. He had come from a wealthy
family—his father was a high-court judge in Chicago. He had met Śrīla
Prabhupāda in 1969 when he was studying at Brandeis University, near
Boston, and had joined ISKCON almost immediately and dedicated
himself to Prabhupāda’s service. He had come to India and was doing
his utmost to spread the movement, tolerating all kinds of hardships.
His father had tried to bring him back into the “fold,” but none of his
74 Ocean of Mercy
attempts, not even an offer of a million dollars, had succeeded. Due to

Girirāj Prabhu’s sincerity and dedication, he became very dear to Śrīla
Prabhupāda, and Prabhupāda treated him with great affection.
Every day, the devotees rose early to worship at maṅgala-ārati, chant
japa together, and then go to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s tent for guru-pūjā. A
devotee was leading a lively kīrtana one morning during guru-pūjā, and
the rest of us were jumping up and down in ecstasy. Then he started to
sing “Bhaja Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa,” and all of a sudden Prabhupāda
shouted to stop the kīrtana.
Everyone froze; the tent went silent. “Where did you learn this ‘Bhaja
Hare Kṛṣṇa’?” Prabhupāda roared.
The devotee was speechless with shock and embarrassment. Prabhu-
pāda continued, “The Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra must be chanted just as
it is—Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma,
Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Nothing should be added to it,
and nothing should be subtracted.”
After guru-pūjā, Śrīla Prabhupāda would give class on Śrīmad-
Bhāgavatam. He held us all in rapt attention, every word bringing new
realizations, as if spiritual reality were manifest right before our eyes.
After class we would sit over breakfast and discuss our understanding of
what we had heard. Then we would go distribute books. And in the eve-
ning we would return to Prabhupāda’s tent for his darśana. I would just
sit in the back, ecstatic, taking in the class and his presence.
On the day before one of the most auspicious days for taking bath—
when the three rivers turn to nectar—Śrīla Prabhupāda expressed his
desire to bathe in the Triveṇī. He did not want to go into the crowd,
however, so he requested the devotees to go at the most auspicious hour
and return with water so that he could bathe with it the following day.
Two devotees managed to reach the Triveṇī and return with a bucket
of water. The next morning, during Prabhupāda’s darśana, when a senior
devotee asked how his bath had been, Prabhupāda thought for a mo-
ment and then replied that it was like any bath in any water from the
tap. Even though many millions of people went to the Triveṇī during
Kumbha-Melā 75
umbha-melā to take their auspicious bath, he explained, any service

K
that anyone rendered anywhere in the world for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa
was more auspicious.
The whole atmosphere in Kumbha-melā was ecstatic, but there was
one problem. The place was so crowded and noisy, even at night, that
Śrīla Prabhupāda could not work on his Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam transla-
tion and commentary. So one morning he called his senior disciples
and told them that he had decided to leave. By that time I had accepted
that I could not be physically close to Prabhupāda, so I was not too dis
appointed. I had resolved to be content to serve him from a distance in
the mood of separation. Whatever he wanted would be all right with me;
I would keep on serving him no matter what.
After the Bhāgavatam class that day, Bhavānanda Mahārāja told me,
“Śrīla Prabhupāda is going to leave Kumbha-melā tonight.”
“Yes,” I replied, “I heard.”
But I was shocked by what he said next: “A small group of devotees
will be traveling with him, and you have been included in the team.”
I could not believe my ears. I was so excited and happy, I practically
started to dance. The thought that I would be traveling on the same train
with Śrīla Prabhupāda made me feel like the most fortunate person in
the world. All I could do was thank Mahārāja again and again.
We left that night in a first-class carriage hooked on to a train bound
for Calcutta. The entire car was for Śrīla Prabhupāda and his entou-
rage—fourteen devotees, of whom I was one. Hundreds of devotees came
to the station to see Prabhupāda off, waving and offering obeisances. I
stood at the carriage door waving back, relishing my good fortune.
Once the train started, we all took rest. The next morning, after bath-
ing, I was chanting in my compartment when Bhavānanda Mahārāja
came in and said, “Come, I’ll take you to Śrīla Prabhupāda.”
I had been dying to meet Prabhupāda ever since arriving in
Māyāpur, but now, as Mahārāja presented me with the immediate op-
portunity, I felt unqualified. I was afraid that he would look right
through me, into my heart, and see all the dirt, all the sinful activities
76 Ocean of Mercy
that I had committed. He would reject me, refuse to give me his shelter. I
had heard that there were devotees who had been waiting for years to be
initiated by him but had not yet been accepted.
Bhavānanda seemed to know exactly what I was feeling. He just
grabbed my hand, dragged me along the corridor, opened Prabhu
pāda’s door, and pushed me in. Inside, I fell flat on the floor, offering my
obeisances.
When I got up, Śrīla Prabhupāda was looking at me, smiling sweetly,
and asked me to sit next to him. On the seat facing him were Jayapatāka
Swami, Rāmeśvara Mahārāja, and Bhavānanda. Abhirāma Dāsa, the
Calcutta temple president, was sitting on the floor. I hesitated to accept
Prabhupāda’s offer, saying that I too would sit on the floor, but he in-
sisted: “No, you sit here.”
So I folded a corner of the blanket spread over the seat and sat on its
very edge. Then, after some initial exchanges, Śrīla Prabhupāda gave
me a direct instruction: “You translate my books into Bengali.”
My heart was jumping with joy, but I was uncertain. “Śrīla Prabhu
pāda,” I said, “I do not really have experience in translating from En-
glish to Bengali. Will I be able to do it properly?”
“Just do it,” he assured me. “Practice makes a man perfect.”
When I left the room, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t
dreaming. I couldn’t believe my good fortune! At our very first meeting
Śrīla Prabhupāda had given me this incredible service. I knew that he
considered the publication and distribution of his books to be of the ut-
most importance, and I had heard that because many of them had also
been presented in Bengali by our previous ācāryas, he was especially
particular about their Bengali translations. I just kept on praying to
Kṛṣṇa that I could fulfill my responsibility and execute his instructions
properly.
When we arrived at the Calcutta temple, Śrīla Prabhupāda was

Kumbha-Melā 77
78 Ocean of Mercy
impressed with the Deities’ śṛṅgāra—Their outfits and adornments.

“Who decorated Them?” he asked.
Pūrṇaprajña Dāsa, the head pūjārī (priest serving the Deities), said
that it was his wife, Nārāyaṇī Devī Dāsī. Śrīla Prabhupāda was very
pleased and quoted a verse from Śrī Gurv-aṣṭaka: śrī-vigrahārādhana-
nitya-nānā-śṛṅgāra-tan-mandira-mārjanādau—the spiritual master is al-
ways engaged in the temple worship of the Deities of Śrī Śrī Rādhā and
Kṛṣṇa. The devotees, Prabhupāda said, in order to express their love for
the Lord, decorate Him in the best possible way.
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s stay in Calcutta was extremely busy. He knew a

lot of people there, and many of them came to see him. One afternoon a
few reporters came to interview him, appreciative of his achievements
in the West. “Śrīla Prabhupāda,” said one, “what you have done is un-
precedented. Never in history has such a thing happened. Within such
a short time a spiritual movement has spread all over the world . . . Śrī
Caitanya Mahāprabhu spread this movement only throughout India,
but you have spread it all over the world.”
“No,” Prabhupāda replied. “What I have done is simply due to the
mercy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and my Guru Mahārāja. They have
actually done everything. They simply let me have the credit.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda was still meeting with several important people
near the end of the long day when the evening ārati began, and he re-
quested that they go to the temple room for worship. I left along with
the others, but then it occurred to me that although I could attend the
ārati every day, I would not always have the opportunity to be with His
Divine Grace, so I returned to his room.
As I carefully opened his door, Prabhupāda looked up and asked,
“So, what do you want?”
“Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I replied, “I just wanted to be with you.”
“Then come in.”
Kumbha-Melā 79
When I had entered and sat down, he repeated, “So, what do you
want?”
My heart was pounding. “Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I managed to say,
“will you please give me initiation? Will you please accept me as your
disciple?”
“Sure,” Prabhupāda replied. “I will give you initiation. During the
Gaura-pūrṇimā festival in Māyāpur I will give you initiation.”
With my heart dancing in gratitude and ecstasy, I offered my humble
obeisances to my eternal spiritual master.
5
With Śrīla Prabhupāda

in Māyāpur
(February 7– March 21, 1977)
O ne beautiful spring morning, when the sun was bathing the earth
in golden rays and the air was filled with the fragrance of flowers
and the cooing of cuckoo birds, Śrīla Prabhupāda arrived in Māyāpur
in his maroon Ambassador, its stainless-steel Vaiṣṇava tilaka, an aus-
picious spiritual marking, emblazoned on the hood. He had been to
Bhubaneswar to lay the cornerstone of a new temple that had been de-
veloped by Gour Govinda Swami, his sannyāsa disciple from Orissa. I
could have gone with him but decided to stay behind to complete the
printing of Bhagavāner Kathā, which I was planning as a surprise offering
to His Divine Grace.
Devotees stood on either side of the road to greet him, chanting
and dancing in jubilant anticipation. When his car appeared in the dis-
tance, the kīrtana reached a crescendo and the dancing grew wild with
ecstasy, and when it stopped in front of the temple and Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda emerged, devotees fell flat on the ground to offer obeisances. Many
broke down crying; others stood motionless, transfixed.
82 Ocean of Mercy
With chanting and dancing devotees leading the way, Prabhupāda

strode gracefully through the crowd into the temple. He had installed
the Deities—Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu—
several years earlier, in 1972, and when he reached Them he offered his
obeisances and then stood in front of the altar gazing at Their transcen-
dental beauty. He circumambulated Them three times and walked to the
other end of the temple room, settled down on his vyāsāsana as the devo
tees chanted and danced before him, and remained there with his eyes
closed, deep in meditation.
When the kīrtana stopped, Prabhupāda recited the prema-dhvanī
prayers, glorifying and offering respects to the Lord and the previous
ācāryas. Then he spoke about the goals of the Māyāpur project. His spiri
tual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, had maintained
absolute conviction in Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s prediction that the
Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement would spread throughout the world, to
every town and village. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta had showed how one could
serve Kṛṣṇa even while living in big cities and making use of motorcars
and other modern amenities. He had given Śrīla Prabhupāda the mission
to spread the movement not only in India but also throughout the world,
and Prabhupāda had carried on the mission with a broad vision, making
all kinds of arrangements to attract different kinds of people.
Śrīla Prabhupāda quoted a verse from the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu
(1.2.187):
īhā yasya harer dāsye karmaṇā manasā girā

nikhilāsv apy avasthāsu jīvan-muktaḥ sa ucyate
“A person who acts in the service of Kṛṣṇa with his body, mind, intelli-
gence, and words is a liberated person, even within the material world,
although he may be engaged in many apparently material activities.”
He pointed out that some people might feel envious upon seeing
the devotees living in palatial buildings, but that Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta
Sarasvatī Ṭhākura had said that only the devotees should live in such
With Śrīla Prabhupāda in Māyāpur 83
84 Ocean of Mercy
opulence. Just as government servants are granted special privileges,

those who serve Kṛṣṇa should be given all kinds of facilities. Also, the
Europeans and Americans who were coming to India to preach Kṛṣṇa
consciousness were not accustomed to the hardships of Indian condi-
tions. In Māyāpur he was establishing facilities for their stay.
Through ISKCON, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, he was combining West-
ern brains and money with Indian spiritual culture. He gave the exam-
ple of a lame man and a blind man. Alone, each is severely limited. But
if the blind man takes the lame man onto his shoulders, then the combi-
nation of the blind man’s strong legs and the lame man’s good vision will
enable them to achieve so much more. America, he said, was spiritually
blind, while India was materially lame. But together they could spread
Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the world.
Every morning Śrīla Prabhupāda would come down to the temple, have
darśana of the Deities after offering his obeisances, circumambulate
Them three times, and then lecture on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. On the an-
niversary of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura’s appearance, he
spoke about his divine spiritual master. Although I had already heard
and read about him, to hear about his pastimes from Prabhupāda was an
astounding experience.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta had been exceptionally brilliant—one of the
greatest scholars of his time. His illustrious father, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda
Ṭhākura, had trained him from childhood as a devotee, and even when
he was young he assisted his father in his preaching mission, to which he
remained committed for the rest of his life. Although Śrīla Bhaktivinoda
had revived the mission and teachings of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, he
had not been able to spread it extensively, but Bhaktisiddhānta had es-
tablished sixty-four temples throughout India and attracted important
and educated people.
Śrīla Prabhupāda explained that a pure devotee of the Lord is not in-
terested in his personal benefit; he is concerned only about the real wel-
fare of others. He dedicates himself completely to guiding others on the
spiritual path, without caring for his own liberation. He is, therefore, the
most munificent and the greatest philanthropist. Spiritual personalities
like Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī
Ṭhākura were not from this world. Like the Lord Himself, they came
from the spiritual realm to benefit the suffering conditioned souls, and
when their missions were complete, they returned. But, Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda stated, he was never separated from his spiritual master.
I was reminded of an incident that had been related to me by a se-
nior devotee. When Śrīla Prabhupāda had returned to India from the
West and had come to Māyāpur to see the land that had been procured
to build the temple, he had not stopped at the samādhi (tomb) of his
spiritual master on the way, and some of his godbrothers had criticized
him for that. When Śrīla Prabhupāda had heard of their disapproval, he
responded, “Do they think that I am ever separated from my spiritual
master? No, he is always with me and I am always with him. I am not
separated from him even for a moment.”
My service of translating Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books into Bengali gave

me easy and regular access to him. When he came to Māyāpur, however,
I was busy helping build the Long Building and completing the printing
of Bhagavāner Kathā, so I saw him only in the evenings, when he gave
darśana sitting on a bench in front of the Lotus Building.
I had to go to the printers in Calcutta one day, and when I returned
the next morning I was told that Prabhupāda had asked about me. I was
excited to hear that he had noticed my absence, and I ran to his room
and asked him whether there was anything he wanted me to do. When
he asked where I had gone, I broke the news that I had collected his
early writings from Gauḍīya Patrikā and, under the guidance of Jaya
patāka Mahārāja and Pañcaratna Prabhu, was printing them as a book.
86 Ocean of Mercy
Śrīla Prabhupāda was clearly pleased and asked how I had found
the articles. I explained that during one of my visits to the Devānanda
Gauḍīya Maṭha I had found them in the Gauḍīya Patrikā, which I had
discovered he had edited. Prabhupāda smiled in acknowledgement and
asked when the book would be ready. I told him that I had wanted to
offer it to him when he had returned from Bhubaneswar but that the
printer had taken too long. “Yes,” he said, “in India everything takes a
long time. It is so difficult to do anything here.”
Then, for some reason, it occurred to me that when I went to Calcutta
I sometimes visited the sweetshops. “Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I began, “it is
stated in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta that if one cannot control his tongue, he
cannot get Kṛṣṇa. I find it so difficult to control my tongue.”
“Take kṛṣṇa-prasāda,” he replied. “Kṛṣṇa has made a very nice ar-
rangement to control one’s tongue— kṛṣṇa baro doyāmoy, koribāre jihwā
jay, swa-prasād-anna dilo bhāi. In order to conquer our tongue, Kṛṣṇa has
given His prasāda. So that is the way to control your tongue.”
“Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I confessed, “when I go to Calcutta, sometimes I
go to the sweetshops and eat sweets.”
To my utter amazement, he said, “That is also kṛṣṇa-prasāda. Kṛṣṇa
very mercifully gave us all these foodstuffs. He has given us everything
we need, and we simply have to accept it all as His mercy—His prasāda.”
Later, when I related the incident to a senior devotee, he advised me
that although Prabhupāda had mercifully given such a broad vision, I
should not take undue advantage of it.
One afternoon Śrīla Prabhupāda called me to his room, gave me a
stack of Bengali letters, and asked me to reply to them. I read them out
to him, and he told me what points to make in response. There was no
Bengali typewriter at that time, so I handwrote the drafts, brought them
to Prabhupāda, and read them aloud to him. He made corrections, and
then I wrote out the replies on his letterhead and took them for him to
sign.
When all the Bengali letters had been answered, Prabhupāda asked
me whether I knew how to write in Hindi. I said that I could but that my
Hindi handwriting was not very nice. He just smiled and said, “Actually,
nobody’s Hindi handwriting is nice.” And then he told me a joke: “Once,
a man received a letter from his friend in Hindi, and he wrote back to
him saying that the next time he wrote to him he should send him the
train fare to go see him. When his friend asked why, the man wrote back
saying that in order to understand what his friend had written, he would
have to go see him. Only he could decipher what he had written.”
We both laughed, and Śrīla Prabhupāda gave me a stack of Hindi let-
ters. His joke had given me a little confidence, and thereafter I replied to
his letters in Hindi as well as Bengali.
On another day, I went to Prabhupāda with a stack of letters when
he was on the roof, receiving his morning massage. I read out each let-
ter and took notes on how to reply. Then I remained while his personal
servant, Hari Śauri Dāsa, gave him his massage. I wanted to be near
Prabhupāda as long as I could. Seeing that I was not leaving, Śrīla
Prabhupāda spoke to me: “Just offer this life to Kṛṣṇa. For many, many
lifetimes you have been trying to enjoy, but you can see that you are still
not satisfied. Just offer this life to Kṛṣṇa, and don’t get involved with
any woman. This attraction for women is an arrangement of Māyā [the
Lord’s illusory energy] to keep the living entities tied down to the ma
terial nature. Therefore the material nature is called maithunya-āgāra—a
prison-house of sex desire. In this material nature, everyone is attracted
to the opposite sex, and that is the chain with which one is tied down to
this prison house.
“But what is this sex desire? It is like an itch. One thinks that by
scratching that itch he will get pleasure. But the more he scratches, the
more it itches, and eventually it starts to bleed and hurts him. But they
are so foolish that they consider it to be the greatest enjoyment. A camel
eats thorns, and his tongue and palate gets cut and starts to bleed. The
camel tastes its own blood but thinks that the thorns are so delicious.
Through this act of sex, a man loses the very essence of his body, his se-
men, and he thinks, ‘Oh, how delightful this act is!’
“He becomes prepared to even sacrifice his life for that momentary
88 Ocean of Mercy
pleasure. That is Māyā’s trick. With this sex desire, Māyā is tying the
living entities down to this material nature. Therefore, one who wants
to become free from the bondage of this material existence must become
free from sex desire.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda spoke for quite a while, urging me to surrender to
Kṛṣṇa. Finally he told me, “Just offer this life to Kṛṣṇa and see what
happens. Even if nothing happens, what is the loss? After all, it is just
one life out of so many.”
In my mind, I vowed, Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda, I am offering myself to you. I
know that if I do that I will achieve the ultimate perfection of my existence.
One morning I saw a bright-looking personality walking with

Bhavānanda Mahārāja. There was something striking about this devo-
tee; I just could not keep my eyes off him. Tīrthapāda, who was standing
next to me, said that it was Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Goswami. “He is one of the
most prominent leaders of our movement.”
I had heard about Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja; he was a hero of
ISKCON. He had joined in San Francisco when the movement was
in its infancy and almost right away assumed a leadership role. Since
then, Śrīla Prabhupāda had called on him to lead his most important
projects. When the movement was growing on America’s West Coast,
Prabhupāda appointed him president of the Los Angeles temple. When
ISKCON spread to England and George Harrison became involved,
Prabhupāda sent him there. When Kṛṣṇa consciousness was gaining
a foothold in India, Prabhupāda made him the Governing Body Com-
missioner (GBC) there. And when Prabhupāda experienced diffi-
culties in getting land in Māyāpur, it was Tamāl Kṛṣṇa who overcame
the obstacles and acquired the land. Then he organized the greatest
book-distribution and devotee-making program in ISKCON—the
Rādhā-Dāmodara Traveling Saṅkīrtana Party, which was distributing
thousands of books and making hundreds of devotees.
90 Ocean of Mercy
Just the sight of Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja filled me with awe and rev-
erence. I offered my obeisances from a distance. In the afternoon, when
I was with Śrīla Prabhupāda in his room, Mahārāja walked in, and
Prabhupāda’s face lit up with a bright smile. Right away, they began to
talk intimately. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa told Prabhupāda that he had relinquished
all his managerial responsibilities in order to be with His Divine Grace
and serve him. Śrīla Prabhupāda was very pleased to hear that.
Then they talked about the deprogramming issue in America. The
affluent parents of some devotees were hiring thugs to forcibly abduct
their sons and daughters from ISKCON. The abductions were being
contested in American courts, but the judgments so far had supported
the deprogrammers and parents.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was extremely concerned and wanted to hear
about the situation in detail. Mahārāja told him that Ādi-keśava Swami
was handling an important case in New York and asked whether he
should call for him—he was currently in Māyāpur.
Prabhupāda sent me to get Ādi-keśava Swami from his room, just a
floor above. Mahārāja was only in his early twenties, but he was already
a sannyāsī and a GBC, the youngest in ISKCON. His thin stature could
initially give an image of weakness, but his upright demeanor, bright
smile, and vibrant speech all served to correct that mistaken impression.
He had joined the movement when he was only seventeen, but due to his
abilities and achievements he had risen to ISKCON’s highest ranks.
When I returned with Ādi-keśava Swami to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s
room, several senior devotees were already there. After offering obei-
sances, Mahārāja told Śrīla Prabhupāda about the case. Prabhupāda
became angry, his tone assertive. He suggested that we should take it as
an opportunity to tell everyone about the purpose of our mission.
In the early days in India, I remembered, Śrīla Prabhupāda had
taken advantage of every opportunity to speak or write about Kṛṣṇa
consciousness. Now, using the allegations of brainwashing, he pointed
out that the purpose of human intelligence was to understand the differ-
ence between dead and living matter. He went so far as to say that prior
92 Ocean of Mercy
to joining the movement the devotees had not been utilizing their intelli-
gence—it was as if they did not actually have any brains—so there was
no question of brainwashing. He was not washing their brains but giving
them brains.
Ādi-keśava reported that the deprogrammers had formed a group
called Return to Personal Choice. Prabhupāda retorted, “They are kid-
napping them, torturing them, and forcing them to change their intelli-
gent choice, and they call it ‘personal choice’?”
Mahārāja showed Prabhupāda a picture of the deprogrammers re-
turning someone to their so-called personal choice—the mother, father,
and kidnappers dragging the devotee. They called it “rescuing.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda wondered aloud how such an act of force could be
accepted by anyone as a personal choice. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja clarified
that the US government considered that parents had the right to dictate
the choices of their offspring, irrespective of age, the decisive criterion be-
ing whether their son or daughter had lost his or her mental capacity.
When Prabhupāda inquired about the legality of such actions, Ādi-
keśava explained that American law contained a provision called con-
servatorship. Anyone who was determined to be of unsound mind or
body, or to be addicted to drugs, or to have been fooled or bewildered
by deceptive means, could be put under conservatorship. Someone
else could be given charge of the person’s affairs, and he or she could
be committed to a mental hospital, where the “deprogramming” would
take place. New laws were being passed to further reinforce the process.
There was already one state law that permitted anyone—not just the
parents or the family members—to take this kind of control.
Mahārāja presented a report that had been prepared by members
of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). They had held a huge
conference in New York, presenting a report on deprogramming—per-
sonal accounts describing how people had been kidnapped, imprisoned,
beaten, tortured, and starved to force them to go back to their old lives.
The report mentioned that the deprogrammers had a manual, a do-it-
yourself deprogramming book, detailing how to abduct someone and
make the person give up his or her newly acquired faith.

The ACLU protested that the deprogrammers were doing exactly
what they were accusing the devotees of doing. They were accusing
the devotees of following their guru blindly, but they were themselves
following a guru, Ted Patrick, the deprogramming leader, without dis-
crimination. Patrick was a criminal and ex-convict who had just recently
been re-imprisoned after a new conviction; his followers were continu-
ing his nefarious activities in his absence.
Mahārāja said that unlike the US, Canada had taken a strong posi-
tion against the deprogrammers and was giving ISKCON favorable
media coverage. One devotee from Boston had recently sought political
asylum there after being harassed by deprogrammers, and Canadian au-
thorities were refusing to extradite devotees to the US. They had even
passed a law in Parliament banning deprogrammers from Canada.
“In New York,” Mahārāja explained, “a girl named Mūrtivandyā was
abducted. The deprogrammers pulled up in a van, dragged her off the
street, and drove away. When we filed kidnapping charges, they turned
around and filed kidnapping charges against me, saying that we were the
kidnappers. Even though they had made a statement confessing that they
had abducted her bodily off the street and she said ‘I have been kidnapped,’
they said, ‘No, you don’t know what you really want. You don’t really
want to be a Hare Kṛṣṇa. So you’re really being kidnapped by the Hare
Kṛṣṇas.’”
Ted Patrick and his followers target others besides the devotees, but
they admitted that the devotees were the hardest to deprogram. On a
TV show with Ādi-keśava Swami and a new devotee, Vasu-gopāla,
Patrick turned to Vasu-gopāla and said, “I could deprogram him very
easily,” and indeed, Vasu-gopāla would later become a victim of the
process. But Patrick then had turned to Ādi-keśava and said, “But this
one—he’s already ruined. I couldn’t break him.” They believed that once
you had been a devotee for four or more years, your brain was finished
and you couldn’t be deprogrammed.
The ACLU report contained a list of all the devotees who had been
94 Ocean of Mercy
deprogrammed. About two thirds had returned to the movement—more

than from any other group. Only brand-new devotees had actually left.
Devotees who had been in the movement for more than a year or two
eventually found their way back.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja described how after being deprogrammed
and living in the material world, the person would again meet devo-
tees, who would be out distributing books. After meeting the devotees,
getting a book, and seeing a picture of Kṛṣṇa, he or she would start to
remember his or her life in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and would again be at-
tracted and return to the temple.
This was exactly the case with Vasu-gopāla, who had been depro-
grammed but then had come back. Ādi-keśava told how Vasu-gopāla
had taken a look at the Kṛṣṇa book and said, “Take me to the temple. I
should be selling the books, not buying them.” And he had immediately
re-joined.
Vasu-gopāla had been subjected to terrible abuse by the deprogram-
mers; his case was described in Patrick’s book, Let Our Children Go. One
chapter dealt with the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, and Vasu-gopāla in par-
ticular. Patrick openly admitting how terribly he’d had to torture and
abuse him to get him deprogrammed.
“When he was being held in his house,” Ādi-keśava related, “he man-
aged to get to the phone and call me. So we went there with some of
the brahmacārīs from the temple and started breaking the windows and
banging on the doors. As Vasu-gopāla was trying to come to us, his
brothers and relatives grabbed him and threw him against a wall. They
locked him in a room and beat him ruthlessly. Ted Patrick wrote in his
book that there were twenty-five of us, but actually we were only five.
Finally, they all came out and started to fight with us. They usually have
the family members do the fighting, but this Ted Patrick came at me
with a straight razor.”
So far, the courts had supported the deprogrammers, claiming that
the abuse had been inflicted in the best interests of the victim. Since the
government considered the conflict a family dispute, any interference
from outside parties, including the devotees, whom the person had cho-
sen to join, was deemed inappropriate.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja gave the example of an incident in Texas,
when a father had killed his own son in his sleep but was acquitted of
murder. The court had expressed its approval for the father’s actions in
view of his assumption that his son had gone astray. Typically, devotees’
parents and relatives were involved in their abuse, from the initial kid-
napping right through the torture sessions.
“If the devotee hits his parents,” Ādi-keśava continued, “they say,
‘Just see how crazy he has become!’” In defending himself against his
attackers, Vasu-gopāla had hit his mother and run out, shouting the
name of Nṛsiṁhadeva. But he had been held back by his family mem-
bers and could not escape. They had locked him in a bathroom for thirty
hours, but because he had tried to fight back, they had said, “Just see
how crazy he has become; he hit his own mother,” and the judge had
agreed with them.
After hearing all the details, Śrīla Prabhupāda declared that we
should not succumb to the pressure; we should fight—prove in open
court that we were not brainwashing young devotees but giving them
brains, real intelligence, through a perfect understanding of absolute
reality and ultimate wisdom. The US government’s and courts’ oppo-
sition might seem like a stumbling block, but eventually it would be-
come a steppingstone. As long as we knew we were serving Kṛṣṇa, the
all-powerful Supreme Personality of Godhead, we had nothing to fear.
At the end of the day victory was bound to be ours.
Everyone in the room nodded with grave determination, and I could
see that under Śrīla Prabhupāda’s command they were ready to fight.
Śrīla Prabhupāda also illuminated everything from the scriptural
point of view: “He who cannot free his children from the cycle of birth
and death is not a father—
gurur na sa syāt sva-jano na sa syāt

pitā na sa syāj jananī na sā syāt
96 Ocean of Mercy
daivaṁ na tat syān na patiś ca sa syān

na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum
“One who cannot deliver his dependents from the path of repeated birth
and death should never become a spiritual master, a relative, a father,
a husband, a mother, or a worshipable demigod.” (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
5.5.18)
With the Gaura-pūrṇimā festival approaching, devotees were coming to

Māyāpur from all over the world. Three hundred and fifty had arrived
from the US on the first Boeing 747 flight to Calcutta. Śrīla Prabhupāda
had expressed concern to Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja that the fog and over-
cast skies might pose a danger for the plane’s landing, but the weather
had cleared up, the airport authorities had extended the runway to make
room for the Jumbo Jet, and the 747 landed without incident.
Rāmeśvara Swami, who was on the flight and had come directly to see
Śrīla Prabhupāda, said how wonderful it had been to fly over on a plane
full of devotees. Hridayānanda Goswami and Pañcadraviḍa Swami had
gone to the cockpit and spoken with the pilot, who was, as this was the
first 747 flight to Calcutta, the most senior pilot of Air India and the
chief of the Indian Pilots Association. He had been extremely receptive,
Rāmeśvara said, and they had preached to him for several hours.
Even though the devotees had landed before dawn, a grand celebration
had greeted them on their arrival. A hundred dignitaries from the airlines,
TV, and radio, including the general manager of Air India and his senior
officers, had come to welcome them. The press took many pictures and in-
terviewed some of the senior devotees, including Rāmeśvara Swami, who
told them that he did not think Air India alone could bring a planeload of
people to West Bengal; it was due to Lord Caitanya’s mercy that people
were coming from all over the world. Some of the reporters acknowledged
that credit for the trip’s success actually belonged to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
The arrival of so many devotees from around the world created an

uplifting, festive atmosphere. One young brahmacārī stood out. He
was thin, with glasses that made him look intellectual, and had a spon-
taneous, bright smile. He had a humble demeanor but was also clearly
a leader among the devotees. I came to learn that this was Jayādvaita
Dāsa, a scholar assigned to edit Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books.
One day I saw Jayādvaita squatting on the staircase at the edge of
the pond, watching the fish in the water. “Hare Kṛṣṇa!” he greeted me
with his characteristic smile. “Did you come here to speak to me?”
“Yes,” I replied, “I was wondering what you were doing.”
“Trying to study the fish’s psychology,” he said, which made me
laugh. “They are living in their own world and don’t have any idea that
I’m watching them”.
“Maybe that’s how the demigods look at us while we are not aware of
them,” I suggested.
“And Kṛṣṇa is watching the demigods while they are not aware of
Him,” he said.
“Is that really true?”
“Yes, they are not actually Kṛṣṇa conscious.”
Brahmānanda Swami was serving as Śrīla Prabhupāda’s secretary. He

was a big, tall man but had a very soft and tender disposition, and I de-
veloped a spontaneous appreciation for him. His brother, Gargamuni
Dāsa, was also a leading devotee in the movement. Brahmānanda, who
was elder, had joined in New York, and Gargamuni had followed him.
Śrīla Prabhupāda had appointed both of them as Governing Body Com-
missioners. While Gargamuni was serving in India, Brahmānanda was
involved mainly in Africa.
Although the two were brothers, their natures were quite different.
Gargamuni was hard as nails. He was such an expert fundraiser that
Śrīla Prabhupāda jokingly called him “Garga-money.” Brahmānanda
98 Ocean of Mercy
was less money conscious and more inclined toward developing friendly
relationships. Before meeting Śrīla Prabhupāda, he had been a remedial
reading teacher in New York, but like many other young people during
that time, he had been attracted to the American counterculture and
planned to go to India.
One day while passing the first Kṛṣṇa temple, at 26 Second Ave-
nue, on New York’s Lower East Side, he had seen a poster announcing
Bhagavad-gītā classes by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. He had wanted to
meet Śrīla Prabhupāda, which in those early days was not so difficult—
Prabhupāda was eager to meet young Americans and preach to them.
When Brahmānanda met Śrīla Prabhupāda, he proudly told him
that he had also read the Bhagavad-gītā and pulled out a copy from his
coat pocket. Prabhupāda smiled, as if quite impressed, and asked him
to open the book and read aloud. After about a page, Prabhupāda asked
him to close the book, which he did. Then Prabhupāda said, “Now you
tell me what you understood.” Suddenly, Brahmānanda realized that he
had not understood anything, and he admitted that to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda told him that just reading the book was not enough; one
needed a teacher to explain the contents. Just that one encounter with
Śrīla Prabhupāda had convinced Brahmānanda, and he had immedi-
ately committed himself to the Swami’s mission.
Three days before Gaura-pūrṇimā, Brahmānanda Mahārāja told me

that Prabhupāda had decided to give me first and second initiation
(harināma and brāhmaṇa initiation) together. “Boy, you are fortunate!” he
said. “I don’t think anyone has received such mercy.”
The news came as both a big surprise and a great delight. Śrīla
Prabhupāda generally gave the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra as the first
initiation and then after at least a year gave the Gāyatrī mantra—sec-
ond initiation—to deserving candidates. I knew devotees who had been
in the movement for many years and still not received second initia-
tion, and I felt deep gratitude toward Śrīla Prabhupāda for bestowing
such mercy upon me. I also felt thankful to Brahmānanda Mahārāja,
and when I offered him my obeisances, he embraced me affectionately.
When I asked what I needed to do to prepare myself for the initiation, he
smiled and said, “Just get shaved and be ready to receive the mercy.”
The initiation took place on the morning of Gaura-pūrṇimā. More
than a hundred devotees sat around the sacrificial fire. Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda did not come down to the temple room, but a few sannyāsīs sat on
a dais, called the candidates one by one, and heard our vows to follow
the four regulative principles of not eating meat, taking intoxication,
indulging in illicit sex, or gambling. We also promised to chant sixteen
rounds of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra on beads every day. One of the
sannyāsīs, on behalf of Śrīla Prabhupāda, would then give the candidate
a string of chanting beads and announce his spiritual name, which Śrīla
Prabhupāda had chosen.
Each name was met with loud applause and the beating of mṛdaṅgas.
When my turn came, Acyutānanda Swami presided over my vows and
announced my name—Kṣīra-cora-gopīnātha Dāsa. The name indicated
that I was the servant of Lord Gopīnātha, who stole kṣīra, condensed
milk, for His devotee Mādhavendra Purī.
The Deity of Gopīnātha was in Remuṇā, Orissa. Mādhavendra Purī,
the great devotee who had unearthed the Deity of Gopāla in Vṛndāvana
and installed Him on top of Govardhana Hill, had been told by Śrī
Gopāla that because the heat of the summer was causing Him great dis-
comfort, He wanted Mādhavendra to get some sandalwood and cam-
phor and apply them to His body to keep Him cool.
Mādhavendra Purī went to Orissa and begged those valuable arti-
cles from the king. On the way, he stopped at Remuṇā to have darśana
of Gopīnātha. In the temple, Mādhavendra Purī recalled that the kṣīra
the temple priests offered to Gopīnātha was famous for its flavor, and he
considered that if he could taste it he would be able to prepare it for his
Gopāla as well. Right after the thought flashed across his mind, however,
he realized that he had desired to taste the kṣīra even before it had been
100 Ocean of Mercy
offered to Lord Gopīnātha. He felt extremely guilty, and he left the tem-
ple and retired for the night in a deserted village marketplace nearby.
When Gopīnātha’s pūjārī took rest that night, he had a dream that
Gopīnātha was telling him to go to that marketplace and give Mādha
vendra Purī some kṣīra. The pūjārī told Gopīnātha that all the kṣīra had
already been distributed, but Gopīnātha said that He had kept aside a
pot of kṣīra underneath His dhotī. So the pūjārī bathed and went to the
temple, and there, to his utter amazement, he found the pot of kṣīra
behind Gopīnātha’s dhotī. From then on, Gopīnātha of Remuṇā was
known as Kṣīra-corā-gopīnātha.
I was very happy to have the name. It sounded like celestial music to
my ears, and I was filled with gratitude that Śrīla Prabhupāda had so
mercifully made me a servant of Śrī Śrī Kṣīra-corā-gopīnātha.
During the fire sacrifice, as I was offering grains to the fire and
chanting “Svāhā,” I felt that I was offering Kṛṣṇa everything I possessed.
But then it occurred to me that I did not really possess anything. All I
had, all that was worthwhile to offer, was my self. So that was what I
offered. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s voice echoed in my head—“For many, many
lifetimes you are trying to enjoy, but you can see that you are still not
satisfied. Just offer this life to Kṛṣṇa.”
After initiation, I had to attend to Śrīla Prabhupāda, so I did not have
a chance to go out and collect guru-dakṣiṇā, the monetary gift for one’s
guru after initiation. In the evening, when the newly initiated devotees
came to his room and each offered his guru-dakṣiṇā, I regretted that I had
not collected anything for him.
When everyone left, I was alone with Prabhupāda, my heart filled
with remorse. “Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I said to him, “you gave me dīkṣā, but
I did not offer you any guru-dakṣiṇā.”
“You offered yourself; that is the best guru-dakṣiṇā,” he assured me.
I offered my obeisances and said, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, I am offering
myself to you completely. Please accept me and utilize me in whatever
way you want.”
One morning after I had taken dictation from Śrīla Prabhupāda and had
him sign the completed letters, he told me, “I am appointing you as my
secretary for Indian affairs.” I was surprised, to say the least. I had been
told that Prabhupāda appointed only his most intimate and efficient
associates as his secretaries, but I was just a new devotee and he was
giving me the most important assignment in his service. I felt both in-
credible joy and overwhelming gratitude.
Śrīla Prabhupāda called Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, told him about
the new appointment, and suggested that I move into the secretary’s
room, where Mahārāja was staying. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa put an affection-
ate hand on my shoulder, said, “Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” and took me
to the room, two doors down. The room next to Prabhupāda’s was to
have been his secretary’s room, but the typewriter had made too much
noise, so Prabhupāda had suggested that his servant move in and his
secretary take the room next door. There were two beds. Mahārāja said
I could use the one at the far end of the room and told me to fetch my
belongings.
When I informed my dear friend and roommate, Tīrthapāda, he was
at first silent. Then he told me that he had always felt that I was very
special, and he embraced me and thanked me for my association as his
roommate. I could see that he was feeling bad, and I knew that I too
would miss our time together.
It was quite an experience to be so close to Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja.
Although we were sharing a room, I still held him in great reverence.
In fact, he commanded this kind of respect from practically everyone in
ISKCON. But he treated me with warmth and affection. I would bow
down to him, and he would embrace me. He had been my hero even be-
fore I had met him, and this closeness was like a dream—one that I had
never imagined would come true.
Mahārāja got up very early each morning, but he refrained from
switching on the light, so as not to disturb me. When he was in the
102 Ocean of Mercy
bathroom, however, he would play tapes of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s lectures,

and that would inevitably wake me up. I would just lie in bed listening to
Prabhupāda’s transcendental voice until Mahārāja was done, at which
time I would rise and get ready for the day.
Mahārāja was extremely regulated and organized—waking up ev-
ery day at 3:00, bathing, and then chanting his rounds. He would fin-
ish all his rounds and be ready to serve Śrīla Prabhupāda by dawn. He
organized me also, insisting that I have a specific time for translating,
replying to Prabhupāda’s letters, and attending to His Divine Grace by
just being around him in case he needed anything—making sure that I
always had enough time to work on translating Prabhupāda’s Bhagavad-
gītā into Bengali.
Rooming with Mahārāja was one of my most memorable experiences
in ISKCON. He always treated me lovingly, and he trained me expertly
to serve Śrīla Prabhupāda at the highest standard I could manage. In
his presence I was constantly learning new and important things about
Kṛṣṇa consciousness and serving Śrīla Prabhupāda. Because of his se-
niority, I wanted to serve him too, but he always refused. Whenever I
tried to serve him prasāda, he would insist on me taking prasāda with him.
If a devotee serving him made a mistake, he would get upset and chas-
tise him, but he never chastised me.
When I related my experience to Bhavānanda Mahārāja, he com-
mented with a smile, “You are fortunate. Tamāl is known for his temper.
That’s why he’s called Hot Tamale. Anyway, I can see that he has accepted
you as his man. That is Tamāl. When he likes somebody, he’ll do anything
for him. And you are one of those fortunate souls who has won his favor.”
I was delighted to hear this and told him, “You are also one of those
fortunate souls. I notice what a deep friendship you have with him.”
Mahārāja smiled and said, “Yes, that’s true. We developed a deep
friendship from the first time we met. He is a real person with a golden
heart. That’s why Śrīla Prabhupāda loves him so much.”
Later, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja told me that he had grown up in Har-
lem, a rough neighborhood in New York City, where he had often had
to confront the local gangs, and that this upbringing had forced him to
become tough. But I also saw how tender and loving a person he was,
and the way he served Śrīla Prabhupāda was an incredible example. I
could see how much confidence Prabhupāda had in him and how much
he depended upon him.
Hari Śauri Prabhu had also come from a rough environment. My
first impression of him was that he was somewhat reserved and not so
friendly. Although we used to see each other frequently, I did not try
to communicate with him beyond cordial smiles. Eventually, however,
I came to see that he was just fixed in his service to Prabhupāda and did
not speak much unless there was a need, and as I became more involved
in serving Prabhupāda, we started to communicate more freely.
Around that time, the sannyāsī GBC of Australia was having difficul-
ties and left the movement. There was a need for someone to take up
that responsibility, and I was told that Śrīla Prabhupāda was consider-
ing appointing Hari Śauri. If he did, someone would have to take over
his position as Prabhupāda’s personal servant. Hari Śauri suggested
that it might be me, but I was waiting for Śrīla Prabhupāda to make the
decision. I also knew that one of his personal servant’s most important
services was to massage him, and I was not good at that. It needed some-
one strong, like Hari Śauri.
One morning Hari Śauri asked me if I knew how to cook. Not think-
ing much about it, I replied that yes, I did. The next thing I knew, he
had reported my ability to Śrīla Prabhupāda, and soon afterwards he
told me that Prabhupāda wanted me to cook for him. But although I had
told Hari Śauri that I knew how to cook, I didn’t think I was really good
enough to cook for Prabhupāda. When I was in Germany, I had cooked
once in a while, but I knew that one had to be an expert, which I was not.
I was stuck, totally perplexed; I did not know what to do. Then I had
an idea. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s sister, Pisimā, was there, and I had heard
that she was one of the best cooks in the world and that she loved to
cook for her brother. So I went to Pisimā and told her the situation.
She assured me that I should not worry and straight away went to the
104 Ocean of Mercy
kitchen and started to cook. I just stood there watching; she did not let
me touch a single thing. When it was time to serve, she prepared the
plate, and it looked really gorgeous, with many expertly cooked prepa-
rations. I happily took it to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda took one look at the plate and asked me who had
cooked. From the tone of his voice, I could tell that he was not happy.
“Pisimā, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I replied.
“Did I ask you to cook or Pisimā to cook?” he asked. Then he told me
to take the plate away.
Trembling with fear and laden with guilt, I appealed to him, “Please,
Śrīla Prabhupāda—I made a mistake. I’ll never do it again.” And I just
stood there, wanting nothing else than to fall at his feet and beg for for-
giveness, though I did not dare. He eventually became pacified, but I
had lost a golden opportunity.
Still, I continued to serve Prabhupāda, and he was pleased with how
I was replying to his letters. I was translating every day and reading the
translation aloud to him, and he would make any corrections. The cook-
ing incident, however, still weighed on my mind. I had come so close to
getting that wonderful service but had missed it due to my immaturity. I
resolved that I would learn to cook so that if the opportunity ever again
presented itself, I would not fail.
One evening I was in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s quarters chanting while he was

in his bedroom. I was chanting quite loudly, as if Prabhupāda would be
pleased to hear me. After a little while, however, he called me in and told
me, “Don’t chant so loudly.” I felt guilty and embarrassed, and from then
on, whenever I was near Prabhupāda I would chant very, very softly.
A few days later, sitting alone in front of Prabhupāda while he was
leaning on his bolster and chanting on his beads, I asked, “Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda, can I learn Sanskrit?”
He sat up straight and asked, “Why do you want to learn Sanskrit?”
I thought for a moment and said, “In order to understand the scrip-
tures properly, to get closer to Vedic culture and—”
Prabhupāda cut me short. “There is no use,” he said. “Our business is
not to become a paṇḍita. Our business is to become a devotee. Our busi-
ness is to serve Kṛṣṇa. There are so many Sanskrit scholars, but what
are they doing? Are they promoting Vedic culture and wisdom of the
Vedas? No. They are not doing anything useful. What is really needed is
to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And to do that you don’t need to learn
Sanskrit. You don’t need to learn anything besides who Kṛṣṇa is and
what is your relationship with Him.” Then he added, “Just read my
books and you will learn Sanskrit.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s health had been bad for months, since he had re-
turned to India, and now it was deteriorating rapidly. He stopped going
out for his usual morning walks, and he needed help just going to the
toilet. In Māyāpur his quarters did not have an attached bath; it was at
the end of the block of rooms. Even using his cane, he needed whoever
was attending him to support him by reaching around his waist with one
hand and holding his left shoulder with the other.
But although his health was bad, he did not want to take any treat-
ment. He did not like allopathic medicine, and he felt that Āyurvedic
treatment did not work, because the herbs had lost their potency and
the doctors were quacks. Still, when Abhirāma Prabhu arranged for a
famous Āyurvedic doctor, Dr. Vimalananda Tarkatirtha, to come to
Māyāpur to treat him, he agreed.
Dr. Tarkatirtha was an old man, perhaps in his late eighties, and
semi-blind. Although the doctor had brought his servant with him, Śrīla
Prabhupāda wanted me to take care of him as well. Tarkatirtha, he told
me, had been a great Āyurvedic doctor in his time—maybe the best in
Calcutta—but had entered into politics and become a member of the
West Bengal legislative assembly, effectively ending his career.
106 Ocean of Mercy
Dr. Tarkatirtha was pleasant but somewhat reserved. From his ap-
pearance and composure, one could tell that he had come from an aris-
tocratic background. I brought him to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s room every
morning and evening, and he would examine Prabhupāda intently, feel
his pulse, and then prescribe medicine.
It was hard to tell how seriously Śrīla Prabhupāda took Dr. Tarka
tirtha or his treatment, but the two had long, intimate talks. Dr. Tarka
tirtha was a few years older than Prabhupāda, but they were from the
same city and had known each other when they were younger. I could
see how they were enjoying each other’s association.
One evening after his treatment, Śrīla Prabhupāda was speaking to
Dr. Tarkatirtha about the condition of Kali-yuga, our current age—how
everything would deteriorate—and he asked me to get the Twelfth Canto
of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam from his desk. The Twelfth Canto had not yet been
translated, so Prabhupāda wanted me to get the Sanskrit version. When
I fetched it, he asked me to turn to the second chapter and read aloud.
So I started to read the Sanskrit verses, and he gave the translation and
affirmed the accuracy of the statements—how in the Age of Kali the rela-
tionships between men and women would be based solely on sex. Fami
lies would be reduced to just the husband and wife, and no one would
take care of their elder family members. Married sons would leave their
parents and move away, and even the relationship between husband and
wife would last for only a short while. Marriages would be based on sex-
ual compatibility and sealed with only verbal agreements. There would
be rampant promiscuity and no spousal loyalty. A man’s appearance
would be judged by the length of his hair. He pointed out how in America
and Europe young men were growing their hair long, and how that had
become the deciding factor for their physical attractiveness.
Prabhupāda described how robbers would become rulers. They
would extract money from their subjects through taxes, and the people
would become so disillusioned that they would run away from the cities
and villages to escape the exploitation. The condition of the earth would
become so precarious that cows would stop giving milk, grain-bearing
plants would become like plain grass, and fruits would have no pulp.
After Dr. Tarkatirtha left, Śrīla Prabhupāda asked me where I had
learned Sanskrit. Remembering the incident when I had asked him
whether I could learn it, I understood that he was assuring me that I
could—just by reading his books.
One evening, after Dr. Tarkatirtha had checked Śrīla Prabhupāda and
they were sitting together, Prabhupāda started to speak about his life.
He told the doctor how his friend Naren Mullik had come one day and
invited him to go see a sādhu. Śrīla Prabhupāda had not had much re-
spect for the so-called sādhus, because he had seen how his father had
invited them into his home but they would come in just to eat and col-
lect a donation. So he declined. Naren, however, had been insistent
that Śrīla Prabhupāda should go with him, telling him that this sādhu
was not that kind of sādhu; he was high class and learned. Eventually
Prabhupāda had relented and agreed to go.
That sādhu, he told Dr. Tarkatirtha, had ended up being Śrīla
Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, Prabhupāda’s spiritual master.
And at their very first meeting, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta had instructed
him to take up the mission of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, to spread
Kṛṣṇa consciousness—in English—all over the world.
Śrīla Prabhupāda had initially tried to resist Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta’s
instruction. First India had to become independent, he had objected;
until then, no one would take her message seriously. In response, Śrīla
Bhaktisiddhānta had told him that Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s teachings
were far beyond political, social, geographical, or even religious consid-
erations; they were from another world, not dependent on any condition
of material nature.
Afterwards, when Naren had asked him for his opinion of the sādhu,
Śrīla Prabhupāda had replied, “Now that the responsibility of spreading
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s message has come to such a person, he is
108 Ocean of Mercy
bound to do something about it.” Just from that first meeting, Prabhu-
pāda had been so impressed with Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta that he had de-
cided to accept him as his spiritual master and take up that instruction as
his life’s mission.
Śrīla Prabhupāda had been the manager of a pharmaceutical com-
pany, Dr. Bose’s Laboratories, owned by Dr. Kartik Bose, and the very
next day he had gone to the office and submitted his resignation. Dr.
Bose had been shocked. He was a family friend and had treated Prabhu
pāda with affection. He could not understand why all of a sudden
Prabhupāda was submitting his resignation.
When Prabhupāda had explained about his meeting with and in-
struction from Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, and his deci-
sion to commit himself to that mission, Dr. Bose had tried to reason with
him that he could serve the mission even while employed by the com-
pany. But Prabhupāda had replied that if he were to remain a company
employee, all his time would be consumed by his occupational duties.
Dr. Bose had countered that Prabhupāda was not just an employee;
he was managing the company and was just like a family member, like a
son. But Prabhupāda had been adamant.
“So, what are you going to do if you resign from your job?” Dr. Bose
had asked. “You have a family to maintain. You are married and you
have a son. You have an elderly father.”
Prabhupāda had told him that he would run his own business. That
way he could maintain his family but also have enough time to preach
Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
When Dr. Bose had heard that, he said, “Okay, then you take up the
agency for my products for North India.”
That is how Śrīla Prabhupāda had gone to Allahabad and started his
business. Still, he said, he had not been very successful. His mind had
not been in the business; it had been focused on how to fulfill the order
of his spiritual master.
Śrīla Prabhupāda had thought that by running his business he would
make money and then be able go to the West to fulfill Śrīla Bhakti
siddhānta’s order. As it turned out, when he did go to the West, he went

as a pauper, without support. Then everything just started to happen
in the most amazing way. It was, he said, all by the arrangement of Śrī
Caitanya Mahāprabhu. And through that experience, he had learned
an important lesson—that when one served the Supreme Personality
of Godhead, one did not have to worry about money or anything. The
Lord would make all the arrangements; if one served Him sincerely, He
would provide everything.
Even as I was listening, I was aware of my own good fortune to be
hearing about Śrīla Prabhupāda’s life story from his own mouth.
On the morning of the disappearance day of Śrīpāda Maheśa Paṇḍita,

one of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s most intimate associates, I noticed
more activity than usual around Śrīla Prabhupāda’s quarters. When I
asked what was happening, I learned that Prabhupāda had accepted
an invitation to attend the disappearance festival at Pal Para—Maheśa
Paṇḍita’s śrīpāt, place of residence, about fifty kilometers away.
Śrīla Prabhupāda rode in his maroon Ambassador, followed by a
few carloads of leading devotees and myself. When we arrived, a beau-
tiful kīrtana was going on. Śrīla Prabhupāda was greeted with great
honor and respect and, along with a few leading disciples, taken to the
stage. Prabhupāda glorified Śrī Maheśa Paṇḍita, who, as an associate
of Lord Caitanya, had come from the spiritual sky to assist Him in His
mission. Led by Nityānanda Prabhu, he and other devotees distributed
kṛṣṇa-bhakti throughout Bengal, and through the efforts of Śrī Caitanya
Mahāprabhu all of India had been inundated with pure devotion to the
Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Śrīla Prabhupāda pointed out that Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu had
predicted that the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement would spread all
over the world, to every town and village. And even if it might have once
sounded like an impossible prediction, it was now becoming a reality.
110 Ocean of Mercy
Prabhupāda pointed to his Western disciples on the stage and declared

that Mahāprabhu’s prediction could never go in vain. He was the Su-
preme Personality of Godhead, and His words were the absolute truth.
Śrīla Prabhupāda praised his American and European disciples
for their dedication and thanked them for helping him fulfill the di-
vine prediction. Then he reminded the Indians in attendance about
Mahāprabhu’s instruction that all Indians, irrespective of caste, creed,
or religion, should make their lives successful by distributing Kṛṣṇa
consciousness throughout the world. He quoted from Śrī Caitanya-
caritāmṛta: bhārata-bhūmite haila manuṣya-janma yāra/ janma sārthaka kari’
kara para-upakāra—“Those who are born in India should make their
lives successful by becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious and then benefit others.”
And the best way to benefit others, he said, was by giving them Kṛṣṇa
consciousness. He quoted another verse from the Caitanya-caritāmṛta:
yāre dekha, tāre kaha ‘kṛṣṇa’-upadeśa/ āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra’ ei
deśa—“Whoever you meet, instruct him about Kṛṣṇa; thus on My order
become a spiritual master and deliver everyone in this world.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda emphasized that every Indian should take up that
responsibility; it was what Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, wanted. One might feel unqualified to take up
such an important responsibility, but there was no need to feel that way.
Just as there were various types of birds—some, like sparrows, that
flew around the courtyard, some that flew from one country to another,
and others that flew from one continent to another—people were differ-
ent, too. Each could preach according to his ability; some could preach
to friends and neighbors, while others could go from one country to an-
other. The whole world needed Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and Indians had
the solemn responsibility to go out and give it to everyone. Śrīla Prabhu
pāda declared that he was just one Indian who went out of India and
spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the world. “What would happen if
all the Indians took up that responsibility?” he asked. “No one can even
imagine.”
Most of the people in the audience were simple villagers; in their
remotest dreams they did not imagine going abroad, what to speak of
preaching the message of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. But Śrīla Prabhu
pāda was urging even them: “This spiritual message of India is the real
wealth of India, and the entire world is waiting to receive it. If the Indi-
ans don’t do it, then who will? So many Indians have gone to America
to take advantage of her material prosperity and become rich, but I did
not go there to beg from them; I went there to offer them something they
never had—the greatest spiritual wealth.”
Prabhupāda invited the crowd to join ISKCON and become engaged
in fulfilling Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s spiritual mission. Unfortu-
nately, no one responded to his invitation.
The following week, Kalyāna Dāsa, a second-initiated Bengali devo-

tee who lived outside the temple and worked as an insurance agent and
schoolteacher, came to Māyāpur to see Śrīla Prabhupāda. Prabhupāda
asked him about his spiritual life and also inquired about his wife and
children. It was a sweet, warm exchange. Then Kalyāna asked, “Śrīla
Prabhupāda, what is my siddha-svarūpa?” What, he wanted to know, was
his spiritual identity.
This idea, to learn one’s spiritual identity at the time of initiation, was
a sahajiyā, or deviant, practice, and Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mood changed
immediately. He became extremely angry, and with his voice roaring
and his lips quivering, he repeated, “You rascal. Your siddha-svarūpa
. . . You rascal. Your siddha-svarūpa . . .” Finally, when he had cooled
down but with his voice still raised, he told Kalyāna, “Don’t worry about
your siddha-svarūpa. When you become qualified, I will personally come
and reveal it to you.”
I was surprised by Śrīla Prabhupāda’s vehement reply, but I could
also see two things clearly. The first was that as devotees we did not
have to worry about our spiritual identity; we simply had to be engaged
in devotional service. The rest would happen automatically, and our
112 Ocean of Mercy
spiritual identity would be revealed by the mercy of guru and Kṛṣṇa.

The second was that Prabhupāda would always be there for us. He
would take us back to Godhead; it was just a matter of our becoming
qualified.
Kalyāna was very apologetic and begged Śrīla Prabhupāda’s for-
giveness. After a moment, Prabhupāda regained his natural serene and
merciful mood and explained to Kalyāna that when both the guru and
disciple were qualified, the guru might reveal the disciple’s spiritual
identity. If, however, either tried to proceed improperly, it could not
only create chaos but also destroy the spiritual life of both.
Soon after the Gaura-pūrṇimā festival, Śrīla Prabhupāda was scheduled

to go to Bombay. The devotees there had organized a weeklong program
for him at Cross Maidan, in the heart of the city. There was some dis-
cussion about whether or not I would accompany him. The temple man-
agement wanted me to stay, since I was involved in so many branches
of service. Furthermore, I was the only educated Indian devotee in
Māyāpur, so I often had to deal with government officials and other im-
portant people. Bhavānanda Mahārāja in particular depended on me,
and just two days before Prabhupāda’s departure, he came and told me
that although I had been included in the Bombay team, I should stay in
Māyāpur.
My heart sank, but I could not protest. Mahārāja had done so much
for me, and I was beyond grateful that he had introduced me to Śrīla
Prabhupāda, thus helping me get the service of translating Prabhu
pāda’s books, which had given me the opportunity to be with Prabhu-
pāda practically all the time.
Understanding what I was feeling, Mahārāja explained how service to
the spiritual master in separation was superior to personal service in his
physical presence. Still, I could not shake the heavy feeling from my heart.
The next day, I was sitting in front of Śrīla Prabhupāda in his room
as he chanted on his beads. All of a sudden he looked up at me and

asked, “Aren’t you coming with me to Bombay?”
I had been waiting for just this opportunity and blurted out, “No,
Śrīla Prabhupāda. Bhavānanda Mahārāja wants me to stay in Māyāpur.
He told me that service to the spiritual master in separation is superior
to personal service.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda replied, “I think when your spiritual master wants
you to serve him personally, you should do that.”
“Then should I come with you?” I asked. “Do you want me to come
with you?” I could hardly contain myself.
“Yes,” he stated.
I ran to Bhavānanda Mahārāja and told him what Prabhupāda had
said.
“If Śrīla Prabhupāda wants,” he replied, “then of course you have to
go with him.”
“And he wants you to pay for my fare also,” I joked.
“Sure,” he said with a smile. “I will.”
6
Bombay
(March 22 – May 4, 1977)
A magnificent new temple was being constructed in the Juhu sub-

urb of Bombay. Two six-story towers flanked the entrance, with
the entire sixth floor of the tower on the right, facing the entrance, dedi-
cated for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s quarters.
When Prabhupāda reached the temple, he was driven to his old
apartment, but he refused to get out of the car, insisting that he be
brought to his new quarters. He had thought that they were ready,
and when he was told they were not, he was upset and declared that he
would stay there regardless of their condition.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, who was riding with Prabhupāda, told the
driver to go to the new temple. Fortunately, though the towers were not
complete, the elevator on Prabhupāda’s side was working, and, accom-
panied by Mahārāja, he took it to the sixth floor.
The apartment itself was not even close to ready. The toilets and
some doors were still being installed, and the electrical fixtures were
not yet hooked up. The whole place was a construction site. Still,
116 Ocean of Mercy
Prabhupāda went in and sat on the āsana (seat) behind an ornate marble
table, making it clear that he was going to stay in his new quarters no
matter what their condition.
The Bombay devotees—especially Girirāj Prabhu, the Juhu temple
president, and Surabhi Swami, the project director—were in total anx-
iety about the conditions, but when they conferred with Tamāl Kṛṣṇa
Mahārāja, he pointed out that since Cross Maidan, the festival site, was in
the center of Bombay, it would be more practical for Prabhupāda to stay
nearby during the program. Kartikeya Mahadevia, a wealthy and influ-
ential admirer, agreed to host Prabhupāda in his apartment, a beautiful
place in one of the most prestigious buildings in the city, right by the sea.
Mr. Mahadevia and his family vacated the apartment and moved in
with his brother, in the same building. During the day, he and his wife
would take care of Śrīla Prabhupāda. They were not initiated, but since
they were pure vegetarians, Prabhupāda allowed Mrs. Mahadevia to
cook for him, and he enjoyed her preparations.
Bombay was the financial capital of India, and many important people
wanted to come and meet with Śrīla Prabhupāda. And as much as he
could, despite his ill health and the pressure on him to translate, Prabhu
pāda gave them his time. Whoever came, his message was the same:
Please recognize the importance of Kṛṣṇa’s message for the benefit of
the world.
One of the important personalities whom Prabhupāda met that week
was Ratan Singh Rajda, a Member of Parliament. Morarji Desai had
just become prime minister of India, and since he was a vegetarian and a
staunch Hindu, opposed to cow-killing, it seemed he might be favorable
to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Girirāj Prabhu had not been able to arrange a
meeting with him directly, but he had succeeded in arranging for Śrīla
Prabhupāda to meet with Mr. Rajda, an important member of Desai’s
ruling party.
Bombay 117
Mr. Rajda was quite respectful toward Śrīla Prabhupāda, listening

attentively when Prabhupāda pointed out that since Desai believed in
the teachings of the Bhagavad-gītā, he should try to establish a govern-
ment based on the Gītā’s principles, which had been given by Kṛṣṇa
Himself. The government had the responsibility to make people God
conscious, he said; if it took up that duty, people would follow. If the
government was serious about its desire to establish Rāma Rājya, the
rule of Lord Rāma, in India, Rāma had to be in the center.
Śrīla Prabhupāda explained how in only twelve years, thanks to the
involvement of Western youth, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement had
been recognized throughout the world. Now it was India’s responsibility
to take up that mission. “Let there be an institution for training Indian
youth for this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement,” he proposed.
Mr. Rajda appreciated the idea and said he would arrange for Śrīla
Prabhupāda to meet with the prime minister. And when he returned to
Delhi, he did set up a meeting, but when he contacted Girirāj Prabhu,
it was agreed that due to Prabhupāda’s ill health it would be better for
them to meet in Bombay.
Mr. Rajda visited again about ten days later with his wife and daugh-
ter and a friend. Śrīla Prabhupāda suggested to him that just as the US
government had given him permanent residency, the Indian government
should also give a hundred active ISKCON members from America per-
manent residency in India. Prabhupāda assured him that they had no po-
litical involvement but were there only to assist him in propagating Vedic
culture. Mr. Rajda was receptive to the suggestion and promised to do his
best to persuade the government to give Prabhupāda full support.
The following day, another MP, Ram Jethmalani, came to meet Śrīla
Prabhupāda. He was a successful lawyer who had entered into politics
and become a member of the parliament in Bombay. We could see from
the start that he was not inclined toward Prabhupāda’s plan to spiritual-
ize the world by spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Nevertheless, Prabhu
pāda preached to him, and finally, when Mr. Jethmalani was about to
leave, Prabhupāda insisted that he first have some prasāda. It seemed to
118 Ocean of Mercy
me that Śrīla Prabhupāda, seeing the man’s hopeless situation, decided

to at least give him some spiritual benefit.
When Prime Minister Desai came to Bombay, arrangements were
made for Śrīla Prabhupāda to meet him, but it was suggested that Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and Girirāj Prabhu speak with him first, to set the stage
for a more productive meeting. Prabhupāda had a long discussion with
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa about the points to be emphasized—getting permanent
residency for a hundred foreign devotees, securing government support
for educational institutions of Vedic culture, encouraging the Indian
people to remain in the natural conditions of village life, banning the
slaughter of cows, and developing brahminical qualities in government
ministers so that they could properly lead the masses toward achieving
the ultimate goal of life.
Unfortunately, the contact person who was supposed to take them to
the prime minister was delayed, so they were half an hour late and then
the prime minister refused to meet them. Śrīla Prabhupāda was quite
upset and asked Tamāl Kṛṣṇa why he had not explained what had trans-
pired. It was the last time Prabhupāda made any endeavor to make a
connection with a politician.
That afternoon in our room, Mahārāja lamented the day’s unfortu-
nate incident. He felt bad about missing such an important appointment,
disappointing Śrīla Prabhupāda, and creating the impression with the
prime minister that we as a movement were irresponsible.
In 1975, he told me, Śrīla Prabhupāda had had an appointment with
Indira Gandhi, who was then prime minister, but that meeting also had
not produced the desired result. Just a couple of days earlier, Sheikh
Mozibur Rahaman, the prime minister of Bangladesh, had been assas-
sinated, and she had been worried that she was in danger. Prabhupāda
had gone to see her with the proposal of allowing his foreign disciples
to have permanent residency in India, and with other advice based on
Vedic scripture about how a nation should be governed, but although
Prime Minister Gandhi had been respectful to him, she had admitted
that she was not in a proper state of mind for a discussion.
Bombay 119
When I asked Mahārāja whether he thought India’s politicians

would really do anything to help promote Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he re-
plied, “No, I don’t think so, but Śrīla Prabhupāda just keeps on trying—
probably to give them an opportunity to serve Kṛṣṇa.”
“Even if the prime minister accepts Kṛṣṇa consciousness,” I com-
mented, “he won’t be able to implement it, because he will have to stick
to his party’s policy. The moment he says something different, he will be
ousted. Even though he is the head of state, he does not have the ability
to implement his own ideals; he has to act as a puppet in the hands of his
party.”
Mahārāja agreed.
The devotees had planned and worked long and hard for the Cross
Maidan program, and the arrangements were magnificent. A huge
paṇḍāl, an expansive outdoor tent, had been set up with a big, beauti-
fully decorated stage, and thousands of people gathered to listen to
Śrīla Prabhupāda speak. His health was not good and he was physi-
cally weak, but when he started to speak his voice became stronger, his
posture more erect. His statements, as always, were straight and bold,
showing his concern for the suffering conditioned souls. Standing be-
hind him and fanning him as he spoke, I could see how enlivened he be-
came while preaching.
One evening, looking over the crowd, Śrīla Prabhupāda noticed
an Arab gentleman dressed in traditional Arabic attire. He asked
Bhavānanda Mahārāja to bring the man onto the stage and then had
the man sit on a chair next to him and spoke to him affectionately. He
was, it turned out, the chief of police of Kuwait. He had come to Bom-
bay for medical treatment, and that evening was the first time he had
been allowed out of the hospital. While strolling through the park, he
had seen the gathering and out of curiosity walked over to see what was
happening.
120 Ocean of Mercy
Śrīla Prabhupāda noticed that the man had a set of beads in his hands
and asked about them. The man said that he just fiddled around with
them; they did not have any specific purpose. But when Prabhupāda
then pulled his beads out from his bead bag and said, “See, I also have
one,” they both laughed. The beads were sacred, Prabhupāda told him;
they were used for chanting the holy names of the Lord. They should
be kept in a bag so that they would not become contaminated. Prabhu-
pāda did not get into a heavy philosophical discussion with the man—
they just had a cordial exchange—but I could not help wondering what
a deep impression Prabhupāda was making.
I was also impressed to see Śrīla Prabhupāda, an exalted Hindu
spiritual leader, invite a Middle Eastern Muslim to come up and sit next
to him at such an important and visible program. It conveyed a power-
ful message—that ISKCON was nonsectarian; it welcomed everyone.
Whoever was open to learning the teachings of the Vedas and was inter-
ested to know about the Supreme Personality of Godhead and establish
a loving relationship with Him could join, irrespective of caste, creed, or
religion.
After the program each day, I would accompany Śrīla Prabhupāda back
to Kartikeya Mahadevia’s house. He was always exhausted and upon
our return would go straight to bed, where I would massage his feet.
One evening as I was massaging him, Prabhupāda asked, “So, how
did you like my lecture today?”
“It was wonderful, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I replied.
“What was so wonderful about it?”
I recounted all I could remember: “You pointed out that in human
society there must be an intelligent class of people that guides the rest
of the society. Although Lord Rāmacandra was the Supreme Person-
ality of Godhead, He still consulted with the learned brāhmaṇas. The
administrative class—the rulers, the government—should take advice
Bombay 121
122 Ocean of Mercy
from the brāhmaṇas. You pointed out that ISKCON is creating brāh-
maṇas all over the world. The whole world is suffering due to the lack
of such important guidance, and you requested the intelligent class of
people to take this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement very seriously. In-
dia has spiritual wisdom, and therefore Indians should take up the re-
sponsibility of spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You quoted Śrī Caitanya
Mahāprabhu—bhārata-bhūmite haila manuṣya-janma yāra/ janma sārthaka
kari’ kara para-upakāra [“One who has taken his birth as a human be-
ing in Bhārata-varṣa, the land of India, should make his life successful
and work for the benefit of all other people”]—and you pointed out
that the actual para-upakāra, benevolent activity, is to give them Kṛṣṇa
consciousness. That is what every Indian should do to make his life
successful.
“You asked everyone to get out of their bodily concept of life, come to
this spiritual consciousness, and recognize their actual identity as a spiri
tual being, and you said that their spiritual responsibility is to chant the
holy name. Then their hearts will be cleansed of all impurities and, by de-
veloping their loving relationship with Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality
of Godhead, they will be able to recognize their spiritual identity.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda seemed pleased that I had listened attentively
to his lecture. Then he asked me to read from Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta.
While I was reading, he fell asleep. I remained on the floor by his bed,
chanting on my beads. When Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja came back and
saw me sitting there, he suggested that I go and take rest.
The Bombay paṇḍāl program was a huge success. Eight to ten thousand
people attended every day, almost all both attentive and receptive. And
Śrīla Prabhupāda was imparting the greatest wisdom with the most sub-
lime simplicity.
One of the devotees who came to Bombay who impressed me the
most was Svarūpa Dāmodara Dāsa, from Manipur. When he first
Bombay 123
walked into Śrīla Prabhupāda’s bedroom one evening, escorted by Mr.

Mahadevia, Prabhupāda was surrounded by a group of leading devo-
tees, but as soon as he saw him his face lit up with a bright smile and
he exclaimed, “Svarūpa Dāmodara!” Svarūpa Dāmodara immediately
offered obeisances and then touched Prabhupāda’s feet. Still smiling,
Prabhupāda introduced him to Mr. Mahadevia and said, “He had been a
Vaiṣṇava from birth. But he seriously adopted the Vaiṣṇava culture only
after coming in contact with me in America. He is a brilliant boy—did
his Masters in Chemistry at Calcutta University and then went to Amer-
ica to get his PhD from the University of California. But when he met
me, he gave up his career and joined ISKCON as a full-time devotee.
“Manipur is a beautiful place,” Prabhupāda continued, “a valley sur-
rounded by seven hills at the tail end of the Himalayan mountain range.
The king there became a devotee of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu after
he came in contact with one of the disciples of Śrīla Narottama Dāsa
Ṭhākura, and he turned his kingdom into a Vaiṣṇava state. He arranged
for the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas to come from Bengal to train his citizens in
Vaiṣṇava culture. That culture is still prevalent in Manipur. Their dance,
songs, cooking, and dress retain a very pristine Vaiṣṇava culture.”
From the way Śrīla Prabhupāda was speaking about Svarūpa Dāmo
dara, I could tell how fond he was of him. He continued, “I gave him
the responsibility to preach to the scientific community and establish a
specific wing of ISKCON for that purpose, called the Bhaktivedanta
Institute. He is in charge of that institution.”
Svarūpa Dāmodara gave a detailed report of his preaching. He told
Prabhupāda that he had met a few scientists in the Atomic Research
Centre in Trombay, a district of Bombay, and that they were very sup-
portive. In India, even the scientists were proud of their Vedic heritage.
Prabhupāda was pleased to hear that and asked whether the conversa-
tion had been recorded. When Svarūpa Dāmodara said that it had not,
Prabhupāda told him to always carry a tape recorder or take someone
with him to tape. The conversations, he said, were important and could
be used in the future.
124 Ocean of Mercy
Śrīla Prabhupāda then expounded on the importance of Bombay.

“Bombay is undoubtedly the best city in India,” he asserted. “Sixty-three
percent of government revenue comes from Bombay.”
“Calcutta is also very wealthy,” Svarūpa Dāmodara suggested.
“That money is black money,” Prabhupāda replied. “In order to avoid
paying tax to the government, they do not declare.”
Svarūpa Dāmodara reported that a few students from Bombay Uni-
versity had come to the Juhu temple and wanted to study at the Bhakti
vedanta Institute. Śrīla Prabhupāda was happy to hear that and said
that they should be given good facilities, that the buildings on the Juhu
property should be utilized to facilitate the Institute so that intelligent
men would come and learn the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. “Give
them a nice place so that they may not be uncomfortable,” he said. “Give
them good food. Give them all facilities. Those who are educated, scien-
tists, they are accustomed to certain comforts. Therefore, they should be
given those facilities. My Guru Mahārāja also wanted that. He wanted
to attract high-class individuals and give them all the facilities when they
came. We can’t expect that all of a sudden they should now live on the
floor. No, that is not possible. Then they will be disturbed. Give them a
nice place; give them nice food, nice facilities, and instructions. You are
all intelligent boys. Do it immediately. Construct another building, and
that colony should be for the first class.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s newly appointed servant, Upendra Dāsa, arrived

from Fiji, where he had been the first devotee to preach Kṛṣṇa conscious-
ness. He had also been Prabhupāda’s personal assistant, and Prabhupāda
had been quite pleased with his service. So when Hari Śauri left for Aus-
tralia to become the GBC there, Prabhupāda suggested Upendra as his
replacement.
Upendra was a lively, lighthearted devotee, and we became friends
almost immediately. He had a wife and two children in America, but
Bombay 125
when he was engaged in serving Śrīla Prabhupāda it was as if he took on

another personality and was transported to another world, another life,
completely absorbed in his service. His dedication to Prabhupāda was
remarkable, and he served earnestly and with great efficiency.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was very happy with how the Cross Maidan pro-
gram had gone. When we were driving back to Mr. Mahadevia’s house,
he asked me, “How many people do you think came today?”
“Around ten thousand.” I said.
“Do you think they were listening carefully? And understood what I
was saying?”
“Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda. They looked very attentive, and when you
were speaking no one got up and left. And when the kīrtana started,
everyone joined so enthusiastically and many of them started to dance.”
“Indians are so close to Kṛṣṇa consciousness,” Prabhupāda said. “We
have to present it to them in a proper way and they will respond favor-
ably and accept it.”
Once the programs were over, Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted to go back

to Juhu, where his new quarters were now ready. When he arrived,
he immediately went to have darśana of the Deities, Śrī Śrī
Rādhā-Rāsabihārī. The temple construction was not yet finished, so
Their Lordships were being worshiped in a small tin shed by the en-
trance. The area was one big worksite, but the courtyard had been
cleaned, and hundreds of devotees had gathered there to greet Śrīla
Prabhupāda and were chanting and dancing in ecstasy.
Mādhava Dāsa, a PhD from Italy who worked with Svarūpa Dāmo
dara in the Bhaktivedanta Institute, had climbed a frangipani tree to
take photographs. Frangipanis are quite soft, however, and the branch
he was on could not hold his weight. It broke with a loud crack and sent
Mādhava tumbling to the ground, right in front of Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda was visibly concerned and immediately stopped to check
126 Ocean of Mercy
on Mādhava’s condition, but Mādhava, red with embarrassment, sprang

to his feet as if nothing had happened and assured Prabhupāda he was
okay; the only damage was to his camera.
After briefly addressing the devotees, Śrīla Prabhupāda went to his
new quarters. He inspected every room and expressed his satisfaction.
There was a reception room in front, right outside the elevator, with a
desk where Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja would sit, then an octagonal waiting
room that led to a large darśana area with a long marble table, behind
which Prabhupāda would sit on an ornate āsana with pillows. The room
branched out on two sides, the right wing holding a small table and seat
for Prabhupāda to take prasāda, with a closeted sink nearby, and the left
wing holding a matching seat and table, where he would translate. To
the left of that was his bedroom, with toilet and shower rooms and a bal-
cony overlooking the temple. In the other wing, behind and to the right
of Prabhupāda’s eating area, was a hallway with a room for his secre-
tary, with its own toilet and shower rooms, and a well-equipped kitchen.
I thought I would share a room with Upendra and let Tamāl Kṛṣṇa
Mahārāja have the secretary’s room to himself, but Mahārāja insisted
that I stay with him, and I was delighted both to hear his insistence and
to follow his wish.
That afternoon, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja called Upendra and me
together for a meeting. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s health was not good, he
reminded us; he would need constant care. But his quarters were some-
what isolated, and there would not be any other devotees there to serve
him. We would have to take care of Śrīla Prabhupāda ourselves. At least
one of us should be there with him at all times, especially at night. Upen-
dra would take the 10:00–12:00 shift, I would serve from 12:00 to 2:00,
and Mahārāja would be there between 2:00 and 4:00.
The first duty each day was to clean the entire apartment. Upendra
would clean Prabhupāda’s bedroom and living area, and I would clean
the reception area, passageway, and room where Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja
and I were staying. Mother Pālikā, one of our American godsisters,
would cook for Prabhupāda, and I would serve the prasāda.
Bombay 127
128 Ocean of Mercy
Śrīla Prabhupāda also gave me other services, one of which was to

get the daily newspapers and bring them to him at 7:00 o’clock each
morning. I would read him the front-page headlines, and if he was inter-
ested in an item he would ask me to read further. Sometimes he would
make comments as I read.
The first period of Indira Gandhi’s reign had just ended, and Morarji
Desai had taken over as prime minister. Śrīla Prabhupāda was pleased
that Gandhi was out. During her administration she had imposed a
national emergency and ruled the country practically like a dictator.
Prabhupāda was unhappy about that and told me that when he was in
Allahabad he had gotten to know members of her family and seen that
they were both degraded and promiscuous.
Prabhupāda was especially concerned about the compulsory sterili
zation program that Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay Gandhi had started.
Even sādhus were being forced to have vasectomies. The program had
been instituted to control India’s population growth, but, Prabhupāda
said, “They do not know what they are doing. They do not know what
will be the outcome of such offense to the sādhus.” And sure enough, in
1980 Sanjay Gandhi died when a plane he was flying crashed; in 1984,
during her second administration, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by
her own bodyguards; and in 1991 her other son, Rajiv Gandhi, who had
also become prime minister, was assassinated by a suicide bomber.
But Prabhupāda did not think highly of Morarji Desai either. “He
has high ideals,” he commented, “but does not have the intelligence and
charisma to execute them.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda stayed in his quarters, mostly translating, for his entire
time in Juhu. He did much of his work at night. Before going to bed,
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja would set up his table with the Sanskrit Śrīmad-
Bhāgavatam with commentaries from previous ācāryas, his Dictaphone, a
spare audiocassette, a glass of water, and a brass waterpot for a spittoon.
Bombay 129
130 Ocean of Mercy
Everything was arranged for Prabhupāda to just start translating.

My shift began at midnight, and by the time I came to relieve Upen-
dra, Śrīla Prabhupāda would already be translating. He would get up by
eleven, sometimes ten, and immediately get to work.
I loved seeing Prabhupāda speaking into his Dictaphone. Everyone
else was in deep slumber; the only sound was his voice—translating and
then commenting in his purports. One night, however, Prabhupāda no-
ticed that I was watching him while he was translating and told me not
to do that. I felt embarrassed to have caused him the disturbance, and
from then on I would sit behind a pillar looking in the other direction
and just listen to his transcendental voice.
I was still translating Prabhupāda’s Bhagavad-gītā into Bengali, and
every day I would read to him whatever I had translated and he would
instruct me, correct me, and sometimes express his appreciation. When
I read my translation of the second verse of the fourth chapter, Prabhu-
pāda did not like the way I had translated the words yogo naṣṭaḥ. In the
English word-for-word translation he had used “scattered” for naṣṭaḥ,
but in the full verse translation he had used the expression “appears
to be lost.” I had translated the expression literally into Bengali, but
Prabhupāda did not like the result, and no matter how many times he
asked me to revise it, I just could not get it right. He could have given
me the right expression, but he wanted me to arrive at it myself. Finally
I used the Bengali expression naṣṭa-prāya, a literal translation of “almost
lost,” and he confirmed, “Yes, that’s it!” I was thrilled to get it right.
Eventually Prabhupāda gave me my own Dictaphone and asked me
to translate on that; the recordings could be transcribed by someone
else, which would make my work go faster. When I tried using the re-
corder, however, I could not seem to keep my thoughts together. When I
spoke to Prabhupāda about my difficulty, he assured me that although I
might find it challenging, I would get used to it with practice. And with
his blessing and assurance, I soon became accustomed to it, and indeed,
my pace increased.
One problem with recording my work, however, was that I could no
Bombay 131
longer read it out to Prabhupāda, and I was apprehensive about main-

taining a high quality and not making mistakes. I expressed my concern
to him, but he again met my anxiety with gentle assurance. There was
no need to worry, he said; he was confident that I was doing a good job.
I was encouraged by his trust, but still, I missed the intimate interactions
that I had enjoyed when we had worked together.
The Juhu temple construction was still in full swing. Śrīla Prabhupāda
had given the concept of the design and charge of the construction to
Surabhi Swami—his Dutch sannyāsī disciple, who was an accomplished
architect—and he was working day and night to complete the project.
The size of the temple, its ornate design, and the high quality of its
marble were creating quite a sensation in Bombay. The Times of India
published a feature story on the temple, which Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja
read to Śrīla Prabhupāda. The article, covering practically an entire
page, was accompanied by pictures of the temple under construction
and provided many technical and financial details. But although ISK-
CON was mentioned, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s name and position were not.
Prabhupāda asked who had provided the reporter with the informa-
tion. It turned out that the article had been based on an interview with
Surabhi Swami. Prabhupāda called Mahārāja in and asked if he had
read the article. He had, Mahārāja said. Prabhupāda then asked who
had given the information to the reporter, and Mahārāja reported that
he had done so. Then Prabhupāda asked why his name was not men-
tioned even once in the entire article. Surabhi Swami went silent; he
just sat there looking down without saying a thing. Prabhupāda then in-
structed him that whenever the name of ISKCON was mentioned, his
name and position should be there as well. He was, after all, ISKCON’s
founder-ācārya.
I could not understand why Śrīla Prabhupāda was so particular
about this designation. He was always so detached and never wanted
132 Ocean of Mercy
to take any credit for his achievements, considerable as they were, but
now he was expressing such concern. I did not dwell on the question—I
was in no position to judge him; whatever he did was perfect—but I still
wondered.
In time, I came to understand that Prabhupāda’s emphasis on his po-
sition as founder-ācārya was not for any personal aggrandizement but
for the integrity and well-being of ISKCON as an institution. He had
told us himself that although he had spread Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s
saṅkīrtana movement throughout the world within the short span of ten
years, he would not be able to spread it to every town and village—as
had been Lord Caitanya’s prediction—during his lifetime. It would
take generations, and that was why there was a need to establish a spiri
tual institution—to spread the mission even after his disappearance.
ISKCON’s success, he said, would depend upon two things—collabo-
rative management (the Governing Body Commission) and the spiritual
leadership of its founder-ācārya.
Mother Pālikā was sick one day, and another of our godsisters cooked
for Śrīla Prabhupāda. When I served him, however, I could see that he
was not eating.
“Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I asked, “was the cooking not all right today?”
“No,” he replied. “She does not know how to cook.”
“Should I cook for you tomorrow?” I blurted out.
“Yes, you can.”
The next morning, when Prabhupāda was having his oil massage,
he called for me and asked me to get some potatoes, parwal (a gourd),
turmeric, dry red chili, and the can of mustard oil we had brought from
Calcutta for his massage. He showed me how to cut the potatoes and
parwal into three-quarter-inch pieces and directed me to add turmeric,
pieces of red chili, and then the mustard oil. I poured out what seemed
to me a lot of oil, but when I tilted the can back, Prabhupāda said, “Why
Bombay 133
did you stop pouring? Keep pouring.” I followed his command until fi-
nally he told me to stop. Then he had me add salt and just enough water
to cover the vegetables, and place the pot on the fire. “The water will
dry out,” he said. “Then a white smoke will start to come out, making
a sound like chat chat. Then you take it off the fire and let it cool for a
while. The turmeric will create a crust at the bottom of the pot and get
fried in the mustard oil; you scrape the bottom with a spatula. Now it
will be ready to be served.” Then he added, “This preparation is called
bati-chachari.”
I cooked a few other items as well, but when I served Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda he mostly ate just the bati-chachari and chapatis.
After Prabhupāda had finished and I was washing his plates in the
kitchen, Upendra came running in and said, “Hey, what did you cook
today? Śrīla Prabhupāda was praising your cooking and asked me to
taste it.” And later that afternoon, when Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja came
from reading Prabhupāda’s letters and taking dictation, he also told me
how much Prabhupāda had liked my cooking. So, from then on, that
became my service.
One morning Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted some orange juice. There
were no oranges in the kitchen, however, so I went to the market to buy
some. When I returned and was about to make the juice, Prabhupāda’s
bell rang, and I ran to his room.
“What happened to the orange juice?” he asked. “Why is it taking so
long?” I could tell he was annoyed.
“I am bringing it just now, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I replied, and ran back
to the kitchen. Just as I was finishing the juice, the bell rang again, and
again. It just kept on ringing, as if the bell itself were angry. In great
anxiety, I quickly poured the juice into Prabhupāda’s silver cup, placed
it on his thālī, and ran to his room.
As I entered, I heard Śrīla Prabhupāda’s thunderous voice: “Take it
away. I don’t want it!” Feeling guilty, my head bent low, I just kept mov-
ing forward. When I was in front of Prabhupāda, I knelt down, holding
up the plate with the cup of orange juice. He was so angry that he did
134 Ocean of Mercy
not take the juice for some time, but I just kept holding it up in front
of him. Finally, to my great relief, he picked up the cup and started to
drink.
While he was drinking, I realized that in my hurry I had forgotten to
bring a bowl of water for him to wash his mouth. So I ran to the kitchen
and got the bowl of water. Then, when I had returned and he was rins-
ing his mouth, I realized that I had forgotten to bring the napkin for him
to wipe. But this time I did not go back to the kitchen; I pulled a small
towel from his wardrobe and wiped his mouth for him.
“You are trying to serve me so nicely,” Prabhupāda said, “but often I
chastise you. Please don’t mind when I chastise. You see, when one gets
old, one becomes short-tempered.”
I had not felt bad when Prabhupāda had chastised me, but when he
started to speak like that, I felt like my heart was breaking. I tried to
beg him not to concern himself, but my voice was choked; I could not
speak. Finally, tears rolling down my cheeks, I managed to whisper,
“Śrīla Prabhupāda, I make mistakes, and if you don’t correct me, what
will happen to me?”
He stopped. I could feel the softness of his heart. Even though we
were his disciples, ready to take any amount of chastisement from
him, our guru, as a display of his mercy, he was apologizing in such a
humble way. That was my glorious spiritual master, more brilliant than
millions of suns yet so humble and compassionate—the most caring per-
son I have ever met.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, Upendra, and I were having a wonderful time

serving Śrīla Prabhupāda, taking care of all his needs. Due to his poor
health, Prabhupāda did not want to get involved in anything other than
translating Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, so Mahārāja was extra careful to not
let anyone in to see him unless there was a pressing need. Hundreds of
devotees had come from different parts of the world, but Prabhupāda’s
Bombay 135
136 Ocean of Mercy
quarters on the sixth floor were off limits.

As I stood on the balcony one morning I saw Sarvabhāvana Prabhu
downstairs. Excited, I ran down to meet him. He was happy to see me as
well, and we embraced. He had come to Bombay about ten days earlier,
he said, to take charge of the householder community.
“You came ten days ago and didn’t even come to see me?” I asked.
He smiled and said, “The ivory tower where you live . . . ordinary
devotees like me don’t have access there.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “Śrīla Prabhupāda’s health is not so good, so he
does not want to do anything besides translating.”
“Yes,” he remarked, concern in his voice, “and Tamāl Kṛṣṇa
Mahārāja very carefully decides who is allowed to see him.” He paused.
“I got some gifts for Śrīla Prabhupāda—some silver cups and a plate—
but I did not get a chance to give them to him.”
I assured Sarvabhāvana that I would speak to Mahārāja and took
him to the “ivory tower.” Mahārāja was with Śrīla Prabhupāda, so we
waited for him to come out, and then I introduced Sarvabhāvana to
him and told him about our relationship. When I told him that Sarva
bhāvana had some gifts for Prabhupāda, he asked him to fetch them.
Excited, Sarvabhāvana ran to get them.
When we entered his rooms, Śrīla Prabhupāda was chanting on his
beads behind his translating table. We offered our obeisances, and I in-
troduced Sarvabhāvana to him and told him how instrumental Sarva
bhāvana had been in bringing me to Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Śrīla Prabhupāda looked at him affectionately.
When Sarvabhāvana offered his gift, nicely wrapped in a beautiful
box, Prabhupāda took it with a smile and asked, “Should I open it?”
“Yes, please, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” Sarvabhāvana replied.
Prabhupāda was pleased with the gifts and asked me to keep them in
the kitchen. Although Sarvabhāvana had been so eager to meet Prabhu
pāda, he just sat there silently, looking at His Divine Grace’s lotus feet.
When Prabhupāda asked him whether he wanted to say anything,
Sarvabhāvana humbly recounted an incident in Vṛndāvana when he
Bombay 137
had gone with a group of Indian devotees to complain against some

Western devotees who were mistreating them. Although he had not
been involved in the incident, he had accompanied the Indian devo-
tees, who knew little English, to speak on their behalf. Prabhupāda had
heard their complaints and mildly chastised them for being in the bodily
concept of life.
Sarvabhāvana told Prabhupāda how guilty he had been feeling for
siding with the complaining devotees, and he begged his forgiveness.
Śrīla Prabhupāda replied, “Those who are not very advanced spiri
tually will tend to get into the bodily concept of life, but an advanced
devotee will never do that. You are an educated and intelligent person.
You should try to create harmony among the devotees, transcending the
bodily concept of life. These American boys and girls are doing so much
to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the world. Recognize their con-
tribution and sacrifice and try to appreciate that and remain grateful to
them. Even if their behavior is not so exemplary at times, just tolerate
that with heartfelt gratitude.”
Sarvabhāvana humbly offered his obeisances, and Śrīla Prabhupāda
looked at him affectionately with a smile on his face.
Sitting on the balcony one afternoon facing the temple, with me sitting
at his feet, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “India is the most glorious country
in this world. It is not only her spiritual culture, but materially also it is
the richest country. However, since the Indians have rejected the Vedic
culture—their original culture—they have lost everything and become
poor. Since they have rejected Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of God-
head, His eternal consort—Lakṣmī-devī, the goddess of fortune—has
left them.”
Then he added, “Not only India but the entire world has become af-
flicted with so many problems because the people of this world have re-
jected Kṛṣṇa. And the more they reject Kṛṣṇa, the more miserable they
138 Ocean of Mercy
will become. On the other hand, if they accept Kṛṣṇa, everything will
become so prosperous and wonderful for them.”
Whenever Śrīla Prabhupāda spoke to someone, especially someone
important, he would remind him or her about the real solution to all our
problems—acceptance of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. “Just surrender unto
Kṛṣṇa and try to serve Him,” he would say. “He will take care of you in
all respects and provide for everything you need. Lakṣmī-devī will be
so pleased with you that she will shower so much wealth with her four
hands that you will not be able receive it with your two.”
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja brought Svarūpa Dāmodara Prabhu in to see

Śrīla Prabhupāda one morning and praised the success he was having
preaching to Bombay’s scientific community. Prabhupāda had always
been impressed with Svarūpa Dāmodara’s program, and he advised him
how to point out the defects of modern science. “Their main problem,”
he said, “is that they do not want to accept the simple fact that life comes
from life. Life doesn’t come from matter. They are misleading the world
with their claim that life comes from matter. Since their basic premise is
wrong, they will never be able to come to the right conclusion. They will
never be able to prove it. They are giving the false promise that they will
prove in the future how life comes from matter. This promise is like giv-
ing a postdated check: ‘I do not have the money now, but in the future
I will have money.’ We must challenge them and expose them and call
their bluff. They are not scientists; they are a bunch of cheats.”
Prabhupāda asked Svarūpa Dāmodara how much money he would
need to maintain the Bhaktivedanta Institute and continue his scientific
preaching. Svarūpa Dāmodara remained silent for a while and then said
he did not know. Prabhupāda asked Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja. After a bit
of thought, Mahārāja said that the project would require about ten thou-
sand dollars a month. So Prabhupāda told him to instruct the Bhakti
vedanta Book Trust to give the Institute that amount every month. It
Bombay 139
was clear how much importance he gave to scientific preaching.

Haṁsadūta Swami also came to see Śrīla Prabhupāda one day.
Prabhupāda was very affectionate toward him, and he in turn was ex-
tremely humble and submissive. He related some difficulties he had
faced from the government in Germany. He admitted that he had made
some mistakes due to his excessive enthusiasm to spread Kṛṣṇa con-
sciousness there. Prabhupāda listened carefully and asked what he was
doing. Haṁsadūta replied that he was traveling around India, preaching
with a group of German devotees and a few Indians he had recruited.
Prabhupāda was happy to hear that but told him that he should have
a specific area to develop; just aimlessly traveling and preaching would
not generate the maximum effect. He cited the expression “A rolling
stone gathers no moss” and suggested that Haṁsadūta go to Sri Lanka
and preach there, since nothing was happening in that area. Haṁsadūta
accepted his suggestion and left for Sri Lanka the next day.
One morning after breakfast, Śrīla Prabhupāda was sitting on the āsana
behind his desk and asked me to get his bead bag. I brought it to him
and sat before him. As he started to chant, I did likewise—softly with my
head bending forward, looking at the ground. Then he began to speak.
“People think that Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes with the gopīs are immoral,” he com-
mented. “The moralists especially, they don’t even want to delve into
Kṛṣṇa’s Vṛndāvana pastimes, thinking that those pastimes are immoral.
“If Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes with the gopīs are immoral,” he explained, “then
why did Śukadeva Gosvāmī, who was a naiṣṭhika-brahmacārī and did
not have anything to do with his family—right after his birth he walked
away from his family, from his father and mother, considering that they
could become an entanglement for him—why did Śukadeva speak so
elaborately about Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes with the gopīs in Vṛndāvana?
“Kṛṣṇa’s dealings with the gopīs are not immoral, but imitation of
Kṛṣṇa’s activities with the gopīs is immoral. The pastimes of Kṛṣṇa in
140 Ocean of Mercy
Vṛndāvana are the highest spiritual activities. But when we see the reflec-
tion of that in this material nature, the highest appears to be the lowest.
And that is why, when somebody, some mortal living entity, tries to have
a relationship with some unmarried girl or someone else’s wife, that is ab-
solutely abominable—absolutely immoral. But the consideration of mo-
rality or immorality doesn’t at all arise in Kṛṣṇa’s case, because whatever
Kṛṣṇa does is absolutely moral because He is the Supreme Personality of
Godhead—He is the supreme enjoyer and the supreme proprietor.
“When the proprietor enjoys what he possesses, that is perfectly
moral. When somebody who doesn’t own something tries to enjoy that,
that is immoral—that is sinful; that is stealing. To try to enjoy somebody
else’s property is immoral, but when somebody enjoys his own property
there is no question of immorality. Since Kṛṣṇa is the supreme propri-
etor, He is the supreme enjoyer. And everyone else is an object of His
enjoyment. Now it is up to Kṛṣṇa how and when He wants to enjoy.
“In the spiritual sky there is no sex desire. In order to even enter into
the spiritual sky, one has to become free from sex desire. Unless and until
one has conquered sex desire, he cannot enter into the spiritual sky. Even
the impersonalist brahma-jñānīs have to conquer sex desire to merge into
the impersonal brahma-jyoti. So what to speak of entering the topmost re-
gion of the spiritual sky? Sex life is a gross act of this material nature—in
the spiritual world there is no room for sex desire. So there is no tinge of
sex desire in Kṛṣṇa’s dealings with the gopīs. It is completely pure.
“The consideration of sex life is there when it is between two material
bodies, but in the spiritual sky they don’t have material bodies. Their
dealings are spiritual—a spiritual interaction between the Lord and
His devotees in the pure spiritual existence. So, that is what we have to
understand. And these activities of Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs are so pure that
just by hearing them from a proper source one becomes free from sex
desire. This is actually the most wonderful and effective means of be-
coming free from sex desire.”
As Śrīla Prabhupāda explained the purity of Kṛṣṇa’s relationships
with the gopīs, I saw how important it was to hear these things from
Bombay 141
Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotee. Otherwise, who could even understand these se-
crets, much less explain them? Once again, I was struck by the magni-
tude of my good fortune.
One morning while Śrīla Prabhupāda was translating, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa

Mahārāja and several other leading devotees walked into his room
and with a bright smile declared, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, wherever there is
Kṛṣṇa—the supreme mystic—and a pure devotee like you, victory is ab-
solutely certain.” He held out a copy of The Times of India dated March
28, 1976: ISKCON had won the New York brainwashing case. A front-
page article announced the victory, the scope of which extended well be-
yond the case itself—the New York high court had recognized the Hare
Kṛṣṇa movement as a bona fide religion.
His voice vibrant with emotion, Śrīla Prabhupāda asked Mahārāja
to read the article, entitled “Hare Kṛṣṇa Movement Is Bona Fide Reli-
gion.” Mahārāja read aloud:
The Hare Kṛṣṇa movement was called a “bona fide religion” yes-
terday by the New York High Court Justice who threw out two
charges against the officials of the movement of “illegal impris-
onment” and “attempted extortion.” The charge had been pre-
ferred by an angry parent that his son, as well as another disciple,
had been held by the movement illegally and that they had been
brainwashed. “The entire and basic issue before the court,” said
the Justice in dismissing the charges, “is whether the two alleged
victims in this case and the defendants will be allowed to practice
the religion of their choice, and this must be answered with a re-
sounding affirmative.” Said Mr. Justice John J. Lee, “The Hare
Kṛṣṇa movement is a bona fide religion with roots in India that
go back thousands of years. It behooved Merril Kreshower
and Edward Shapiro to follow the tenets of that faith, and their
142 Ocean of Mercy
inalienable right to do so will not be trampled upon. The separa-

tion of church and state must be maintained. We must remain a
nation of laws, not of man. The presentment and indictment by the
Grand Jury was in direct and blatant violation of the defendants’
Constitutional rights.”
The Justice said that it appeared to the court, “The people rest
their case on an erroneous minor premise to arrive at a fallacious
conclusion. The record is devoid of one specific allegation of a
misrepresentation or any act of deception on the part of any de-
fendant.” The Justice said, “The freedom of religion is not to be
abridged because it is unconventional in beliefs and practices or
because it is approved or disapproved by the mainstream of so-
ciety or more conventional religions. Without this proliferation
and freedom to follow the dictates of one’s own conscience in this
search for the approach to God, the freedom of religion will be a
meaningless right as provided for in the Constitution. [Any] at-
tempt, be it direct, well-intentioned or not, presents a clear and
present danger to this most fundamental basis and eternally
needed right of our citizens—freedom of religion.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda nodded gravely without comment. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa

Mahārāja continued:
The Hare Kṛṣṇa movement has been under pressure from various
groups, and this judgment is expected to stop some of the harass-
ment [to] which it has been subjected in recent months.
“My mission is now successful,” Śrīla Prabhupāda proclaimed. “In 1965

I went there, and now this is recognized. . . . Kṛṣṇa is wonderful, always.
He is the most wonderful person, and He can do anything wonderful.”
7
Rishikesh
(May 5 – May 15, 1977)
T he news from America was uplifting, but Śrīla Prabhupāda was still
having problems with his health. Two of his biggest Indian support-
ers— Śrīmān Nārāyaṇa, the ex-governor of Madras, and his brother-
in-law Ramakrishna Bajaj, the head of Bajaj Industries—recommended
that he go on a retreat to Rishikesh, which had long been known for its
spiritually auspicious and physically healing environment. Prabhupāda
had never been there and agreed immediately. So one morning, sur-
rounded by hundreds of chanting devotees, we left for the Himalayan
foothills.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, Upendra, and I accompanied Śrīla Prabhu
pāda on the short flight to Delhi and overnight stay at the temple, and
on the car ride north past Haridwar. Dāmodara Paṇḍita Dāsa drove;
Pradyumna, now Prabhupāda’s Sanskrit secretary, was arriving sepa-
rately with three trunks of books; Gaurīdāsa Paṇḍita would be serving
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa; and Yadubara Dāsa was coming to film a documentary
on Śrīla Prabhupāda. Pramāṇa Swami and Viraha Prakāśa Swami had
144 Ocean of Mercy
gone ahead with Trivikrama Swami to help set things up.

Sriman Narayana and Ramakrishna Bajaj had arranged accommo-
dations at the beautiful Ganga Darshan, a two-storey building with a
spacious balcony overlooking the Gaṅgā on one side and a colorful and
fragrant garden of roses and jasmine on the other. When we arrived,
Śrīla Prabhupāda settled in his room and asked for some water. Upen-
dra brought him a glass from the kitchen, but when Prabhupāda took
a sip he commented, “Did I come to Rishikesh to drink tap water?” I
remembered that he had stated that if he just drank Gaṅgā water in
Rishikesh he would get well. So I ran down to the river with a jug and
brought back some gaṅgā-jala. When Prabhupāda took it, he smiled at
me and said, “That is intelligence—understanding the mind of the spiri-
tual master.”
I could not help but think how much my life had changed since my
previous visit to Rishikesh, when I had first returned to India from Ger-
many. I had been lost, wandering without clear direction. I thought of a
comment Śrīla Prabhupāda had made on a morning walk in Juhu, when
he had noted the beautifully groomed, well-behaved dogs belonging to
people walking along the beach. “What’s the difference between these
dogs and them?” he had asked, pointing to a bunch of stray dogs, dirty
and unkempt, clustered in a pack and barking at passersby. When no
one had answered, he had said, “These dogs have their masters, whereas
those don’t.” I was still a dog, but now I had found my spiritual master.
I was the cook, preparing in large quantity whatever I made for Śrīla
Prabhupāda. I relished my service and was encouraged by the apprecia-
tion I received from the other devotees. Breakfast was usually just fried
eggplant and a light kicharī with a lot of vegetables. Sometimes, when his
appetite was better, Prabhupāda would ask me to make some purīs and
sabjī. The devotees liked that best, but he didn’t want it very often.
One day Prabhupāda asked me to make some upmā. I didn’t know
how to make it, but I just went ahead and prepared it without saying
anything. When I served it, he took a spoonful and said, “This is not
upmā; this is salty halavā.” Then he told me how to prepare upmā: one
Risikesh 145
146 Ocean of Mercy
part sūjī (semolina), one-half part ghee, and two parts water. Cut the
vegetables—cauliflower, potatoes, and eggplant—into small pieces
and fry them in ghee. Fry the sūjī in ghee until it is golden brown. Fry
a spoonful of urad dāl and add it to the sūjī. Boil the water; add some
hing, salt, and lemon juice; and pour it on the sūjī. Add the fried vegeta-
bles and stir until done. The water will be absorbed by the sūjī. The next
day I made upmā and served it to Śrīla Prabhupāda. He was very happy
to see that I had prepared it properly, and I was very happy to see him
happy.
After breakfast, I would go to the market to buy vegetables. Pramāṇa
Mahārāja and Viraha Prakāśa Mahārāja, who had recently come from
Venezuela, often joined me. Viraha Prakāśa didn’t speak English, but I
could tell from even our few limited exchanges that he had a soft, kind
heart. Sometimes he would watch when I was cooking, or quietly start
washing the pots, and we developed a bond in the silence.
I also had the good fortune of getting to know Trivikrama Mahārāja.
He was a tall, handsome American, one of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s early dis-
ciples. My first impression was that he was grave and serious, but I soon
discovered that he had a soft and tender heart. Although he was a senior
devotee with many achievements on behalf of Śrīla Prabhupāda around
the world, in front of Prabhupāda he was just like a little boy—innocent
and vibrant. Prabhupāda’s face would light up when he saw Mahārāja,
as if he were embracing him with his merciful glance.
Trivikrama Mahārāja had made the arrangements in advance, and
Prabhupāda’s room was set up perfectly. A low table held a silver tum-
bler and waterpot, and behind the table, on the floor, was a cushion
where Śrīla Prabhupāda would sit cross-legged to work. The bed spar-
kled with a beautifully embroidered white cover. New pots and pans
lined the shelves of the adjacent kitchen, and the devotees’ rooms were
all nicely arranged.
When Trivikrama Mahārāja was massaging Śrīla Prabhupāda’s feet
one afternoon, he commented, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, your feet are so soft
and pink.”
Risikesh 147
Prabhupāda said, “That pink is actually from your hand.”

Both of them smiled, and so did I.
One morning Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, Trivikrama Mahārāja, Pramāṇa

Mahārāja, Yadubara, Upendra, and I were all sitting around Śrīla
Prabhupāda after breakfast. I did not usually get the opportunity to
attend such darśanas—I was normally cooking or shopping or translat-
ing—but on that day I decided not to miss out.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was explaining how, in order to advance in spiri-
tual life, one must abstain from sex life. Sex, he said, even between hus-
band and wife, was only for procreation. And further, even they should
abstain during pregnancy and for six months after childbirth. In this
way a couple should have sex only once in sixteen months.
There were, Prabhupāda reminded us, many scriptural restrictions
concerning sexual indulgence, and conception was not just an acciden-
tal occurrence. “Don’t do it—that means control him,” he said. “Re-
strictions means stop. Otherwise, why there should be restriction? For
eating bhagavat-prasāda there is no restriction; for chanting the holy
name of the Lord there is no restriction; for Deity worship there is no
restriction. But for meat-eating, intoxication, and sex life there is restric-
tion, because the objective is to stop. You indulge now because you can’t
help it, but ultimately you have to stop.”
Household life, Prabhupāda said, did not just mean for a man to take
care of his wife and children. Even cats and dogs did that—birds did
that. “They also take care of their children,” he said, “but are they house-
holders? The real duty of the parents—pitā na sa syāj jananī na sā syāt/
daivaṁ na tat syān na patiś ca sa syān na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum—
unless and until the father and mother are able to deliver their chil-
dren from the cycle of birth and death, they are not a real father and
mother. The duty of the father and mother is to deliver their children
from the miserable condition of their material existence. Then only they
148 Ocean of Mercy
can be considered to be householders. Lord Rāmacandra was a house-

holder; Arjuna was a householder; Prahlāda Mahārāja was a house-
holder; Janaka Mahārāja was a householder. Therefore, one should try
to become a householder like them—that is the real human civilization.
‘Householder’ does not mean an arrangement to gratify one’s senses.”
I was glad to have stayed back to listen to Śrīla Prabhupāda. We had
the opportunity to sit at his feet and hear from him directly, and one
could not overestimate the value of our fortune.
On most days, around midday, the devotees would go swimming in the

Gaṅgā. I usually had to stay back to cook for and serve Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda, but sometimes, if I went as soon as my service was done, the devo
tees would still be there. We would walk up along the bank and then
jump into the cold water and let the current carry us downstream, all the
while laughing like a bunch of little kids.
One afternoon, when Upendra was attending to Prabhupāda, Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja invited me to join him for a walk. We took a winding
path through the forest, crossed Lakshman Jhula, the iron suspension
bridge that stretched across the Gaṅgā, and followed the road uphill un-
til we reached a boulder facing the river. The late-day sun bathed the
foothills in golden rays, and the only sounds were the rumbling of the
river below and the light chirping of birds.
For a while we just sat in silence, appreciating the serenity. Then
Mahārāja commented, “You are so fortunate to have taken birth in In-
dia. Just by being born here you are naturally close to the spiritual cul-
ture. The West is so degraded; there is no concept of purity there.”
“I may have been born in India,” I said, “but I was brought up with
the conviction that the West was the best. Sometimes I even wished I
were born in the West.”
“That may be,” he replied, “but your environment did not allow you
to degrade so much. You can’t imagine how degraded we were.”
Risikesh 149
150 Ocean of Mercy
“The other day a devotee came to see Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I said. “He
was lamenting how degraded he was. But Śrīla Prabhupāda told him
that this was superficial, since as soon as Prabhupāda had called him,
the devotee had come and joined him.”
“Yes,” Mahārāja remembered. “That was Bhāvabhūti Prabhu.”
“You have been sent by Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura
to assist Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I said. “You are not ordinary devotees. Śrī
Caitanya Mahāprabhu made you take birth in America and Europe to
assist Śrīla Prabhupāda in his mission to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness all
over the world.”
“How did you figure that out?” he only half-joked.
“Just an intelligent observation,” I remarked with a smile. “Not only
did Lord Caitanya send you all, but He made all the arrangements so
wonderfully for Śrīla Prabhupāda to come to America at a time when
the scene was perfectly set for him to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness. After
the Second World War, America reached the height of material prosper-
ity, but you all, the youth of America, became disillusioned and realized
that money could not buy everything, and you started to look for a posi
tive alternative to find real happiness. At that time Śrīla Prabhupāda
came to America. What then happened will be seen by posterity as a di-
vine arrangement of the Supreme Personality of Godhead to fulfill His
prediction.”
Mahārāja looked me right in the eye, his gaze piercing. He did not
say a word.
I started to feel uneasy, a bit embarrassed, and began to explain, “Ac-
tually, this is not really my own assessment; sometimes devotees—”
“There is no need to apologize,” he stopped me. “What you said is
both correct and profound.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda gave darśana every evening. Rishikesh was one of

India’s most prominent holy places, and many pilgrims were there for
Risikesh 151
spiritual fulfillment and yoga training. When they heard that Śrīla Pra-
bhupāda was giving darśana, they came to see him and hear from him.
Prabhupāda would speak primarily from the Bhagavad-gītā. Most of the
pilgrims were misguided by impersonalism and did not think that the
Absolute Truth was the Supreme Person or had any form, but Prabhu
pāda spoke strongly that God was a person—the Supreme Person, Kṛṣṇa.
Many people had questions, and Prabhupāda always answered them
with eloquence and wisdom, but so as not to strain his health, Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and Trivikrama Mahārāja limited each darśana to an
hour—from five to six o’clock. Then they would ask everyone to leave
and would take Prabhupāda downstairs to his room.
Still, many people would stay, and the devotees would sit with them
and answer their questions. I was still a new devotee and did not think
myself qualified to preach in front of my senior godbrothers, but I had
some desire, so I would sit in on the sessions, and one day when I saw a
young saffron-robed sādhu, I decided to talk to him. Like most of India’s
sādhus, the man was an impersonalist. We began in a friendly manner,
but when he told me that the goal of life was to merge into Brahman,
the Absolute Truth, and that devotion was only the temporary, prelim-
inary means to prepare for that goal, I protested strongly. I quoted the
Bhāgavatam verse beginning vadanti tat tattva-vidas (1.2.11) and pointed
out that the Absolute Truth was manifest in three features—the imper-
sonal Brahman, the localized Paramātmā, and Bhagavān, the Supreme
Personality of Godhead. This difference of features, I told him, was due
to different levels of perception. When one came to understand the Ab-
solute Truth through negating the material nature through the process
of neti neti—“not this, not this”—one could then go beyond the material
nature and perceive the effulgence of the Lord, known as the brahma-
jyoti. However, just as one was blinded if exposed to the brightness of
the sun after staying in darkness too long, if you were exposed to the
spiritual light of the brahma-jyoti after being in the darkness of this ma
terial nature, you would be blinded to what lay beyond.
If one were fortunate enough to receive proper direction from a
152 Ocean of Mercy
qualified teacher, however, he would realize that his external endeavor

to understand the Absolute had led him to a dead end and he would be
directed to project his consciousness internally through aṣṭāṅga-yoga,
withdrawing his senses from their objects. Eventually, upon achieving
perfection, he would perceive the Lord in the heart as the Supersoul,
or Paramātmā, and spontaneously surrender unto Him, recognizing
Him as the Supreme and himself as an insignificant spiritual spark. This
surrender, I said, was the beginning of devotional service to the Lord,
which would enable him to see Kṛṣṇa as the most attractive Supreme
Personality of Godhead—Śrī Bhagavān. That, I told him, was the ulti-
mate spiritual perfection—brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate.
When our conversation ended and the sādhu left, I went downstairs
feeling happy and content; I had, I felt, defeated the impersonalist phi-
losophy. My reverie was broken, however, when Upendra came and
told me that Śrīla Prabhupāda was calling me.
I suddenly realized that my discussion with the sādhu had been going
on right outside Prabhupāda’s room. I had been practically shouting, I
remembered; Prabhupāda must have heard what I had said and become
annoyed with me. My heart throbbed with anxiety as I rushed to see
him, ready to be chastised.
“Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I said when I entered his room, “were you call-
ing me?”
“Yes,” he said. “What were you doing?”
“I was preaching, Śrīla Prabhupāda.”
“What were you preaching?”
I summarized what had happened and looked at the floor, awaiting
his chastisement, but Prabhupāda remained silent. After what seemed
like minutes, I glanced up and saw that he was looking at me. “Śrīla
Prabhupāda,” I asked, “did I say anything wrong?”
“No,” he replied. “What you said was very good and very correct.”
I felt so relieved, so happy.
�
Risikesh 153
One night, as I was attending Śrīla Prabhupāda, he stopped translating

and lay down. Usually he would fall asleep soon after reclining, but he
seemed wide awake, so I started to massage his feet. After a while, he
asked me, “What did you learn from me?”
At first I was a little perplexed; Prabhupāda had never spoken to me
like this. Rather nervously, I said, “Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of
Godhead.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda was silent. After a short pause, I said, “We are His
eternal servants.”
There was a quiet “Hmmm.” I took it to indicate approval, so I con-
tinued: “Therefore the purpose of our existence is to serve Him. That
service is called devotional service, an expression of our love.”
“Yes,” Prabhupāda said softly. “Love for Kṛṣṇa is devotional service.
Love is there in everyone’s heart—everyone wants to love somebody.
This love is actually meant for Kṛṣṇa, but when it is offered to some-
one other than Kṛṣṇa it becomes lust—ātmendriya-prīti-vāñchā—tāre bali
‘kāma’/ kṛṣṇendriya-prīti-icchā dhare ‘prema’ nāma: “The desire to gratify
one’s own senses is kāma, lust, but the desire to please the senses of Lord
Kṛṣṇa is prema, love.”
I knew the verse, from Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and recited one of the
verses that preceded it: ataeva kāma-preme bahuta antara/ kāma—andha-
tamaḥ, prema—nirmala bhāskara: “Therefore lust and love are quite dif-
ferent. Lust is like dense darkness, but love is like the bright sun.”
After a few moments, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “Lust, sex desire, is the
perverted reflection of this love. The pleasure that one wants to derive
out of sex life can be experienced multiplied millions of times by devel-
oping one’s loving relationship with Kṛṣṇa. One cannot even imagine
what kind of joy one can experience in his heart just by offering his love
to Kṛṣṇa.”
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja asked Śrīla Prabhupāda many questions—some

154 Ocean of Mercy
about management and some on spiritual topics. I was amazed at how

he would ask them, and I didn’t think I would ever be able to question
Prabhupāda in such a manner. One day I was sitting in Mahārāja’s of-
fice chanting while he was editing letters that he’d typed on Prabhu-
pāda’s behalf. When he finished, he looked up and saw that I had been
watching him, and he just smiled. I was already feeling deep apprecia-
tion for him, and when he smiled at me I couldn’t contain myself. “You
are so brilliant,” I said. “Whatever you do is so perfect.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
“The way you ask Śrīla Prabhupāda questions is amazing. And I ad-
mire your intelligence.”
“It’s not a matter of intelligence,” he said. “It is a matter of sincere
desire to know something. When you have a sincere question, just ask.
And who is a better person than Śrīla Prabhupāda to answer your
questions?”
I told him about a time in Māyāpur when I had asked Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda what the condition of India would have been if Mahatma Gandhi
had become a devotee of Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda had seemed annoyed and
commented in Bengali, “If I had a wife, then I could have a son.” In
other words, there was no need to speculate. I told Mahārāja that I had
felt so stupid that I had not dared ask any questions since, feeling that it
would only further reveal my stupidity.
“Don’t ask a question just for the sake of asking,” Mahārāja said.
“Ask to sincerely know something. That is the art of asking questions.”
Often, when senior devotees were gathered around Śrīla Prabhu
pāda in his room, he would spontaneously instruct them about devo-
tional service. On one such occasion, when I was sitting with the group,
he said that an ideal preacher should have the proper understanding of
the six branches of Vedic philosophy, ṣaḍ-darśana.
“When one understands them properly,” he declared, “one can
understand that devotional service is the ultimate goal of the Vedas.
Only then does one become eligible to impart the conclusion of Vedic
wisdom.”
Risikesh 155
As I listened, a question flashed in my mind. Śrīla Prabhupāda had

mentioned in his books that five out of six branches of Vedic philosophy
were atheistic, so how could an understanding of those branches lead to
the conclusion that devotional service to Kṛṣṇa was the ultimate goal?
I still felt shy to ask questions in front of the others, so I remained
silent. But at night, when I was alone with Śrīla Prabhupāda, I remem-
bered Tamāl Kṛṣṇa’s advice. So I gathered my courage and asked, “Śrīla
Prabhupāda, in your books you mention that five of the six branches
of ṣaḍ-darśana are considered atheistic. And at the beginning of Śrīmad-
Bhāgavatam, Nārada Muni points out to Śrīla Vyāsadeva that even the
sixth branch—Vedānta—is tinged with impersonalism. So that also falls
short of perfection. Why, then, is it necessary to study them, and how
is that knowledge going to benefit us? Is it in order to defeat the propo-
nents of the other doctrines?”
Śrīla Prabhupāda seemed pleased with my question. “No,” he ex-
plained, “our main business is not to defeat others, but to establish the
fact that devotion to Kṛṣṇa—Kṛṣṇa consciousness—is the ultimate spiri
tual goal. This material nature is the perverted reflection of the spiritual
reality. We have to understand that whatever is here in this world has
its origin in the spiritual world. When in a reflection of a tree we see the
green leaves, red flowers, and yellow fruits, we have to understand that
they must be there in the real tree. Otherwise how can they be in the re-
flection? Everything is coming from the spiritual sky. Whatever is here
in this material nature is also existing in the spiritual reality.
“The perfect perception is to see things in that light. The Vedas have
been designed to reveal the identity of Kṛṣṇa and bring the living entities
to His lotus feet. The six branches of Vedic philosophy are actually six
steps of gradual elevation to understanding the ultimate goal—devotion
to Kṛṣṇa.
“These six branches are Pūrva-mīmāṁsā [preliminary conclu-
sions, or Karma-mīmāṁsā], Nyāya [logic], Vaiśeṣika [atomic theory],
Sāṅkhya [analytical studies], Yoga [linking with the Supreme Lord],
and Uttara-mīmāṁsā [final conclusions], Vedānta. If you simply regard
156 Ocean of Mercy
them as independent branches of philosophy and study them without

their relation to Kṛṣṇa, they appear to be atheistic. These six branches
are like rungs on a ladder. The rungs of the ladder by themselves cannot
be the real goal. Their actual utility is in relation to the ladder, and the
purpose of the ladder is to reach the ultimate height—devotional service
to Kṛṣṇa.
“The Vedas impart three levels of understanding—karma-kāṇḍa,
jñāna-kāṇḍa, and bhakti. Initially, one in this material nature wants to en-
joy through sense gratification, and the karma-kāṇḍa section of the Vedas
gives directions on how to enjoy. As you act, accordingly you will get
the result: right action leads to enjoyment and wrong action to suffering.
This is called the law of karma—the principle of action and reaction.
Therefore, one must know how to act in order to really enjoy. Which
can lead one to the highest region of the material universe—Satyaloka,
where Lord Brahmā is situated.
“However, in spite of all endeavors for enjoyment, one eventually
realizes that he cannot avoid suffering—uninterrupted enjoyment is
not possible in this material nature; suffering comes on its own and is
unavoidable.
“When a person begins to wonder why he is suffering and tries to
find the way out of it, he comes to the jñāna-kāṇḍa platform, and through
four branches of Vedic philosophy— Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṅkhya, and
Yoga—he gradually transcends the material world and establishes his
connection to the Lord in the heart. Through Nyāya he comes to under
stand that this material nature is a place of suffering, duḥkhālayam, and
that the material body is a perfect instrument for receiving pain. For ex-
ample, just consider how many ways you can inflict pain on your little
finger, or any part of your body, but you will find so few ways to give it
pleasure—from which we can conclude that this material body is a won-
derful instrument for receiving pain.
“Thereafter, one begins to consider what this material nature really
is, and through the Vaiśeṣika branch of philosophy he realizes that the
perceivable material world is actually composed of the minutest parti-
Risikesh 157
cles, called paramāṇu, or atoms. But to our senses it takes various shapes,
forms, and perceptions. In other words, what appears to our senses to be
real is not actually real. Therefore, this material nature is an illusion.
“This leads to the next branch of Vedic philosophy, called Sāṅkhya,
or analytical study, which describes the material nature consisting of
five elements—earth, water, fire, air, and ether, and the individual with
five senses—eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. The senses interact with
the elements, and five objects of the senses are generated: the ears inter-
act with ether, and sound is produced; the skin interacts with air, and
touch is produced; the eyes interact with fire, and form is produced; the
tongue interacts with water, and taste is produced; and the nose inter-
acts with earth, and smell is produced.
“There are also five working senses, with which we become active
in this world—namely, the hands, legs, voice, anus, and genitals. In this
way Sāṅkhya philosophy determines twenty tattvas, or aspects of ma-
terial nature, and then considers three subtle elements beyond that—
the mind, intelligence, and false ego—and subsequently, the mahat-
tattva, the total material energy, from which the entire creation became
manifest.
“Through these twenty-four manifestations, Sāṅkhya philosophy
analyzes the entire material nature. However, it concludes that these
twenty-four manifestations are objective in nature and cannot exist
without the subject—the ‘I,’ the self, the soul. The entire material na-
ture has been analyzed, but the soul cannot be found there; therefore, it
comes from another reality—the spiritual nature—and has its origin, its
source, in the Supreme Soul, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
In this way, Sāṅkhya philosophy takes one to the spiritual reality and
transcends the material nature.
“Recognition of the fact that the soul is a part of the Supreme Per-
sonality of Godhead leads to the final aspect of jñāna-kāṇḍa, called
Yoga. Yoga is the process by which the spirit soul becomes connected
to the Supersoul, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This pro-
cess has eight different stages, or limbs; therefore, it is called aṣṭāṅga-
158 Ocean of Mercy
yoga—yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhyāna, dhāraṇā, and

samādhi. In the final stage, samādhi, one perceives the Supersoul—the
Supreme Personality of Godhead—in one’s heart. Recognizing one’s mi-
nuteness and the greatness of the Supreme Lord, one’s head automati-
cally bends down in respect and one surrenders to Him.
“This surrender to the Lord is the very foundation of devotional ser-
vice—bhakti, the main aspect of the final branch of Vedic philosophy—
and it has been explained through the sixth branch of Vedic philosophy,
called Uttara-mīmāṁsā, or the final conclusion. It is also called Vedānta.
The Vedanta philosophy is based on the Vedānta-sūtra, which apparently
refers to the impersonal Brahman, but in his natural commentary on the
Vedānta-sūtra, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrīla Vyāsadeva establishes that sur-
render to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and loving devotional
service to Him is the actual objective of Vedānta philosophy. Thus bhakti
takes one beyond liberation to engagement in loving devotional service
to the Lord.
“In this way, through karma-kāṇḍa and jñāna-kāṇḍa, one is gradu-
ally elevated to the ultimate point of devotional service to the Supreme
Personality of Godhead. This is the perfect understanding of the six
branches of Vedic philosophy.”
On one Ekādaśī, a semimonthly day of increased spiritual focus and

fasting from at least grains and beans, the devotees had not been prop-
erly informed and had eaten grains for breakfast. Later, when we found
out that it was Ekādaśī and I informed Śrīla Prabhupāda, he became
upset. He called Pradyumna and asked, “What’s the point in having a
paṇḍita with us if he can’t even figure out when is Ekādaśī?”
When Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja asked Śrīla Prabhupāda what we
should do, Prabhupāda said that we should fast the next day. He had not
had any grains, but since we were not observing Ekādaśī that day, he
would not either; he would fast with us on the following day.
Risikesh 159
Later, I learned from the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, the Vaiṣṇava instruction

manual, that people under eight or over eighty years of age need not ob-
serve the Ekādaśī fast. Śrīla Prabhupāda was eighty, but he fasted any-
way—for our sake.
The next day, Śrīla Prabhupāda showed me how to cook an Ekādaśī
feast. He asked me to get kotu atta (pulverized amaranth) and siṅgāra
atta (pulverized water-chestnut) and demonstrated how to make purīs
with kotu atta, and pakorās and halavā with siṅgāra atta. He made purī
dough with kotu atta, rolled the purīs, and then fried them in ghee. Fried
balls with a batter of siṅgāra atta and shredded cabbage made the most
delicious pakorās. He boiled some potatoes and cut them into pieces,
which he fried, and also made a few vegetable preparations and tomato
chutney. At last he made the halavā with siṅgāra atta.
The devotees were ecstatic; it was one of the rare occasions when
Śrīla Prabhupāda cooked everything himself. I only assisted, washing
and cutting the vegetables and providing Prabhupāda with whatever he
needed, while the devotees watched silently from outside.
Another day, Śrīla Prabhupāda asked me to cook bati-chachchari—the
preparation he had taught me how to make in Bombay. He had been
having problems with his stomach, though, and the preparation was
very rich, with a lot of ghee and chili, so I decided not to use so much
chili. When I served it to him, however, he took one bite and immedi-
ately became angry. “I personally taught you how to prepare this,” he
said, “and you forgot? How could you forget it when I personally taught
you?” For the rest of the day, whenever I went to him, he repeated, “I
personally taught you how to cook it, and you forgot! How could you
forget when I personally taught you?”
The following day, Śrīla Prabhupāda was still asking, “How could
you forget when I personally taught you?” But from the tone of his voice
I could tell that his anger had subsided, so I told him that actually I had
not forgotten how to cook the preparation; I had decided not to use so
much chili on account of his stomach.
He looked at me, surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
160 Ocean of Mercy
Then he explained: “When you put a lot of ghee, you must put a lot
of chili, because they counteract each other’s effects. Ghee is rich and
chili is hot, but when they are put together, they counteract each other’s
effects.”
I learned two very valuable lessons from that incident. First, I
learned that when you use a lot of ghee, there must be a lot of chili; you
needed the chili to digest the ghee. But more importantly, I learned that
when Śrīla Prabhupāda taught us something, we should always remem-
ber and never forget it.
As in Juhu, Śrīla Prabhupāda was translating every night. One of his

team of attending devotees had to remain with him in case he needed
anything. Upendra was with him from ten to midnight, I stayed un-
til two, and Pramāṇa Mahārāja stayed from two to four, when Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja would come in.
Although summer in India gets extremely hot, Rishikesh, being in the
Himalayan foothills, is usually quite pleasant, with bright sunshine and
modest temperatures. But one day the sky suddenly became overcast
with dense, dark clouds, and a roaring gale began to blow, followed by a
torrential rainstorm, which continued throughout the night. The storm
uprooted many trees and knocked out the electricity. The cables had
been damaged, we were told, and there was no way of knowing when
they would be repaired. We set up candles to light the rooms, but with-
out electricity Prabhupāda could not translate.
At around one, during my shift, Prabhupāda rang his bell. I went to
his bed, lifted the mosquito net, and asked him how I could help.
When I leaned over to hear his words, what he told me left me in
shock. In a soft, serene voice, he said, “The time has come for me to
leave my body. Please take me to Vṛndāvana. I want to leave my body in
Vṛndāvana.”
I began trembling uncontrollably. I ran downstairs and woke up
Risikesh 161
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, practically shouting, telling him what Prabhu-

pāda had said.
He jumped out of bed and ran upstairs, where Prabhupāda told him
the same thing: “Please take me to Vṛndāvana. The time has come for me
to leave my body. I want to leave my body in Vṛndāvana.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s health had been poor, but none of us had imag-
ined that his illness was so serious that he could leave his body. We all
thought it would be just a temporary setback and that he would soon get
better. We had been confident that the visit to Rishikesh was just what
he had needed and that his health would soon improve with some rest.
We were all stunned by this turn of events.
We packed up that night, in such shock and with such heavy hearts
that we could barely speak. We drove to Delhi the next day, stopped
overnight, and the following morning left for Vṛndāvana.
The Vṛndāvana devotees were jubilant over Śrīla Prabhupāda’s sud-
den, if unexplained, arrival, and as his red Ambassador approached the
Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma temple, the kīrtana was vibrant beyond imagination
and the devotees were dancing ecstatically. Even I was drawn into the
kīrtana and lost myself in the chanting and dancing, for the moment for-
getting why we had come.
After greeting the Deities, Śrīla Prabhupāda walked to his quarters,
the crowd of devotees following behind.
162 Ocean of Mercy
Vṛndāvana 163
Vṛndāvana
(May 17 – August 28, 1977)
Ś rīla Prabhupāda settled gracefully into the āsana behind his desk
in the large darśana room. Two windows faced the temple, framed
pictures of Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes and other Bhāgavatam scenes decorated the
walls, and on a shelf were sets of Prabhupāda’s books in various lan-
guages. The devotees continued to chant and dance, expressing their
happiness at his arrival.
When the kīrtana ended and the devotees quieted down, Prabhupāda
announced the purpose of his coming to Vṛndāvana. In a moment, the
devotees’ joy turned to sadness, and tears flowed down their cheeks.
Seeing their condition, Prabhupāda spoke about the nature of our
existence in the material world, quoting from the Bhagavad-gītā (2.13):
dehino ’smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā

tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati
“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood
164 Ocean of Mercy
to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death.
A self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.”
The body changes, he explained, but the proprietor of the body, the
soul, does not; it is unchanging. The body is born, it grows, and then it
dies. No one in this world can avoid death; whoever is born is bound to
die. But death is only the end of the body; the soul is not affected—it
continues in another body. In this way, the living entity transmigrates
from one body to another, life after life. One who is situated in transcen-
dental knowledge is not disturbed by this.
The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, Prabhupāda explained, is
meant to give people this invaluable, crucial knowledge. When one be-
comes situated in this knowledge, one conquers death. He had given all
the knowledge, all the information, in his books. He would not always
be there in his vapuḥ, his physical form, but he would always be there in
his vāṇī form—his words in his books and his spoken instructions.
Despite Śrīla Prabhupāda’s eloquent explanation, when the devotees
filed out they were still shocked and disheartened.
After they left, Prabhupāda told me, “From now on, don’t cook any-
thing for me and don’t force me to eat anything. What is the use of eating
when there is no appetite?”
His words sounded like an ultimatum—he was going to stop eating
and drinking in order to give up his body, just as Parīkṣit Mahārāja had
done when he learned that he had only a week to live.
I went to Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and related what Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda had told me. “His Divine Grace is engaging in prāyopaveśa,” I said,
“when one decides to give up his body by not eating or drinking.”
Mahārāja remained silent for several minutes, thinking. Then he
said, “What can we do when Śrīla Prabhupāda makes such a decision
and gives us such an order?”
Although Prabhupāda had asked me not to cook or force him to eat any-
Vṛndāvana 165
thing, I made fruit juice and kept it on a table next to his bed, just in case
he wanted something to drink. But the juice remained untouched, and
for the next few days he stayed in bed, hardly speaking.
When we had stopped in Delhi on our way to Vṛndāvana, Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja had spoken to Ādi Keśava Swami in New York, in-
formed him about Śrīla Prabhupāda’s condition, and requested that he
inform devotees around the world. So in the next few days many devo-
tees arrived—especially GBCs and sannyāsīs.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja organized a meeting with all the leading
devotees. I stayed back with Śrīla Prabhupāda, and after the meeting
they all came to his room and gathered around his bed. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa
Mahārāja informed Prabhupāda about the meeting and told him that
they had decided to request him not to leave so soon. “We are like a
bunch of children,” he said. “If you leave us now, we will become or-
phans—we will become totally lost. You are a pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa.
Kṛṣṇa will do whatever you want. Therefore, if you want to stay, then
Kṛṣṇa will positively let you stay.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda was silent for a short while. Then he said, “If that is
what you want, then I will stay.”
In a flash, the devotees’ mood turned joyous, and they all shouted,
“Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda!” We realized that for a pure devotee like Śrīla
Prabhupāda, the decision to stay or leave this world was under his
control.
I did not wait for Prabhupāda’s permission to resume cooking; I im-
mediately went to the kitchen and started to prepare him lunch. And
when I informed him that I had prepared something, he agreed to eat. I
brought the plate to his bedroom, but although he sat up on his bed and
tried, he could hardly eat anything.
From then on, I cooked Prabhupāda a full meal every day, and when,
at half past noon, it was time for him to eat, Upendra would help him
walk to the next room, which served as his dining room, and sat him at a
low table.
Viswambhar Dayal—known as Bhagatji—lived nearby in a humble
166 Ocean of Mercy
dwelling and came to see Prabhupāda every day, often bringing chaas,
buttermilk, made from his own cows’ milk, which Prabhupāda relished.
Bhagatji was a vraja-vāsī, a resident of Vṛndāvana who was born there.
He had known Śrīla Prabhupāda in his early days in Vṛndāvana and
had helped with the construction of the Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma temple. Al-
though he was not initiated by Śrīla Prabhupāda, he treated him as his
spiritual master, and Prabhupāda showered his affection upon him.
Bhagatji spent a lot of time with Prabhupāda, just sitting by his bed.
Although he was quite old, probably in his late sixties, he had a powerful
body, and he liked giving Prabhupāda massages. They spoke intimately,
as if they were close friends, but Bhagatji always maintained a respectful
attitude. Śrīla Prabhupāda would express his concerns about the future
of the movement to him, and Bhagatji would assure Prabhupāda that he
should not worry; he had trained his disciples so nicely that they would
carry his mission forward.
Ātreya Ṛṣi Dāsa brought special limes from Iran. He hailed from an
aristocratic Iranian family, had an MBA from Harvard, and had held an
important position in an American multinational corporation, but when
he had met Śrīla Prabhupāda he had given up his job and dedicated his
life to the movement. Prabhupāda was quite fond of him and often ex-
pressed his pride in having him as his disciple.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was still hardly eating or drinking, but the limes,
a specialty of Iran, had a particularly sweet taste, and when I made him
lime juice, which had to be served immediately, since it became bitter
within a few minutes, he liked it and asked for more. We were all happy
and relieved to see him accept something and even take pleasure in it.
Ātreya Ṛṣi immediately arranged for several boxes of limes to be sent
from Iran, which pleased Śrīla Prabhupāda very much, and I began to
serve him the juice regularly.
Since Ātreya Ṛṣi was from a professional background, he had tried
to professionalize ISKCON’s management in Los Angeles. He had
wanted to centralize ISKCON’s affairs and make everything run more
efficiently. The devotees, especially the managers, had been impressed,
Vṛndāvana 167
but Śrīla Prabhupāda thought that centralization would undermine lo-

cal devotees’ enthusiastic spirit. Every temple should be an independent
unit, he said, a separate legal entity, run by a temple president with a
team of devotees. He did not even want the Governing Body Commis-
sioners to interfere with temple management; rather, they should see
that the spiritual standards in their zones were properly maintained and
through spiritual guidance and preaching inspire the devotees to be en-
gaged in their service.
In later years, we saw how Prabhupāda’s directive to keep temples
separate and independent was a saving grace, since one temple could
not be held responsible for the legal or financial problems of another,
nor could many temples be grouped together to face lawsuits.
Ātreya Ṛṣi delighted Prabhupāda with good news from Iran—the
royal family was becoming favorable to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Pari
vrājakācārya Swami had developed a friendly relationship with the
shah’s family, and the shah’s sister, who had become a vegetarian and
even started chanting, was actively involved in ISKCON and had per-
sonally designed the interior of the Govinda’s restaurant in Tehran. The
restaurant was quite popular and had so many patrons that they often
had to wait in line.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was extremely pleased to hear of such preaching
success, especially in an Islamic country, and mentioned that there had
been close connections between India and Iran since time immemorial
and that it was Indian kṣatriyas (warriors) who had settled there. By
nature, Iranians were noble, as their lineage had descended from the
kṣatriya class.
Śrīla Prabhupāda then explained to Ātreya Ṛṣi why he had not ap-
proved of his plan to centralize the management of ISKCON. Ātreya
Ṛṣi was visibly embarrassed and cast his eyes downward, but Prabhu-
pāda spoke to him with affection, telling him that the Kṛṣṇa conscious-
ness movement was spreading due to the inspiration of devotees to do
something for the pleasure of guru and Kṛṣṇa. If there was too much con-
trol, that inspiration would be lost. In material, corporate management
168 Ocean of Mercy
everything was organized and structured efficiently to get the most out
of the employees, and the employees did not mind being exploited in
that way because they were getting paid and because they knew that if
they did not perform they would be fired. In Kṛṣṇa consciousness, how-
ever, that kind of control would not work, because devotees rendered
voluntary service out of love for Kṛṣṇa. Their motivation was Kṛṣṇa’s
pleasure, not financial gain or fear of punishment. On the material plat-
form, laws existed to control the individuals, whereas on the spiritual
platform laws were there to facilitate devotees’ service and spiritual
advancement.
Śrīla Prabhupāda gave his own example: when he had gone to Amer-
ica, he had not expected anything of the boys and girls he met. He had
simply told them about Kṛṣṇa and their loving relationship with Him
and taught them how to develop that loving relationship. They had be-
come inspired by his teachings, come to feel that his message should go
out to others, and taken up that responsibility. Therefore the Kṛṣṇa con-
sciousness movement had spread all over the world. He had not tried to
control them but had simply given them the vision, motivated them, and
tried his best to facilitate them. When the devotees had been inspired to
serve Kṛṣṇa, He had bestowed His mercy upon them, and as a result,
the most wonderful miracle had happened.
Ātreya Ṛṣi looked up at Śrīla Prabhupāda, his eyes shining with ap-
preciation. “Śrīla Prabhupāda,” he said, “you are the perfect example
of that. You have made the impossible possible by your devotion, and
Kṛṣṇa’s potency acted through you to make you achieve such an impos-
sible miracle.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda looked at him and smiled. Then he said, “A devo
tee simply wants to serve Kṛṣṇa for His pleasure. He desires to do
something for Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa fulfills his desire. In this way a devo-
tee becomes empowered by Kṛṣṇa. This is how Kṛṣṇa spreads Kṛṣṇa
consciousness in this world. He does not act Himself but acts through
His devotees by empowering them. Therefore, whenever we see some
remarkable achievement in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we have to understand
Vṛndāvana 169
that it is happening through the devotees because they have been em-
powered by Kṛṣṇa.”
The preaching in Iran had become so successful that Ātreya Ṛṣi, who
had been the head of the American accountancy firm Arthur Young,
had resigned from his job and started his own business to free himself to
preach and help guide Iran’s spiritual activities. Ironically, his company
had become so successful that he was even busier.
Hearing that, Śrīla Prabhupāda laughed and said, “That means you
are making more money now.” When Ātreya Ṛṣi admitted that this was
true, Prabhupāda said, “Then use it in Kṛṣṇa’s service.”
Ātreya Ṛṣi then reported on Pakistan, which was also in his zone. A
Hindu lady who had married a Muslim governor of a state was taking
great interest in promoting her original Hindu culture, and her husband
was supporting her.
Śrīla Prabhupāda asked if there were still many Hindus in Pakistan.
There were, Ātreya Ṛṣi confirmed, but they faced great difficulties,
and many continued to live there only because they did not have any-
where else to go. Still, as they became aware of Kṛṣṇa consciousness,
they saw a glimmer of hope and responded favorably.
The news that gave Śrīla Prabhupāda the greatest joy was that book
distribution was going well, that Back to Godhead was being printed in the
Iranian language, and that the Persian translation of the Bhagavad-gītā
was almost complete and would be printed in three months.
Devotees everywhere were informed that Śrīla Prabhupāda had
said that the news of book distribution gave him life. This inspired them
even more, and amazing news started to come in from around the world.
In just one week, the London temple had distributed a record seventy
thousand books. And the more books devotees distributed, the more
Prabhupāda, even from his bed, pushed to have more printed. “Don’t
keep money in the bank,” he directed. “Just print books. That is the best
investment—that is the best way to multiply your money.”
One of the most successful book distributors worldwide was
Ghanaśyāma Dāsa, an African-American devotee who was risking his
170 Ocean of Mercy
life to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the Soviet Union and Communist

Eastern Europe. Wherever he went, his dark complexion drew atten-
tion and made his situation even more dangerous. In some places no one
had ever seen someone with such dark skin or met anyone who spoke
only English.
Although he went into the countries behind the Iron Curtain as a
tourist, Ghanaśyāma could have been arrested for being a spy, which
would have meant life imprisonment or death. Once in Russia when
two KGB agents followed him into a university building, he ran through
a corridor and ducked into a professor’s office, where he told the pro-
fessor he had an appointment. The professor, who happened to speak
English, said he knew nothing about an appointment but invited
Ghanaśyāma to sit down. A moment later the two agents rushed in, but
after speaking with the professor in Russian, they left. And once the
professor had listened to Ghanaśyāma sales pitch, he placed a standing
order for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books.
In the Yugoslavian city of Ljubljana, after four days without success,
Ghanaśyāma had met an Indologist at the university who at first had
not been interested but had then become so attracted when he saw the
books that he placed a standing order for everything Śrīla Prabhupāda
had written. Also in Ljubljana, an international bookshop had bought
several volumes, and a man had offered to translate two of Prabhupāda’s
books into one of Yugoslavia’s languages and have them published. In
the next city, Pristina, a university dean and the chair of the philosophy
and sociology departments had placed two standing orders and also re-
quested that the library place an order for all of Prabhupāda’s books.
Śrīla Prabhupāda would wait eagerly for news of Ghanaśyāma’s ef-
forts and was both extremely pleased and quite moved to hear his re-
ports. “This boy goes without sleep at times for three, four nights from
one city to another getting orders for my books,” he marveled. “He is
indeed a spiritual warrior!”
When Ghanaśyāma wrote to Śrīla Prabhupāda how time and again
he had become aware that Kṛṣṇa was helping him overcome dangers
Vṛndāvana 171
and difficulties, Prabhupāda commented that Ghanaśyāma’s success in

the face of so many challenges—including his bodily features, his inabil-
ity to speak the local languages, and the governments’ opposition and
the threat of arrest—was a perfect demonstration of both one’s dedica-
tion to the spiritual master and the wonderful reciprocation one would
receive from Kṛṣṇa in devotional service.
As Śrīla Prabhupāda received uplifting news about book distribution
from around the world, he also regained a bit of his appetite. One day,
still sitting at his āsana after lunch, he asked me if I knew how to get to
Gopinath Bazaar. It was my first visit to Vṛndāvana, and I had not even
stepped out of the temple complex, so I did not, but I assured him that if
he needed something I could find out where it was and get it for him. He
asked me to go look for an Āyurvedic doctor named Vanamali Kaviraj,
who had treated him previously, and request him to come.
So later that afternoon, I went to Gopinath Bazaar and found Vana
mali Kaviraj at the front of the market, seated on a chair behind a
wooden table in a small chamber that served as his clinic. He was an
old man with white hair and a frail body, but even sitting in his small,
unkempt room, he looked dignified and impressive. I told him that Śrīla
Prabhupāda wanted him to come and treat him, but he said that he
would not be able to venture out that far; due to his old age and weak
body, he never left his quarters. Just sitting up in his chamber was an
endeavor. If Śrīla Prabhupāda came to his place, he said, he could treat
him there.
I knew there was no way Prabhupāda could travel to the bazaar,
however, so I begged him, practically falling at his feet. “Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda’s condition is quite bad,” I explained, “and he has requested that
only you treat him.”
Finally Vanamali Kaviraj agreed, and I took him to the temple on a
rickshaw. I could see how difficult it was for him to travel—every time
the rickshaw jolted on the uneven road, he winced at the pain shooting
through his body.
When we arrived, Vanamali Kaviraj glorified Śrīla Prabhupāda for
172 Ocean of Mercy
his wonderful preaching achievements—for spreading Kṛṣṇa conscious-

ness and attracting so many devotees throughout the world.
Prabhupāda rarely agreed to take any kind of treatment, even
Āyurvedic, but he’d had a good experience with Vanamali Kaviraj be-
fore, and now he was allowing the doctor to treat him. This had created
quite a sensation among the devotees, and many were gathered around
Prabhupāda’s bed while Vanamali Kaviraj, sitting on a chair, felt his
pulse for a long time, paying very close attention.
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s kidneys were not functioning properly, the doc-
tor reported, and as a result he was having difficulty urinating. That, in
turn, was causing the swelling of his legs and pain in his body. Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja confirmed that this was also the diagnosis of other doc-
tors, including Vimalananda Tarkatirtha in Calcutta.
Vanamali Kaviraj then took me into the next room and told me about
a potential problem—the medicine would have to be prepared fresh, and
he was not sure how he could do that. He could stay in the guesthouse,
I told him—we would make arrangements for him to be comfortable—
but he said that he had to stay at home. So I suggested that if he showed
me how to prepare the medicine, I could make it. He liked that idea and
took me to a nearby field, where he showed me two different herbs,
called punar navā and patharkuchi, and collected their leaves. Back in the
kitchen, he showed me how to extract their juice and added two differ-
ent salts—one white, the other a reddish pink.
I started to prepare the medicine and give it to Śrīla Prabhupāda
three times a day. I would fetch Vanamali Kaviraj in Prabhupāda’s car
to come treat him every afternoon, and I began cooking for Prabhupāda
regularly again. Gradually his condition began to improve.
Accordingly, the mood among the devotees improved as well. Many
had come to Vṛndāvana to be with Śrīla Prabhupāda, and he visited the
temple every morning to have darśana of the Deities and then sat under
the tamāla tree in the courtyard as the devotees chanted and the gurukula
boys danced. Sometimes he would go on a morning walk and then give
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class.
Vṛndāvana 173
174 Ocean of Mercy
As Prabhupāda’s health improved, so did his appetite. Each morning

he would tell me what he wanted for lunch—and often how to prepare
it. One day he told me to get spinach, pumpkin, eggplant, bitter melon,
and radish. When I went to get the vegetables in the devotee kitchen,
however, I was told that we were in the four months of cāturmāsya—a
period when devotees fasted from spinach. So I went back and reported
that to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
“Is everyone observing cāturmāsya?” he asked.
From his question I understood what I had to do, and I went to the
market to get the vegetables.
When I returned, Prabhupāda asked me what I had purchased. I told
him, “Spinach, eggplant, radish, pumpkin . . .” and then I realized that I had
forgotten the bitter melon. But I did not want to tell him. I would quickly
send someone to the market, I thought, so I added, “and bitter melon.”
He said, “Bring them.”
I ran as fast as I could to get Kishan, the guesthouse worker who
sometimes assisted me, and told him to take the bicycle and ride as fast
as he could to the market and get bitter melon.
I stood at the outer temple gate, waiting expectantly for Kishan’s re-
turn, but when he got back, out of breath from the exertion, he said that
there had not been any bitter melon in the market.
I was already feeling terrible about having lied to Śrīla Prabhupāda,
and now I would have to confess. I wished I could just disappear—that
the earth would split open and swallow me whole.
I turned back to the kitchen, overwhelmed with guilt and remorse,
when all of sudden, outside the kitchen, what did I see on the ground
but a bitter melon—fresh and green, as if it had just been picked! I had
no idea how it had gotten there; maybe someone had dropped it coming
back from the garden. Not questioning my fortune, I pounced on it and
held it close to my heart, thanking Kṛṣṇa for His mercy.
I collected the rest of the vegetables and brought them all to Śrīla
Prabhupāda, who was now sitting on the floor, on a mattress, getting a
massage. Barely looking up, he instructed me how to cut them.
Vṛndāvana 175
When I asked how to cut the bitter melon, he glanced up at me,

smiled, and said, simply, “Bitter melon.” Just from the way he spoke
those two words, I could tell that he knew exactly what had happened. I
just cast my eyes down, unable to admit that I had not told him the truth.
One afternoon, Śrīla Prabhupāda was sitting on the roof and I was at
his feet. Next door, in the Deity kitchen, the cooks were preparing offer-
ings. Prabhupāda must have smelled something frying in ghee, and he
asked me to go find out what it was.
In the kitchen I found that Vibhu Caitanya Dāsa, Prabhupāda’s el-
derly Bengali disciple, was frying kachorīs and samosās. When I reported
this to Śrīla Prabhupāda, he asked me to get some for him.
Although his digestion had improved considerably, Prabhupāda
sometimes had stomach problems, and he was in the middle of a difficult
period. Still, when he told me that he wanted kachorīs and samosās, I be-
came excited and ran to get them.
I was practically sprinting from the roof when I ran into Tamāl Kṛṣṇa
Mahārāja and Bhavānanda Mahārāja coming to meet Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda. They asked what was going on, but as I began to tell them that
Prabhupāda wanted kachorīs and samosās, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa interrupted:
“You can’t give kachorīs and samosās to Śrīla Prabhupāda when he is
having such stomach problems!”
“But Śrīla Prabhupāda wants it!” I called out, and without waiting
for a response, I hurried past, got Prabhupāda’s silver plate, and ran to
the Deity kitchen. When I told Vibhu Caitanya that Śrīla Prabhupāda
wanted kachorīs and samosās, he just showed his usual bright smile and
placed two of each, freshly prepared, on the plate.
I brought the plate of prasāda to Śrīla Prabhupāda and placed it on
a small table in front of him. The kachorīs and samosās were still hot, so
Prabhupāda first mashed them with his fingers, then picked up one
small piece and started to eat. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and Bhavānanda
176 Ocean of Mercy
Mahārāja sat watching, but Prabhupāda looked at them and said,

“Don’t see.”
Their heads dropped, and they looked down. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa always
looked after Śrīla Prabhupāda’s health and would sometimes try to
persuade him not to eat something he should not, but most of the time
Prabhupāda did not listen.
Prabhupāda’s sister, Pisimā, was also in Vṛndāvana at the time, and
when I told her about the incident, she remembered how fond of kachorīs
he had been in his childhood. When she heard about Tamāl Kṛṣṇa’s con-
cern for her brother’s health, she commented, “If he wants, he can digest
even stones.”
Another regular visitor was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s godbrother Dr.
O. B. L. Kapoor, a well-known scholar and prominent personality in the
Vṛndāvana community. He and Śrīla Prabhupāda would reminisce, and
after they spoke Dr. Kapoor would often sit with the devotees and tell us
about their early days together.
He had met Śrīla Prabhupāda in 1931 in Allahabad, where he was
attending the university, during one of his visits to the Gauḍīya Maṭha.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was running his pharmaceutical business there and
had once given Dr. Kapoor a tonic that he had manufactured. Upon re-
ceiving it, Dr. Kapoor had joked, “Abhay Babu, I wish you would give
me the tonic which you yourself take, the tonic of kṛṣṇa-prema [pure love
of Kṛṣṇa].”
“I don’t have that tonic as yet,” Śrīla Prabhupāda had replied, “but I
have the formula.”
“If the formula is not a secret, then will you please give it to me?”
“No, it is not a secret at all:
tṛṇād api sunīcena taror api sahiṣṇunā

amāninā mānadena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ
[‘One should chant the holy name of the Lord in a humble state of mind,
thinking himself lower than the straw in the street. One should be more
Vṛndāvana 177
tolerant than the tree, devoid of all sense of false prestige, and ready to
offer all respects to others. In such a state of mind one can chant the holy
name of the Lord constantly.’ (Śrī Śikṣāṣṭaka 3)]
“This is the formula,” he had said, “and I am going to preach it all
over the world.”
“At that time,” Dr. Kapoor told us, “I couldn’t recognize the signifi
cance of his words, that he really was going to preach it all over the
world. I thought it was just a casual statement. But now I look back and
can see that even then he was thinking and planning to preach all over
the world, which he did.”
Every day Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja would read out devotees’ letters to
Śrīla Prabhupāda and Prabhupāda would indicate how he wanted
Mahārāja to reply. In one letter a devotee wanted to offer his longevity
to Prabhupāda so that he could continue to be with us on this planet.
It was a sweet letter, steeped with emotion, but Prabhupāda responded
that our real love for him would be shown by how we cooperate with
each other to continue his mission.
One day, two sannyāsīs, Acyutānanda Swami and Yaśodānandana
Swami, came to see Śrīla Prabhupāda after having visited several Indian
temples, and recounted a humorous incident. While they had been gaz-
ing at the Deities in one temple, the pūjārī had told them that since they
had developed such devotion, in their next life they would be reborn in
India to further their spiritual progress.
Śrīla Prabhupāda laughed at the story and told them that they should
have responded that since the pūjārī had developed such appreciation
for their devotion, in his next life he would be born in ISKCON.
Everyone laughed, and Prabhupāda told us a joke: In a small village
in India, an old lady was cheated out of her land. When a mobile court
was set up in the village, some of the woman’s well-wishers suggested
to her that she could approach the judge and ask for justice. The judge
178 Ocean of Mercy
settled her case, returning the land to her and punishing the miscreants.
The old lady was naturally very pleased with the judge and blessed him,
“I bless you that in your next life you will become a police constable.”
Prabhupāda laughed. “According to her, the police constable was the
most important person!”
Having a bit more energy, Śrīla Prabhupāda was able to accept more
visitors. The governor of Tamil Nadu, Prabhudas Patwari, came to see
him one afternoon, accompanied by his wife and two granddaughters
and escorted by Akṣayānanda Swami. Mr. Patwari was a dignified el-
derly gentleman, and Prabhupāda sat up in his bed to greet him and
his family and asked us to bring them chairs. But Mr. Patwari said that
he preferred to sit on the floor. He was concerned about Prabhupāda’s
health, he said, and invited him to come to Madras for what he consid-
ered the best treatment in India. Śrīla Prabhupāda graciously appreci-
ated the offer but declined, saying that he was not so keen on medical
treatment, especially injections and operations.
The governor was sympathetic and said that he could arrange first-
class Āyurvedic treatment. He offered him accommodations in his
house, which was really more of a palace, but Śrīla Prabhupāda, de-
tached from material comforts, was not interested. When Mr. Patwari
again recommended Madras’s excellent Āyurvedic facilities, Prabhu
pāda pointed out that our material bodies do not last forever but are
subject to birth, death, old age, and disease. When the body gets old, he
said, disease is inevitable, as is death. Instead of trying to extend the du-
ration of our stay in the body, Prabhupāda advised, it is wiser to prepare
oneself for what comes next.
The governor listened attentively, occasionally nodding his head in
approval. I was impressed. He was such an important person, yet he vis-
ited Śrīla Prabhupāda more than once and showed him both respect and
loving concern.
Vṛndāvana 179
One morning, Bhavānanda Mahārāja came to my room while I was

chanting and announced that Śrīla Prabhupāda was considering award-
ing me sannyāsa. I was stupefied. Prabhupāda gave sannyāsa to only the
most accomplished devotees, and only after many years of outstand-
ing service. At the same time, I understood that by giving me sannyāsa
Prabhupāda would be securing me spiritually; there would be no pos-
sibility of me turning back. He had already asked me to offer my life to
Kṛṣṇa; now he was making all the arrangements.
When the news got out, I heard, some senior devotees objected, feel-
ing that I was still too new to Kṛṣṇa consciousness to be awarded such
an important position. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja called me to his office,
where a few sannyāsīs had gathered, and told me that some of the devo-
tees thought I might be rushing into it.
When I asked him what he thought, he acknowledged that it was un-
usual for Śrīla Prabhupāda to consider giving me sannyāsa so quickly. I
was still new to the movement, he pointed out—I had joined only a few
months before and been initiated even more recently—and so he too was
a little concerned.
Jayapatāka Mahārāja commented that the usual procedure was for
the local management to propose a candidate to Śrīla Prabhupāda, and
then there would be a waiting period of about two years, when the can-
didate’s performance was observed. Only after such a trial period would
sannyāsa be awarded.
I was a little disappointed and said, “It was not my idea to take san-
nyāsa. If anyone has an objection, he should speak to Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda. It is his decision, so they should deal with him.” And with that,
I got up and told them that I had to go to the kitchen to cook for Śrīla
Prabhupāda.
Still, I understood their questions and reservations. I was still just
a new devotee, and other than serving Śrīla Prabhupāda, what had I
really achieved? A sannyāsī’s status in ISKCON was highly respected;
180 Ocean of Mercy
wherever he went, he commanded the utmost respect—even worship.

And it was not clear that I could handle such a position—whether I was
really qualified. Quite a few sannyāsīs had fallen down, and my senior
godbrothers did not know if I was advanced enough to remain fixed.
At the same time, I thought, I had taken to spiritual life with absolute
conviction. Even before joining ISKCON I had renounced materialistic
life, and I had no intention of getting married or raising a family. In a
sense, I was already a sannyāsī.
Then I had a realization—whether or not I got the stamp of sannyāsa
did not really matter; what mattered was my inner consciousness. I felt
a deep sense of contentment. Whatever heaviness remained in my heart
dissipated, and I started to cook for Prabhupāda.
In the midst of my working on three preparations, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa and
Bhavānanda walked in and Tamāl Kṛṣṇa exclaimed, “Wow, you made
it! Śrīla Prabhupāda decided to give you sannyāsa the day after to-
morrow. He waived all objections and chastised us for doubting your
qualification.”
A group of senior devotees had gone to Śrīla Prabhupāda to try to
persuade him not to give me sannyāsa, he told me, because I was still too
new to the movement. But Prabhupāda had dispensed with their objec-
tions, praised me, and justified his decision without doubt.
That afternoon, after I had served Śrīla Prabhupāda lunch, Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa sat me down and explained how I should prepare for taking san-
nyāsa. I should get the cloth for a dhoti and uttarīya and dye it saffron.
Then I should get four thin bamboo rods, cut them to the length of my
body, tie them together, and wrap them with saffron cloth.
He remembered his sannyāsa ceremony in Jaipur and how Śrīla
Prabhupāda had explained to him the significance of the sannyāsa
daṇḍa—how three of the sticks symbolized the body, mind, and speech;
the fourth stick, the spirit soul; and the small curved piece on the top, the
Supersoul. He told me to get all the materials and come to him so that he
could help me wrap the daṇḍa.
On the day of Lord Jagannātha’s Snāna-yātrā, Śrīla Prabhupāda
Vṛndāvana 181
awarded me sannyāsa. He did not come down to perform the fire y ajña
himself but was represented by a host of sannyāsīs—Tamāl Kṛṣṇa,
Bhavānanda, Jayapatāka, Acyutānanda, Akṣayānanda, Yaśodānan-
dana, Pramāṇa, and Viraha Prakāśa, just to name a few. Bhavānanda
Mahārāja performed the yajña in the temple courtyard, and then we
all went to Prabhupāda’s room, where he gave me the sannyāsa man-
tra and spoke about the Avantī brāhmaṇa from the Eleventh Canto of
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
The story concerns a wealthy brāhmaṇa who was so attached to his
wealth and property that he had become hard-hearted and miserly,
which had caused him to lose the love and respect of his family members
and then even his wealth. Meditating upon his losses and then becoming
detached, the brāhmaṇa eventually gave up his moroseness, left home,
took sannyāsa, and traveled the earth, tolerating all sorts of miseries and
insults. The story, also called the Bhikṣu-gīta, “Song of the Sannyāsī,” il-
lustrated that those who meditated upon the Absolute Truth would not
be troubled by the dualities of the material nature.
Śrīla Prabhupāda then handed me my daṇḍa and gave me my new
name, Bhakti Chāru Swami, which, he explained, means “one who is
beautiful in controlling his senses with his devotion.” The devotees all
shouted, “Haribol!” and Śrīla Prabhupāda asked them to chant the holy
name, which turned into an ecstatic kīrtana.
Then I promptly returned to my duties—first to the kitchen to pre-
pare Śrīla Prabhupāda’s lunch. After my first (harināma) initiation I had
felt some difference—the color of my cloth had changed and I had ex
perienced a deep feeling that I had been accepted by Śrīla Prabhupāda as
his disciple and as a recognized member of ISKCON. But this time I did
not feel any change. Especially when I started to cook for Prabhupāda,
everything felt the same—I was rendering the same service and had the
same responsibilities, even the same color cloth. I just kept cutting the
vegetables, reminding myself that my greatest gift was Śrīla Prabhu
pāda’s mercy and wishing that I never leave the shelter of his lotus feet.
After I’d served Śrīla Prabhupāda his lunch, as Tamāl Kṛṣṇa
182 Ocean of Mercy
Mahārāja and I were going back to our room, we passed a few senior
devotees taking prasāda in the dining room of the guesthouse, and they
greeted us and asked us to join them.
Akṣayānanda Swami, the president of the Vṛndāvana temple, asked
me, “When did you get initiated?”
“During the Gaura-pūrṇimā festival this year,” I replied, “in
Māyāpur.”
“Just about three months ago,” he said. “I got my sannyāsa about
one-and-a-half years after my initiation, and everyone thought that was
quick, but you got it after only three months.”
Acyutānanda Swami, whom I knew from my days in Calcutta and
Māyāpur and who had been a role model for me during those days, com-
mented, “From the time he joined, I knew he was in for some special
mercy from Śrīla Prabhupāda.”
Embarrassed, I told him, “It is your mercy that I received these fa-
vors from Śrīla Prabhupāda. I have always admired your wonderful
qualities—you give such amazing classes and lead such fantastic kīr
tanas. And I have always wanted to be like you. Please bless me that I
can develop some of your qualities.”
In his spontaneous, humorous way, Mahārāja lifted his right hand
with his palm extended toward me and declared, “You have all my bless-
ings.” Everyone laughed, and I moved to touch his feet, but when he
realized what I was about to do he jumped up from his seat and out of
reach.
The conversation focused on Śrīla Prabhupāda giving sannyāsa to
different devotees. The group recalled how he had given sannyāsa to
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja in Jaipur, in front of Govindajī’s temple. Guṇār-
nava Dāsa, the Vṛndāvana vice-president, said, “Śrīla Prabhupāda
made him give up all his managerial responsibilities when he gave him
sannyāsa. He made him resign from the GBC. But soon after that, when
he saw that no one could fill the void created by Mahārāja’s resignation,
he reinstated him. Isn’t that so, Mahārāja?”
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa agreed with a smile.
Vṛndāvana 183
184 Ocean of Mercy
Akṣayānanda Mahārāja commented, “Yes, everyone knows that

Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Goswami is the most outstanding manager in the entirety
of ISKCON.”
We all accepted that. “That’s right,” a few added.
Then Tamāl Kṛṣṇa turned toward me and said, “Did you all notice
that this is the first time Śrīla Prabhupāda has given a sannyāsī the title
‘Bhakti’?”
Everyone paused. Then Acyutānanda Swami said, “Yes, that is true.”
Later that afternoon, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja took dictation from

Śrīla Prabhupāda and then went to his office next door. I remained by
Prabhupāda’s bed, chanting. “Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I asked, “according
to the scriptures there are four stages of sannyāsa— kuṭīcaka, bahūdaka,
parivrājaka, and paramahaṁsa. Why don’t we follow that standard?”
Śrīla Prabhupāda replied, “Our sannyāsa is meant for offering our
body, mind, and words in the service of Śrī Kṛṣṇa—our entire exis-
tence is offered in spreading His glory. Preaching is the purpose of our
sannyāsa—not liberation. That is the difference between eka-daṇḍa san-
nyāsa and tri-daṇḍa sannyāsa. The three daṇḍas indicate body, mind, and
speech—kāya, mana, and vākya. That means all the activities of the body,
mind, and speech should be engaged in serving Kṛṣṇa. No other business.
“Now that you have become a sannyāsī, you are a guru. You can initi-
ate. But as long as the spiritual master is present on the planet, one does
not give initiation. That is the formality.”
I did not know what to say. Finally I got my wits together and told
him, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, I always want to remain your disciple. That is
all I want.”
“Yes,” he said gently. “That is the right attitude.”
The next day, as I was sitting in front of Prabhupāda when he had just
finished breakfast, he instructed me, “Sannyāsa means becoming com-
pletely free from all material attachments. A sannyāsī does not have any
Vṛndāvana 185
attraction for anything in this material nature—na dhanaṁ na janaṁ na sun

darīm. Sundarīm, the attraction for beautiful women, is the most difficult one
to overcome. However, a sannyāsī is completely free from that attraction.
Even if he is alone on an island with the most beautiful woman, he should
not be attracted to her—he should not be agitated at all by sex desire.”
I said, “In some sampradāyas [spiritual lineages], sannyāsīs are forbid-
den to even look at a woman.”
“No,” Śrīla Prabhupāda corrected, “that is not the way to overcome
sex desire. They may not look at the face of a woman, but if someday by
chance they do, they will become attracted. Just like Viśvāmitra Muni.
For so many years he performed austerities, totally absorbed in medi-
tation, withdrawing his senses from the objects of the senses. But one
day Indra sent an apsarā [a heavenly courtesan], Menakā, to break his
meditation. All his senses were withdrawn, but when Menakā started
to dance in front of him, the sound of her ankle bells entered through
his earholes, his meditation broke, and he opened his eyes and became
enchanted by her beauty. Therefore, just trying not to look at a woman
will not work.”
“Then how can one overcome this overwhelming attraction?” I
asked.
“By developing the higher taste. That is the only way to overcome
this attraction. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate—by getting the higher taste,
developing one’s attachment to Kṛṣṇa. When one develops that at-
tachment, even the thought of sex becomes disgusting to him. Just as
Yāmunācārya mentioned, ‘Now that my mind has become attached to
the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, when the thought of sex comes to my mind my
lips curl in disgust and I spit at that thought.’
“That is how wonderful Kṛṣṇa consciousness is. When one develops
his love for Kṛṣṇa, he realizes that all the beauty of a woman is meant
for Kṛṣṇa’s enjoyment. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura said in
that respect, kāminīr kāma, nahe tava dhāma, tāhār-mālika kevala ‘yādava’:
“The lust for a woman is not meant for a living entity; the proprietor of
all women is Yādava, Śrī Kṛṣṇa.”
186 Ocean of Mercy
I sat there silently, trying to comprehend what Śrīla Prabhupāda had

said, and the seriousness of the āśrama I had just entered.
“The process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is perfect,” Prabhupāda added
affectionately. “Just follow this process with all sincerity—offer this life
to Kṛṣṇa and try to serve Him to the best of your ability. Try to develop
your love for Him, and the rest will automatically happen.”
Then he said something that sounded to me like the ultimate secret
of spiritual success: “Māyā is extremely strong because it is Kṛṣṇa’s po-
tency—daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī, mama māyā duratyayā: it is impossible to
overcome. But if you remain in the association of devotees, then māyā
will not be able to touch you, because māyā is Kṛṣṇa’s external potency,
whereas the association of devotees is Kṛṣṇa’s internal potency. There-
fore always remain in the association of devotees and never, ever go
away from that shelter.”
One concern crept into my mind. “Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I asked, “if I
am alone on an island, then what will happen to me?”
“Just remember the instructions of the devotees,” he said. “That is
also association.”
My heart overflowing with joy, I offered Prabhupāda my obeisances,
silently requesting, Please bless me, Śrīla Prabhupāda, that I never go away
from the shelter of your lotus feet.
After giving me sannyāsa, Śrīla Prabhupāda became quite strict
about his kitchen and who could enter. No women. It all happened one
afternoon, when Upendra brought Prabhupāda prasāda and informed
him that it had been prepared by one of our godsisters. Prabhupāda
asked where she had cooked it, and when Upendra said that she had
cooked it in his kitchen, Prabhupāda asked why she had been there.
“She wanted to prepare something for you,” Upendra said, “and that
was the only place where she could.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda immediately called Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and
told him that he should let everyone know that no women should be al-
lowed in his kitchen, and from then on, none were; the kitchen services
were transferred to male devotees.
Vṛndāvana 187
When I asked Tamāl Kṛṣṇa why Prabhupāda had taken this action,
he said that it was because of me. Now that I was a sannyāsī, Prabhu-
pāda was taking precautions for my protection.
“Śrīla Prabhupāda knows how fallible I am,” I said, “and he is kindly
protecting me.” Again I silently thanked His Divine Grace for his mercy,
and I was reminded that I should be cautious about associating with
women, and focused and determined in my new āśrama.
Most mornings I was busy with Śrīla Prabhupāda, preparing his break-
fast and doing other chores. And then in the afternoon, while he was
taking rest, I would chant my rounds in a secluded grove of trees off the
parikramā-mārga, the sandy path that circled Vṛndāvana.
One afternoon I was chanting with Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja in his of-
fice instead, when in walked a tall, sinewy devotee with a bright, charm-
ing smile.
“Hey, Harikeśa!” Mahārāja exclaimed as he rose and embraced him.
Harikeśa Swami had been Śrīla Prabhupāda’s personal secre-
tary, Mahārāja later told me, but he had given up that service to fulfill
Prabhupāda’s request that he go take care of a problem in Germany,
where devotees had been caught collecting money with false claims.
Harikeśa had not wanted to give up Prabhupāda’s personal service, but
Prabhupāda had insisted, and not only had Harikeśa taken care of the
problem, but he had also developed Germany into the most prosperous
European zone, opened up preaching in the Soviet Union and Com-
munist Eastern Europe, directed the translation and printing of Śrīla
Prabhupāda’s books into several languages, and provided spiritual and
managerial leadership across the continent.
When Harikeśa had heard about Prabhupāda’s illness he had in-
creased book translation and production, running the presses twenty-
four hours a day, and when he had learned that Prabhupāda might leave
his body he rushed to Vṛndāvana with as many different translations as
188 Ocean of Mercy
he could gather. He had just arrived, he said, and had come directly to
see Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda had been resting, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja told him, but
he would be getting up soon. So Harikeśa rushed to his room and re-
turned a few minutes later, his arms piled high with books—recent
translations into German, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, and other
European languages.
When Upendra came and informed us that Śrīla Prabhupāda was
ready to meet Harikeśa in his room, we all rushed in. Prabhupāda
was half reclining on his bed, propped up by pillows. He was clearly
delighted to see Harikeśa, and his face lit up with excitement when
Mahārāja showed him the books.
Prabhupāda asked Harikeśa how many copies he had printed. One
hundred and twenty thousand Kṛṣṇa books, Harikeśa told him, 60,000
sets of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and 10,000 copies of Śrī Īśopaniṣad. When
Prabhupāda asked whether Harikeśa would be able to distribute them,
Harikeśa assured him that he could—and that when he had, he would
print more. And he would also have other books translated, printed, and
distributed.
Śrīla Prabhupāda looked at Harikeśa affectionately, placed his hand
on his head, and said, “Now you understand why I sent you away? I
knew you were meant to achieve something wonderful.”
Harikeśa rested his head in Prabhupāda’s hand and began to cry.
Śrīla Prabhupāda just caressed him, tears flowing from his eyes.
Another afternoon when I was sitting with Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja in his
office, Guṇārnava Dāsa came in looking worried and informed us that
he received news that Muslims had attacked the temple in Māyāpur.
The devotees, led by Bhavānanda Mahārāja, had defended themselves,
but when the police had come they had arrested Mahārāja and the devo-
tees instead of the attackers.
Vṛndāvana 189
The three of us went right to Śrīla Prabhupāda and told him about
what had happened. He was very concerned and asked me to investi-
gate. The telephone connections were bad, so it took a while to get
through, but I finally managed to speak with devotees in Māyāpur who
had witnessed the incident. Some Muslims had been grazing their cows
in the ISKCON rice paddies, and when the devotees had driven the
Muslims off, the incident escalated into a fight. One of the Muslims had
been caught by the devotees and taken to a room in the gurukula, where
Nitāi Chand Dāsa, the Māyāpur general manager, had ordered that they
shave his head. That had led to a reaction: Nitāi Chand had later been
caught alone off the ISKCON property, near the Gaṅgā, and nearly
beaten up. Another devotee, Brahmapāda Dāsa, had come to his defense
and saved him, fighting against a group of Muslims, but then a larger
group, possibly incited by agitators from another maṭha, had entered
the temple and attacked worshiping devotees, including an American
woman, Viśālākṣī Devī Dāsī. Bhavānanda Mahārāja had tried to scare
them off with a shotgun, and a few of the attackers had been hit with
buckshot, but there had not been any major injuries. Still, when the po-
lice had finally arrived, quite a bit later, instead of arresting the attackers
they had arrested Mahārāja and the other devotees, bound them, and
marched them to the police station in Navadvīpa, where they were held
in custody.
When Śrīla Prabhupāda heard the details of my report, he began to
cry. He said, “These demons cannot tolerate the devotees.”
After a few days, we received the news that the devotees had been
released and the charges dropped.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja was very careful during that period about who
would be let in to see Śrīla Prabhupāda. Generally only very import-
ant visitors, senior local Vaiṣṇavas, and senior devotees were allowed
in, and only when they had something important to discuss with Śrīla
190 Ocean of Mercy
Prabhupāda. So I was surprised one late afternoon when I went into

Prabhupāda’s room and saw an elderly Vaiṣṇava dressed in white, with
just a loin cloth and a piece to cover his torso, sitting on the chair next to
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s bed. There was something about his demeanor and
the way he was speaking with Prabhupāda that gave me the impression
he was an exalted Vaiṣṇava. He and Prabhupāda were talking intimately
and laughing boisterously, like two young boys.
The visitor was Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Bābājī Mahārāja, a senior disciple
of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. He was the only devotee
in the Gauḍīya Maṭha whom Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura
had allowed to accept the renounced order of bābājī.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta had generally been critical of bābājīs because
they were prematurely imitating the exalted paramahaṁsa stage of the
Six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana. But bābājī was actually an exalted spiri-
tual status, beyond sannyāsa. The sannyāsa order, marked by saffron, is
the highest stage of spiritual advancement in the material nature, but be-
yond that is the spiritual reality, where white signifies pure goodness.
One could see that Kṛṣṇadāsa Bābājī Mahārāja was situated on that
platform. He was constantly chanting the holy name of the Lord. Due to
the joy that he felt within, he sometimes expressed himself with hearty
laughter, which was contagious; whoever was around him would also
start laughing. I felt embarrassed for laughing so hard in front of Śrīla
Prabhupāda, which I had never done before, but I couldn’t help myself.
When I followed him out after his meeting with Śrīla Prabhupāda, he
smiled, asked how and when I had joined, and expressed his happiness
that I had taken shelter of Śrīla Prabhupāda.
The most prominent godbrother of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s in Vṛndāvana
was Śrīpād Bon Mahārāja, who had an aristocratic bearing and was
known for his scholarship and erudition. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Saras-
vatī Ṭhākura had sent him to England and Germany to preach, and he
had lived there for some years, meeting and preaching to many import-
ant people. He had also established a Vaiṣṇava university in Vṛndāvana.
Whenever he visited they had intimate exchanges.
Vṛndāvana 191
One evening Bon Mahārāja came along with Kṛṣṇadāsa Bābājī

Mahārāja. Seeing his close friends, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s face lit up with
a bright smile. I arranged two chairs near his bed for them to speak
together. Bābājī Mahārāja glorified Śrīla Prabhupāda for his achieve-
ments around the world, and Śrīla Bon Mahārāja agreed, saying that
Śrīla Prabhupāda had been blessed by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
Then, in his cheerful manner, Bābājī Mahārāja said to Bon Mahārāja,
“You are a great preacher; he is also a great preacher. You are a great
scholar; he is also a great scholar. You have a very good command over
the English language; he also has a wonderful command over the En-
glish language. You went to the West; he also went to the West. Then
how come he has been so successful but you were not?”
Śrīla Bon Mahārāja smiled without saying anything. Śrīla Prabhu
pāda looked embarrassed and remained silent. Bābājī Mahārāja broke
that uneasy silence: “Because of his unflinching faith in the holy name.
During his sannyāsa initiation in Mathurā, I was there. Keśava Mahārāja
was chanting various Vedic mantras. I started to sing the mahā-mantra.
Some devotees felt that my loud chanting may have been disturbing
the ceremony and asked me to stop. I was about to stop, but Swami
Mahārāja, with the gesture of his hands, urged me to continue, and I did.
“I also heard that when he went to America he used to sit alone un-
der a tree in a park and just sing the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, playing
karatālas. See—how much faith and conviction one needs to do that.
And now we can see the extent of his success. People say that I have
a taste for chanting the holy name. However, I just chant myself, but
he made the whole world chant. That is the difference between him and
us.”
Bon Mahārāja agreed: “Yes, he has been specially empowered by Śrī
Caitanya Mahāprabhu because of his attachment to the holy name and
his unalloyed devotion.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda looked at me and said, “Get some prasāda for
them.”
“Just some fruits,” they said.
192 Ocean of Mercy
Even though I was almost constantly engaged in serving Śrīla Prabhu

pāda in his quarters, I was still able to develop relationships with
some of the devotees. Bharadrāja Dāsa was well known as an artist in
ISKCON, and I had seen his paintings in Prabhupāda’s books. We be-
came good friends, and when I was in the kitchen he often helped, cut-
ting vegetables and washing the pots. When there was nothing to do, he
would sometimes just watch me cook and talk to me.
Bharadrāja was from Russia; his parents had emigrated to America
after the Second World War. He knew both Russian and Sanskrit, and
he told me about the close connection between the two languages. At
first I did not believe it, but Bharadrāja insisted. “Give me any word and
I will tell you its similarity in the two languages,” he challenged.
There was a door behind him, so that was the first word that came to
mind.
“Door,” I said.
“Dveri in Russian,” he answered, “and dvāra in Sanskrit.”
“Girl.”
“Devochka in Russian, devī in Sanskrit.”
“Heat.”
He thought for a while and admitted, “I can’t get the right word, but
fire is quite close to that—agon in Russian and agni in Sanskrit.”
I was impressed—with the similarities of language, with Bharadrāja’s
knowledge, and, once again, with how Śrīla Prabhupāda had collected
the most brilliant gems of devotees from all over the world.
Another wonderful devotee was Ayodhyāpati Dāsa. He looked like a
champion bodybuilder and had a heart of gold. Although the temple had
professional cooks, Ayodhyāpati loved to feed the devotees. Even in the
blasting heat of the Vṛndāvana summer, he would make really sumptu-
ous meals. He was an excellent cook, and whenever he fed the devotees
they would become ecstatic, as if they were celebrating a festival.
Almost every day devotees would come and chant in Śrīla Prabhu-
Vṛndāvana 193
pāda’s room. That was how they could be around him. Some would
also play harmonium, but Prabhupāda, who was an excellent musician,
would get disturbed if they did not play it properly, and eventually he
suggested that no one should play harmonium in his room.
One evening, lying on his bed with his eyes closed, Śrīla Prabhupāda
heard someone chanting and playing the harmonium. I was sitting at his
bedside, attending him, and he asked me to tell the devotee not to play
the harmonium. It was Bharadrāja. I passed along Śrīla Prabhupāda’s
request, and he immediately stopped.
When I went back to Prabhupāda’s bedside, he asked softly, “Who
was that?”
“Bharadrāja Prabhu,” I replied.
“Oh. He can play.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda also liked Haṁsadūta Swami’s chanting. Mahārāja
had a sweet but powerful voice with a unique high-pitched and pene-
trating tone. Prabhupāda would sometimes send for him and ask him
to chant the Brahma-saṁhitā prayers—govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ
bhajāmi. The melody was so touching and had such a magical effect that
even today, when I think of Śrīla Prabhupāda in his room, lying on his
bed in a meditative mood, I hear Haṁsadūta singing in his high, melodi-
ous voice.
Because of the summer heat, Śrīla Prabhupāda liked to sleep
on the roof, but most nights he barely slept; he would just translate
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. One night after translating, an hour or so after mid-
night, he was sitting on his bed and asked me to massage his back. While
massaging him I noticed that devotees were watching from the windows
of their rooms in the guesthouse next door. Most had come from Amer-
ica, Europe, or Australia, but due to Prabhupāda’s poor health they
rarely got a chance to see him, and they were taking advantage of the
opportunity.
Once again I became aware of my good fortune. Śrīla Prabhupāda
had more than five thousand followers who would do anything to have
even a moment of his association, but even though I had only recently
194 Ocean of Mercy
come to ISKCON and was still such a neophyte devotee, I was person-
ally serving him every day. I wished I had been there early in his mis-
sion, when he had been alone in America with no one to serve him. My
heart melting with gratitude, I told him, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, I wish I had
been there with you when you were alone in New York.”
He was silent for a minute. Then he said, “I was never alone. Kṛṣṇa
was always with me.”
I felt humbled by Prabhupāda’s exalted position—he was so dear to
Kṛṣṇa, I understood, that Kṛṣṇa personally took care of him and was
with him at every moment. He did not need any service from us; he was
giving us the opportunity to serve him out of his causeless mercy. I kept
on thanking Kṛṣṇa for my good fortune.
One afternoon, surrounded by senior devotees, Śrīla Prabhupāda was

glorifying Śaṅkarācārya, proclaiming him to be one of our ācāryas. I
felt a little confused, because on other occasions I had heard Prabhu-
pāda criticize Śaṅkarācārya’s teachings, called Māyāvāda. Since there
were so many senior devotees present, I remained quiet, but that night
I rather hesitatingly asked him how Śaṅkarācārya was our ācārya when
his teachings were against pure devotional service.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was silent for few minutes. Then he looked at me
and asked, “Do you know why Kṛṣṇa descended as Lord Buddha?”
“Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I replied. “In this Age of Kali, in the name
of Vedic sacrifice, people were killing countless animals. Seeing that, the
tender heart of Kṛṣṇa became afflicted, and to stop animal sacrifice He
descended as Lord Buddha.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda nodded his approval and softly recited the verse
from Jayadeva Gosvāmī’s Gīta-govinda:
nindasi yajña-vidher ahaha śruti-jātaṁ

sadaya-hṛdaya-darśita-paśu-ghātam
Vṛndāvana 195
keśava dhṛta-buddha-śarīra jaya jagad-īśa hare
“Sadaya-hṛdaya,” he continued, “his compassionate heart. Darśita-paśu-

ghātam—seeing that innumerable animals were being slaughtered in the
name of Vedic sacrifice, He decried the Vedas and started a new kind of
religion. However, when His goal had been achieved and animal sacri-
fice had been stopped and Buddhism had spread all over India, He saw
the need to re-establish the Vedas, because the Vedas are the only means
to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore He in-
structed Lord Śiva to come and re-establish the Vedas. That incarnation
of Lord Śiva is Śaṅkarācārya.
māyāvādam asac-chāstraṁ pracchannaṁ bauddham ucyate

mayaiva vihitaṁ devi kalau brāhmaṇa-mūrtinā
Lord Śiva had informed Goddess Durgā that in the Age of Kali, appear-
ing as a brāhmaṇa, he would explain the Vedas through false scriptures,
propagating a philosophy that is actually covered Buddhism.
“Śaṅkarācārya came in order to re-establish the Vedas over the doc-
trines of Lord Buddha. Using Buddhist teachings, he defeated them.
Lord Buddha taught that the ultimate goal of life is to attain nirvāṇa,
which means to ‘become nothing,’ śūnya, void. But Śaṅkarācārya
pointed out that nirvāṇa is actually a Vedic concept and does not mean
to ‘become nothing’ but to ‘become one with Brahman,’ the spiritual re-
ality. He described Brahman as devoid of any form, quality, potency, or
variety—nirākāra, nirguṇa, niḥśaktika, or nirviśeṣa. He needed to do that
in order to convince the Buddhists, who did not accept any concept of
God.
“In this way, Śrīpād Śaṅkarācārya established that the ultimate goal
of life is to merge into Brahman. In Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is stated that
Lord Buddha’s doctrine of voidism is actually covered atheism—veda nā
māniyā bauddha haya ta’ nāstika [Cc. Madhya 6.168]. Since the Buddhists
do not accept the Vedas, they are atheists—nāstika. And Śaṅkarācārya’s
196 Ocean of Mercy
teaching, kevala-advaita-vāda, has been described as covered Buddhism.

Pracchannaṁ bauddham ucyate, as Lord Śiva told Pārvatī.
“Buddhism is therefore covered atheism, and Śaṅkarācārya’s
Māyāvāda is covered Buddhism. Both Buddha and Śaṅkarācārya
had their specific purposes—one to stop animal-killing, the other to
re-establish the Vedas. Śaṅkarācārya could not present the pure teach-
ings of the Vedas—that the Absolute Truth is the Supreme Personality
of Godhead and that the ultimate goal of life is surrendering to Him—
because the Buddhists, who are atheists, would not have accepted it.
Therefore, he took their concept of voidism and established the con-
cept of impersonalism. However, once the Vedas were re-established by
Śaṅkarācārya, the Vaiṣṇava ācāryas—Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya,
Viṣṇu Svāmī, and Nimbārkācārya—re-established the actual Vedic con-
cept of personalism through their teachings. However, that created a
conflict between Śaṅkarācārya’s doctrine and the Vaiṣṇava doctrines—
between impersonalism and personalism. To harmonize that conflict,
Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu appeared and established acintya-bhedābheda-
tattva—simultaneous oneness and difference.
“This development can be understood through this analogy: on
the ground of the covered atheism of Buddhism, Śaṅkarācārya dug
the foundation, and on that foundation the four Vaiṣṇava ācāryas built
the temple, and in that temple Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu established the
Deities of Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. In reality, the entire building stands on
that foundation. However, while the building goes upwards, the founda-
tion goes downwards—apparently in the opposite direction. Similarly,
Śaṅkarācārya’s doctrine apparently seems to oppose the actual teach-
ings of the Vedas, but when we see the total development, we see that it is
actually an integral part of the entire body. As a matter of fact, it is due
to Śaṅkarācārya’s effort that the Vedas were re-established and eventu-
ally Vaiṣṇavism was revived and reinstated.”
I began to reflect on so many misconceptions I had developed about
Śaṅkarācārya. They had all been cleared away by Śrīla Prabhupāda’s
words, and my heart was filled with immense gratitude for him.
Vṛndāvana 197
“Śaṅkarācārya is Lord Śiva himself,” Prabhupāda said, “one of the

greatest devotees of Kṛṣṇa. From his childhood pastimes Śaṅkarācārya
showed his deep attachment to Kṛṣṇa, and just before his disappearance
he instructed:
bhaja govindaṁ bhaja govindaṁ

bhaja govindaṁ mūḍha-mate
samprāpte sannihite kāle
na hi na hi rakṣati ḍukṛñ-karaṇe
“‘You fools! Just worship Govinda, worship Govinda, worship Go

vinda. At the time of death your grammatical debate and world jugglery
will not save you.’
“In Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta [Ādi 7.114], Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu
also mentions,
tāṅra doṣa nāhi, teṅho ājñā-kārī dāsa

āra yei śune tāra haya sarva-nāśa
“‘Śaṅkarācārya does not have any fault, because he is just an order-

carrying servant. However, one who listens to the Māyāvāda commen-
tary is doomed.’”
Svarūpa Dāmodara Prabhu walked into the room, indicating that my
shift was over, but he could see that Śrīla Prabhupāda was talking to me,
so he sat down without a word.
Śrīla Prabhupāda continued, “Māyāvādīs see only the oneness
between the Supreme Absolute Truth and the individual soul, and
Vaiṣṇavas see the differences, and as a result there is conflict between
them. But Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu provided a resolution to that con-
flict with His philosophy of acintya-bhedābheda-tattva—inconceivable
simultaneous oneness and difference. Spiritually, the living entities are
qualitatively one with the Lord, but quantitatively they are different.
The Lord is spiritual, and the living entities are also spiritual, but the
198 Ocean of Mercy
Lord is absolute, whereas the living entities are minute, and that is the
difference.”
Then he looked at me affectionately and suggested, “Now you go and
take rest.”
To help Prabhupāda relax at night, I would massage his feet, and as I

did he would often talk to me. One night, sitting up on his bed as I gave
him a gentle massage, he lamented, “There is so much to do, but I have
become so sick I am not able to do anything.”
“Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I said, “what you have done is inconceivable. No
one has ever achieved what you have. You should not think that there is
anything left that you must do. Now you should just relax.”
“What I have done is fifty percent,” he said. “The other fifty percent
is to establish varṇāśrama-dharma [the Vedic organization of society into
four social and four spiritual orders].”
I did not know what to say, so I remained silent.
“ISKCON is for the devotees,” he said, “but not everyone will be-
come a devotee; not everyone will be able to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. For
those who will not, who will continue to act according to the modes of
material nature—in order to situate them in the proper human culture,
we need varṇāśrama-dharma.”
He spoke like this for quite a while. I understood some of what he
said, but much of it flew over my head. Clearly, establishing varṇāśrama-
dharma was not going to be easy or simple. But neither had what Śrīla
Prabhupāda had already accomplished. No one had ever achieved what
he had. Even Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who had predicted that the
holy name would be spread around the world, to every town and vil-
lage, had not done it Himself; He had left that for one of His very special
devotees—Śrīla Prabhupāda. And now, to expand his achievement, we
had to spread varṇāśrama-dharma all over the world, to every town and
village, thus completing the other fifty percent of his mission. The rest
Vṛndāvana 199
of the world’s population still had to be brought under the umbrella of

Vedic culture.
For that to happen, governments would also have to become Kṛṣṇa
conscious. First, materialistic democracy would have to go. It was, as
Prabhupāda had said, an arrangement for śūdras to rule. Since most peo-
ple were śūdras, wherever a government was established by the vote of
the majority, it was a government of śūdras. In contrast, in varṇāśrama-
dharma the brāhmaṇas would be the head of society and give advice; the
kṣatriyas, the arms, would rule according to the guidance of the brāh-
maṇas; the vaiśyas would cater to society’s needs; and the working class,
the śūdras, rather than being exploited in a moneymaking racket, would
work under the direction—and protection—of the other three classes.
The brāhmaṇas would guide, and the kṣatriyas would execute; possessed
of natural charisma and commanding military power, they would take
care of administration. Heroes of noble character, sitting at the feet of
the brāhmaṇas, they would rule the kingdom—the Vedic way of gover-
nance. When all that happened, the rest would come easily.
Unfortunately, when the brāhmaṇas became degraded due to the in-
fluence of the Age of Kali, the kṣatriyas refused to accept their guidance
and became independent, cruel despots, debauchees, and sense gratifi-
ers. Either they fought among themselves and destroyed one another, or
the masses rose up and deposed them in a revolution, bringing democ-
racy—not the worst but clearly not the best way for human society to
prosper.
Fortunately, we had ISKCON to establish pure devotional service.
Not everyone would be able to reach a high spiritual standard or fol-
low the four regulative principles and chant sixteen rounds of the mahā-
mantra. They would opt instead for a life of fruitive work and sense
gratification. For them, the structure of varṇāśrama-dharma was an abso-
lute necessity.
Even as Śrīla Prabhupāda sat, lamenting at not having been able to
do more, I was confident that it would all happen. He had done so much
already, and it was both our sincere desire and utmost duty to carry
200 Ocean of Mercy
out the rest. In fulfillment of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s prediction,

Kṛṣṇa consciousness would spread all over the world, to every town and
village.
It was clear, however, that Prabhupāda would not be able to stay with us
forever, and there was some speculation about whom he would appoint
as his successor ācārya. Some thought it would be Kīrtanānanda Swami,
others thought it would be Satsvarūpa Mahārāja, and others thought it
would be Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja.
When Śrīla Prabhupāda was approached with the question, his ini-
tial reaction was, “My Guru Mahārāja did not appoint any successor
ācārya, so how can I?”
Soon thereafter he named ten leading devotees to give initiation on
his behalf in different parts of the world while he was still present on the
planet, and he said that they could initiate their own disciples after his
departure.
Haṁsadūta’s name was not on that list, but when Śrīla Prabhupāda
heard about his successful preaching in Sri Lanka, he asked Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja to add him. Haṁsadūta had defeated a prominent athe-
istic scientist, Dr. Abraham Kovoor, who had challenged that if anyone
could prove that God had created the world the doctor would give him a
hundred thousand rupees.
Haṁsadūta had counter-challenged that if Dr. Kovoor could cre-
ate life from matter Haṁsadūta would give him a million rupees. The
mutual challenges had received a good deal of press coverage, and
Haṁsadūta had challenged Dr. Kovoor to a debate in one of the area’s
most prestigious auditoriums.
In newspaper articles, Haṁsadūta pointed out that although many
scientists were claiming that life came from matter, they had not been
able to accomplish that feat. They had not been able to create even a
mosquito in their laboratories, let alone human life. And although they
Vṛndāvana 201
had not been able to produce even an egg, chickens did so without ef-
fort. Dr. Kovoor had not been able to counter the articles’ arguments.
Finally, the date for the debate was announced and a large audito-
rium was rented. Dr. Kovoor, however, never showed up; he claimed he
was sick. Everyone saw it as a victory for Haṁsadūta, who earned Śrīla
Prabhupāda’s praise and esteem.
Another of ISKCON’s prominent leaders had been Madhudviṣa
Dāsa, who had been a sannyāsī and served as the GBC of Australia. He
led kīrtanas so ecstatically that Śrīla Prabhupāda had called him the
kīrtana-samrāṭ, the emperor of kīrtana. Madhudviṣa had become in-
volved with a woman, however, and had left ISKCON. One morning,
Satsvarūpa Mahārāja brought him to meet Prabhupāda. After the initial
exchanges, Śrīla Prabhupāda asked, “Why did you leave? You got mar-
ried . . . so what?” He indicated two other householder devotees in the
room—Gaurasundara and Upendra—and pointed out that they were
married but had remained in ISKCON. “So you got married. That does
not mean you had to leave ISKCON.” Prabhupāda told him emphati-
cally, “No matter whatever happens, don’t leave ISKCON.”
Madhudviṣa accepted Śrīla Prabhupāda’s instruction and came back
to ISKCON, where he remained for the rest of his life serving Śrīla
Prabhupāda’s movement.
Śrīla Prabhupāda would often ask us to read aloud to him from

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta. When Tamāl Kṛṣṇa
Mahārāja was reading the Caitanya-caritāmṛta one afternoon, he sug-
gested that I read the Bengali verses; he would read the translation and
purport. Śrīla Prabhupāda liked that idea, and from then on, that be-
came the practice.
One day, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja was not available, and I was read-
ing alone. Prabhupāda was listening with rapt attention, his eyes closed.
Then he opened them and commented, “Scriptures are like an ocean of
202 Ocean of Mercy
Vṛndāvana 203
nectar. From wherever you drink, it is nothing but nectar.”

“Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I offered, “I thought you wanted us to
read the Bhagavad-gītā first, then Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and then Śrī
Caitanya-caritāmṛta.”
“That is because first one has to understand who Kṛṣṇa is,” he said.
“One has to have a clear concept that He is the Supreme Personality of
Godhead. That understanding comes from studying the Bhagavad-gītā. It
is the scripture where the Supreme Personality of Godhead is speaking
about Himself. Therefore, what can be a better source of understanding
Him?
“However, when a great person speaks about himself, he cannot say
very much about his own glory; he feels rather embarrassed. But those
who love him, when they speak about him, they go all the way to glorify
him. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the scripture where the devotees of Kṛṣṇa
are speaking about His glory. Therefore, the real glory and greatness
of Kṛṣṇa and the sweetness of His activities have become most wonder-
fully manifest in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. When one has this clear under-
standing that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then one
can read any scripture and relish its transcendental sweetness.”
Another afternoon I inquired about the painting of the Supersoul
hanging on the wall, painted by a devotee for Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. “Is
Kṛṣṇa present in everyone’s heart in His four-armed form as the Super-
soul?” I asked.
Beaming with a radiant smile, he replied, “Yes, but in your heart He
is in His two-armed form.”
Thanks to Vanamali Kaviraj’s treatment, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s health

improved. The swelling of his feet went down, his appetite increased,
and although he was still quite weak, he was not experiencing signifi-
cant physical discomfort.
As he got better, Prabhupāda became restless and wanted to go to
204 Ocean of Mercy
the West to preach. His plan was to go to London, stay there for Jan-
māṣṭamī and Vyāsa-pūjā, and then go to New York, to the Gītā-nagarī
farm in Pennsylvania, to Los Angeles, and then to Hawaii, where he
would stay and translate Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
When I told Vanamali Kaviraj about Śrīla Prabhupāda’s plan, he was
totally opposed to it. “Please don’t let him go now,” he told me. “His con-
dition is improving. In winter I will give him makaradhvaja. It is a very
strong medicine, but by then his health will have improved considerably,
and the cold of the winter will also help him digest the medicine. Then
his health will become rejuvenated.”
I reported the doctor’s recommendation to Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja,
but Mahārāja said that Śrīla Prabhupāda was so determined to go to
the West that no one could change his mind. I also knew from things
Prabhupāda had said that he had made up his mind to go. “A soldier
doesn’t like to die on his bed,” he had said. “For him, to die on the battle-
field is a death of honor and glory.” He was tired of lying in bed, and he
was determined to go out on the battlefield and fight.
When the time finally came for Śrīla Prabhupāda to leave, I was
on the floor at his feet as he sat on his chair, dressed and ready to go.
“Aren’t you coming?” he asked.
“I can’t come, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I replied. “I don’t have my
passport.”
“Okay,” he said. “You join me in Hawaii.”
9
Back Home
(August 28 – November 15, 1977)
T he road from Vṛndāvana to Delhi was in terrible shape, full of

cracks and potholes, so the ride was difficult for Śrīla Prabhupāda,
and when we finally arrived at the airport as the sun rose on the horizon,
he let out a sigh of relief. I was concerned about his long flight to Lon-
don and wished that he was not leaving Vṛndāvana, but he was inspired
to preach, I realized, and the world needed him; he could not be con-
fined to his room.
A crowd of devotees—several carloads from Vṛndāvana and oth-
ers from Delhi—had come to see him off. When Prabhupāda saw
Bhavānanda Mahārāja, who had come to Delhi to meet him, his face lit
up with a beautiful smile. “Bhavānanda!” he called, and asked him to
come closer for an embrace. Mahārāja was observing cāturmāsya vows,
and his hair and beard were grown out. He looked emaciated and aus-
tere, but Prabhupāda said, “You look like King George the Sixth!”
Mahārāja put his arm around Śrīla Prabhupāda’s waist and helped
him walk into the terminal. Prabhupāda asked him about the incident
206 Ocean of Mercy
in Māyāpur and expressed regret at the way he had been treated by the
police—marched through the streets of Navadvīpa chained up like a
criminal.
“For your sake, Śrīla Prabhupāda, whatever I go through gives me
immense pleasure,” Mahārāja told him. “Even that humiliation was a
source of great joy to me. All the way I was feeling that I was your man;
I was prepared to face anything for your sake.”
A special sofa was waiting for Śrīla Prabhupāda in the terminal, and
the devotees arranged themselves on the floor around him. It was still
early morning, but the airport was quite crowded, and many people
stood around us, watching.
When Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and Upendra returned after check-
ing in, Prabhupāda asked if they were sitting together. Mahārāja as-
sured him that all three were traveling first class—he was sitting next to
Prabhupāda, and Upendra was just behind them.
When the flight was announced and Śrīla Prabhupāda was ready, I
placed my head on his feet and did not move. Prabhupāda caressed my
head and shoulders; I was dreading the separation.
When it was finally time for him to go, we all watched him stride
through the gate and disappear around the corner. Bhavānanda turned
to me and asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t have any plans,” I said. “Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted me to join
him in Hawaii.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
“I don’t have my passport here.”
“So you have to go to Calcutta.”
“Yes.”
“Then come with me to Māyāpur.”
“When are you going?”
“Since I have come this far, I thought I’d go to Vṛndāvana. Then,
maybe tomorrow, we can take a flight to Calcutta.”
“Great,” I said. “I have to collect my belongings in Vṛndāvana
anyway.”
Back Home 207
208 Ocean of Mercy
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s quarters looked so empty. With him there, it had

always been busy; now it was quiet and seemed desolate, even though it
still bore signs of his presence. His chaddar was on his bed, unfolded, and
his silver water-cup was on his table, half full. The room still held the
scents of sandalwood, eucalyptus, and frankincense. In the next room
his laundry was lying on the table and his towel was still wet. I tidied
everything and cleaned the floor, my heart heavy with all the memories
of the previous months.
I went to the kitchen and cooked something for Bhavānanda
Mahārāja—the preparation that Śrīla Prabhupāda had taught me, with
spinach, bitter melon, pumpkin, eggplant, and radish, which he had
been having almost every day. For his Cāturmāsya-vrata, Mahārāja
was eating only boiled rice and dāl without any salt, spice, or ghee, and
only once a day. But he accepted what I had cooked, breaking his vow.
While he was eating, I told him about the time that I had first cooked
the dish, and about Prabhupāda’s response to everyone observing
Cāturmāsya-vrata.
He laughed and said, “Śrīla Prabhupāda is so amazing.”
The next morning we drove to Delhi, flew to Calcutta, and drove
straight to Māyāpur. It was my first visit as a sannyāsī, and the devotees
were happy to see me and even treated me a bit like a celebrity. When I
had been serving Śrīla Prabhupāda in Vṛndāvana, I had not really com-
prehended the change in my situation, from brahmacārī to sannyāsī. But
in Māyāpur it was obvious. When I had left, I had been one of them—a
brahmacārī amidst other brahmacārīs—but now I had been elevated to an
exalted position.
Tīrthapāda was especially happy to see me. After embracing, we
sat down in the park and talked about my days with Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Some of my old friends—Pāṇḍu, Nadia, Hiraṇyagarbha, Veṅkata, and
Parisevana—joined us, and over the next few hours we all sat together
as I recounted my experiences in Bombay, Rishikesh, and Vṛndāvana.
Anirdeśya-vapu wanted to become my personal servant. I was em-
barrassed. This was not treatment I expected or wanted, especially since
Back Home 209
210 Ocean of Mercy
Anirdeśya-vapu had preached to me and engaged me in service during

my first visits to the Calcutta temple. But it was another consequence
of my new position. “You are my senior,” I told him. “How can I accept
service from you?”
He gave the example of Govinda serving Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
“That was because Govinda was instructed by his spiritual master,
Śrīpād Īśvara Purī,” I said.
“Look,” he said with a smile. “You have already become such an au-
thority on the scriptures.”
Quite a few young Bengalis were joining ISKCON in Māyāpur,
partly in response to a newspaper advertisement, and Bhavānanda
Mahārāja asked me to guide them. For the first time in Māyāpur, we had
a group of educated, intelligent boys joining our movement.
I was giving them a Bhagavad-gītā class one afternoon when the guard
came in and informed me that a postman was outside with a telegram
for me. The telegram came from Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and read, “Śrīla
Prabhupāda wants you to come to Vṛndāvana immediately.”
I was thrilled. After three weeks, Śrīla Prabhupāda had already come
back to India, and he was in Vṛndāvana. I ran to Bhavānanda Mahārāja
and gave him the news.
Mahārāja said that since Prabhupāda wanted me, I should leave
for Vṛndāvana immediately. That evening, I went to Calcutta, where I
caught a flight to Delhi the next morning. At the Delhi temple, I found
Brahmānanda Swami and Girirāj Prabhu, who were about to drive to
Vṛndāvana, so I got a ride with them.
When we arrived that evening, I went straight to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s
quarters. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja greeted me with a warm hug and said
that Prabhupāda was in his room sleeping; he had developed a cough
and cold. So I just sat with Mahārāja in his office, talking, until Upendra
came and took me inside.
The room was practically dark; there was just a small lamp on a cor-
ner table. Frankincense was burning, and there was a strong smell of eu-
calyptus oil that had been used to wipe the floor. Upendra and I sat in a
Back Home 211
corner, watching Śrīla Prabhupāda sleep. His head stuck out of the cov-
ers, and his body seemed to be on the same level with the rest of the bed.
He had been quite thin before he had left, but now he seemed emaciated.
At one point Śrīla Prabhupāda woke up coughing. Upendra went
over to help him, and when he told Prabhupāda that I was there,
Prabhupāda beckoned me closer. He asked me what I had been doing
and wanted to know how everything was going in Māyāpur. After I
gave him a brief report, he said that he wanted to sit up, so I propped
him up with some pillows. He was very light—gaunt. “Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda,” I said, “you have become so thin.”
“Yes,” he replied. “Now this body is just a set of bones in a bag of
skin.”
I did my best to check the emotions that were flooding my conscious-
ness. Why did I let him go? I chastised myself. Vanamali Kaviraj had been
emphatic about Prabhupāda’s not going. Why hadn’t I listened? Why
hadn’t I been more forceful, asked the senior devotees to persuade him
not to leave?
Then I realized that we had to surrender to whatever Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda wanted. He was a pure devotee of the Lord and knew what Kṛṣṇa
wanted him to do. And nobody could have imagined that his condition
would deteriorate so quickly. I wanted to embrace him, to release all the
agony from my heart in tears.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and I stayed up into the night, talking. When
I wondered aloud where I would stay, he looked at me with surprise and
said, “What? You’re staying with me. As always.”
Mahārāja told me about what had happened in London. Initially
Śrīla Prabhupāda had been happy to be there. His health had been
good, the atmosphere was joyous; devotees had come from all over Eu-
rope to see him. He had been giving regular darśanas and the devotees
had been in ecstasy. He had been so happy to be with them that he had
said he just wanted to stay in the West and preach.
However, soon after the celebrations of Janmāṣṭamī and his
Vyāsa-pūjā, on the 6th and 7th of September, his health had suddenly
212 Ocean of Mercy
taken a turn for the worse—he had developed a urinary-tract infec-

tion and had a minor operation. Subsequently, his condition had de
teriorated. He had hardly been able to eat and had very little energy. It
was only with great difficulty that the devotees had brought him back
to Bombay and traveled with him by train to Mathurā. Upon his arrival
in Vṛndāvana, Śrīla Prabhupāda had wanted Vanamali Kaviraj to start
treating him again. The doctor had come to treat him the next day, at
which point Prabhupāda had asked that I be summoned.
Kīrtanānanda Swami and his assistant Kulādri Dāsa were taking care
of Prabhupāda’s prasāda, so I was free for other services. Vanamali Kavi-
raj did not speak English and had been having difficulty communicating
with the devotees, so he was happy that I could serve as his interpreter.
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s condition had become critical, he told me, and he was
coming to treat him every day. The medicine that had helped so much
before was no longer working, however, and he thought it was pointless
to continue the treatment. I told Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, who related the
doctor’s recommendation to Prabhupāda, and the treatment was stopped.
I felt helpless. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s condition was critical, but there was
nothing we could do to help. He was emphatic that the best medicine was
the holy name and that we should pray to Kṛṣṇa and depend upon Him.
What he was going through, he reminded us, would happen to us all. I
began to understand that through his own example Śrīla Prabhupāda
was teaching us how to prepare ourselves to leave our bodies.
Pisimā had come to Vṛndāvana to see Śrīla Prabhupāda and stood
by his bed with love pouring from her eyes. “Ask her when she came,”
Prabhupāda told me. Although she was just a few feet away and could
hear what he was saying, he did not want to speak to her directly.
“Tell him that I came this morning with my son Chandra,” she
replied.
“Ask her where she is staying.”
“In Goswami Mahārāja’s maṭha in Imli Tala,” she said, referring to
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s godbrother, from whom her son had accepted
initiation.
Back Home 213
“Why she is staying there? Why she is not staying here?”

“My son took me there.”
Prabhupāda suggested that they move to our guesthouse, and she
agreed. “Ask her whether she would like to cook for me.”
“Ask him what he would like to eat,” she replied.
“Tell her that she can cook whatever she would like to cook.”
But Pisimā wanted to know what Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted. Fi-
nally he told me that she could cook kicharī. She walked straight to the
kitchen, with me following behind.
When Kīrtanānanda heard that Pisimā was cooking for Śrīla
Prabhupāda, he became concerned and tried to persuade him not to eat
her cooking. It would be too heavy and spicy, he said—not suitable for
his condition. But Prabhupāda explained that he was accepting Pisi-
mā’s cooking just to please her. She wanted to cook for him—she always
loved to cook for him—and he wanted to give her the opportunity.
Kīrtanānanda was adamant and argued his point repeatedly, but
Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “I am already a dead man. If I die eating or
starving, it doesn’t really matter.”
When I informed Śrīla Prabhupāda that the prasāda was ready,
Kīrtanānanda told him, “Prabhupāda, you are not going to eat that.”
Prabhupāda’s voice became sharp—the first time I had heard him
speak that way—and he told Kīrtanānanda, “Why are you doing this to
me? Do you think I do not know what I should do and should not do?
Don’t ever think that you know better than your spiritual master.”
Kīrtanānanda was devastated. He just walked out of the room, and
that evening he left Vṛndāvana.
I brought the plate, beautifully decorated with various preparations.
Sitting up in bed, Prabhupāda honored the prasāda, barely eating any-
thing but just tasting one item after another. We were still worried about
his digestion—he had not had any solid food for days—but he did not
have any problems.
When I told Pisimā about the devotees’ concerns, she replied just as
she had when Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja had expressed his concern about
214 Ocean of Mercy
Prabhupāda’s eating kachorīs and samosās: “If Prabhupāda wants, he can

digest even stones.”
After Kīrtanānanda’s departure, I resumed my cooking duties, but by
this point Śrīla Prabhupāda was hardly eating, and his health contin-
ued to decline. Nevertheless, I cooked for him every day, hoping that his
appetite would eventually return. One day he said, “You have so many
things to do. Why are you wasting your time cooking when you can see
that I don’t have any appetite and I am not able to eat anything?”
“Śrīla Prabhupāda,” I replied, “I cook hoping that you will get well
and develop some appetite and eat something.”
He said, “I will get well only when I die.”
Hearing that, I could no longer control myself—I broke down in
tears.
Śrīla Prabhupāda soothed me like a father. “Is this what you learned
from me?” he asked. “Didn’t I teach you that the spirit soul never dies?
The spirit soul simply changes the body—it transmigrates from one
body to another.” He was reminding me that he would always be there
with us, even if we could not see him.
Although Prabhupāda was not eating, he was concerned about the
quality of the devotees’ prasāda. So he sent me to investigate. When I
reported that the quality was not very high, he sent for the temple presi
dent and directed that the standard be improved. “Make sure the devo-
tees get nice prasāda,” he told me after the temple president had left. “It is
the only sense gratification they have.”
Even in the midst of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s health crisis, his Society con-
tinued to move forward. He had constructed a building next to the tem-
ple for the gurukula, and its inauguration was planned to coincide with
a three-day conference on science and religion, organized by Svarūpa
Dāmodara and sponsored by the Bhaktivedanta Institute.
Prabhupāda had seen how in the name of science the world was be-
Back Home 215
ing misled and the existence of God denied. The root of the misconcep-
tion was the claim that life evolved from matter, out of some random
chemical combination, and he wanted it proven that life came only from
life. He also wanted to show that Kṛṣṇa consciousness was not just some
blind faith but was a science that could be objectively perceived and ex-
perimentally verified, which is why he had established the Institute. He
had asked several GBCs and sannyāsīs to give their full support to the
conference and charged Bhavānanda Mahārāja with assuring that the
guests were treated with the utmost care and attention and given first-
class accommodations, and especially first-class prasāda.
Fifty prominent scholars and scientists had been invited, including
the chair of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Or-
ganization, UNESCO, who would give the opening address. Represent-
ing ISKCON were Mādhava Dāsa (Dr. Michael Marchetti), Sadāpūta
Dāsa (Dr. Richard Thompson), and Svarūpa Dāmodara.
On the advice of Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, each lecture was followed
by a response by one of our devotee scientists, and then the audience
was invited to ask questions. At the end of the three-day program, there
was a press conference, drawing reporters from as far as Delhi, and All
India Radio broadcast it nationwide.
A follow-up conference was planned with scientists from Delhi’s Indian
National Science Academy. One group was already doing research on the
nature of consciousness and were eager to exchange ideas with the scien-
tists from the Bhaktivedanta Institute. There would also be a program on
national television entitled “Life Cannot Evolve from Dead Matter.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda suggested that the Institute scientists also present
their ideas in books, and at his urging, Svarūpa Dāmodara assured him
that they would organize more such conferences in India and then, once
they had established themselves and gained more experience, in the
West. Prabhupāda had not been able to participate in the conference
personally, but he was extremely pleased with its grand outcome and es-
pecially happy that the devotees had so expertly established the suprem-
acy of spiritual culture and pointed out the flaws of modern science.
216 Ocean of Mercy
Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he declared, was the real science—the science of

spiritual reality.
One afternoon, when Śrīla Prabhupāda was in bed, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa

Mahārāja came in and asked me if he was sleeping. Hearing Mahā
rāja’s voice, Prabhupāda inquired if he wanted to tell him something.
Mahārāja said that Jayadayal Dalmia, the head of the Dalmia industrial
group, had come to see Prabhupāda with his three daughters-in-law and
his grandchildren. He was one of the most prominent industrialists in
India, but he was also a pious devotee of Lord Caitanya and had great
appreciation and admiration for Śrīla Prabhupāda. Prabhupāda asked
Mahārāja to bring them in.
While speaking with Mr. Dalmia, Śrīla Prabhupāda mentioned that
he had just started a gurukula and opened a new building. He spoke
about the importance of spiritual education and how the whole world
was becoming degraded due to its lack. He then suggested that Mr. Dal-
mia send his grandchildren to the gurukula. “Modern education is sim-
ply teaching how to become a śūdra,” he said, “a servant. The purpose
of the entire education system is to get a job. However, your children
don’t have to look for a job. Rather, they will provide jobs for so many.
Your grandchildren should become the leaders. And in order to become
ideal leaders, they will need to know how to lead and where to lead.
Therefore, they need spiritual knowledge—they need to know that the
ultimate goal of life is to become free from the suffering condition of this
material nature and go back to the spiritual reality.”
Mr. Dalmia listened humbly, sitting on the floor and nodding his head
in acceptance and appreciation. Years later, one of his sons, Ajayahari Dal-
mia, told me that after his father had met with Śrīla Prabhupāda he had
returned to Delhi and told his sons what Prabhupāda had said and asked
them to send their sons to the Bhaktivedanta Gurukula in Vṛndāvana.
Upon receiving his father’s instruction, Ajayahari had been about to send
Back Home 217
his only son, Abhishek, but then, later, he had changed his mind.
Śrīla Prabhupāda himself had three sons—Prayag, Mathura, and
Vrindavan. No one knew what had happened to Prayag; he had just dis-
appeared. Mathura never came to see his father, but Vrindavan would
visit every now and again, and Prabhupāda had a lot of affection for
him. When he came to visit once and asked Prabhupāda for some finan-
cial help for his business, Prabhupāda initially agreed and told Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja to give him one lakh of rupees, but when Vrindavan
came back the next day, Prabhupāda told him that he had decided in-
stead to give him a pension every month.
“Unless one is dedicated, endeavoring very hard, he cannot be suc-
cessful,” Prabhupāda instructed his son. “I was seventy years old. I was in
Vṛndāvana. But then I went to America and for ten years I worked, and
now you can see that all over the world I have got hundreds of buildings
like this. I am the same man. Only by working for ten years I have built
at least one hundred temples. So there must be ability, there must be en-
deavor, and there must be good fortune. Then everything will happen.”
I was usually with Śrīla Prabhupāda when he awoke in the morning, and
upon waking up he would often ask, “Where is Tamāl?” I would call Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, and no matter what he was doing he would immediately
run to Śrīla Prabhupāda. When he arrived, they would speak intimately,
discussing crucial matters, especially about the future of ISKCON.
Prabhupāda was extremely concerned about the future of his
movement. He related the history of the Gauḍīya Maṭha during Śrīla
Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura’s presence—how successful Śrīla
Bhaktisiddhānta had been in preaching all over India and attracting in-
fluential people. Before his departure, he had instructed his leading fol-
lowers how to manage the institution by forming a governing body. He
knew that there would be problems after he departed, as often happened
when an ācārya is no longer present. He wanted his leaders to overcome
218 Ocean of Mercy
the crisis through collective management. Śrīla Prabhupāda described

how it was unfortunate that after Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta’s passing some
of Prabhupāda’s leading godbrothers had rejected the idea of a govern-
ing body and instead appointed an ācārya, which had led to factions,
court battles for legal rights (some of which were still going on), and
the institution’s eventual collapse. Although many members maintained
their spiritual practice, and although Deity worship was still taking
place, preaching had ceased.
“You all learn from their mistake,” Śrīla Prabhupāda instructed,
“and don’t make the same mistake. Manage the institution collectively
through the GBC. Don’t try to become a big leader, but function col-
lectively for the pleasure of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. By spreading
Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the world, I have given you all everything.
Now you just maintain it.”
Sitting with me in our room one day, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja expressed
his apprehension that we did not know what to do when Śrīla Prabhu
pāda left his body—how to put him in his samādhi (tomb). Mahārāja
had found out that Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Bābājī Mahārāja was staying at
Mādhava Mahārāja’s maṭha, and he suggested I go and ask him about
how we should proceed.
That evening I went to the maṭha, but Bābājī Mahārāja was not
there. I was told he was in another maṭha, so I went, but he was not there
either.
By the time I got back it was already quite late, and when I went to
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s room he asked me where I had been.
“I went to Mādhava Mahārāja’s maṭha,” I said.
“Why did you go there?” he asked. From the tone of his voice I could
tell he was not pleased.
“I went to see Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Bābājī Mahārāja.”
“Why did you go to see him?” he asked, his voice now louder.
Back Home 219
I remained silent.
Again he asked, “Why did you go there?” His voice was like a
thunderbolt, shaking the room.
A cold shudder ran up my spine, and I began to shake all over. Fi-
nally I managed to blurt out, “Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja sent me there.”
He just said, “Oh,” but I could tell he did not approve. I understood
that he wanted us to remain in ISKCON, at his feet, and not go any-
where. Even though Kṛṣṇadāsa Bābājī Mahārāja was quite detached
and did not even have a temple or accept any disciples, Śrīla Prabhu
pāda did not want us to associate with him more than necessary.
As we had not been able to find anyone who could effect any real im-
provement in his health, Śrīla Prabhupāda said that we should call on
his old friend Dr. Ghosh, whom everyone agreed was the best doctor
in Allahabad. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja sent a few letters requesting that
the doctor come, and when he did not get any response he sent a tele-
gram, but that also remained unanswered. Finally he asked Lokanāth
Swami to go to Allahabad and meet Dr. Ghosh and inform him about
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s condition and request.
In Allahabad, Lokanāth Mahārāja found out that Dr. Ghosh had gone
to Darjeeling, where his granddaughter was studying in a Christian mis-
sionary school. Pursuing that trail, he went to Darjeeling and finally found
Dr. Ghosh, and the doctor agreed to leave for Vṛndāvana immediately.
In those days transportation in India was extremely deficient. There
were very few airports and only sporadic flights. The trains were al-
ways overbooked, and it was practically impossible to get reservations
at short notice. Bus services existed but were very uncomfortable due
to a lack of proper seating, and the roads were full of potholes. The only
mode of transport that Lokanāth Mahārāja could arrange was a ride in
a rented car from Darjeeling down to Siliguri, and then a sixteen-hour
bus ride to Calcutta, a flight to Delhi, and a four-hour bus ride to
220 Ocean of Mercy
Vṛndāvana. Dr. Ghosh was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s age—a couple of years

over eighty—but for Prabhupāda’s sake he tolerated all the difficulties
and came to Vṛndāvana to treat him.
After so many years, the two were extremely happy to see each other,
but Dr. Ghosh was shocked at Śrīla Prabhupāda’s weak and emaciated
condition. He could tell that his main problem was with his kidneys, and
he was concerned about his irregular urination.
Dr. Ghosh did whatever he could. He personally took a urine sample
to Agra for testing and then advised that Prabhupāda should take not
only liquid but also some solid food, like chenā (fresh cheese) mixed with
sugar, and he prescribed an enema with glucose and salt. He showed us
how to massage Prabhupāda’s body from the feet upwards to improve
circulation and help the blood move toward the heart, and how to mas-
sage his stomach in a clockwise direction.
We could see from Dr. Ghosh’s interactions with Śrīla Prabhupāda
that the two must have had a close relationship, and Prabhupāda told
Upendra and me to take the best possible care of him. Since Lokanāth
Mahārāja was already acquainted with the doctor, he was attending to
his needs, but whenever I had a chance I would check to see if there was
anything else we could do.
I wanted to know about Dr. Ghosh’s early days in Allahabad with
Śrīla Prabhupāda, and when I asked he described to me what an exem-
plary personality Prabhupāda had always been. Prabhupāda had been
running his pharmaceutical business, but his heart had not been in it.
People took advantage of his simplicity and trust, but he did not really
care. He and the doctor often met in the evenings to talk, and whenever
they did, Prabhupāda’s entire focus was on Kṛṣṇa and how to spread
Kṛṣṇa consciousness around the world. He would tell Dr. Ghosh, “We
both have similar occupations, but your business is to cure the body,
whereas mine is to cure the soul.”
After treating Śrīla Prabhupāda for a few days to establish a routine,
Dr. Ghosh left. Since the allopathic treatment had begun, a local physi-
cian, Dr. Gopāla, was brought in, but after he tried prescribing various
Back Home 221
medicines and even diagnosed Prabhupāda with tuberculosis, he was

dismissed.
Then one night Śrīla Prabhupāda dreamed that a Rāmānuja kavi
rāja—an Āyurvedic doctor from the Rāmānuja sampradāya—had made
makaradhvaja for him. We all felt that it was an indication that if this hap-
pened, if Prabhupāda would take that medicine, he would be cured. So
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja told me to look around and try to find one.
The first place I went was the Śrī Raṅganātha temple, the seat of
the Rāmānuja sampradāya in Vṛndāvana. But no one there knew of a
kavirāja. Then I went looking at different Rāmānuja āśramas. Finally I
found a sādhu who claimed that he was adept in the art of preparing
Āyurvedic medicine and could make makaradhvaja. It would cost four
thousand rupees, he said, about five hundred dollars. It was a lot, but
when I reported my finding to Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, he suggested that
Bhagavān Dāsa go with me to negotiate.
That evening, Bhagavān and I went to meet the sādhu. Bhaga-
vān spoke to him in English, and I translated back and forth between
English and Hindi. After some discussion, Bhagavān told me that he
thought the sādhu was a fake; he was trying to cheat us.
When Bhagavān, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa, and I met, Mahārāja suggested that I
go to Śrī Raṅgam, in Tamil Nadu, South India, the seat of the Rāmānuja
Vaiṣṇavas, and find a good Āyurvedic doctor to come to Vṛndāvana and
make the makaradhvaja for Śrīla Prabhupāda. I liked the idea and felt
confident that we would find a good kavirāja there.
The next morning, Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja told Śrīla Prabhupāda
about our inability to find a Rāmānuja kavirāja in Vṛndāvana and his
idea to send me to Śrī Raṅgam, but Prabhupāda did not like the idea.
“You don’t want Bhakti Chāru to leave you now?” Mahārāja asked.
“You want him to be with you?”
Prabhupāda nodded his head and said, “Yes.”
Still, we did not give up the search, and finally Abhirāma Prabhu
found an Āyurvedic doctor in Delhi who prepared makaradhvaja. So he
purchased it and brought it to Vṛndāvana.
222 Ocean of Mercy
It was a big event. Devotees gathered around Śrīla Prabhupāda’s

bed, and Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja gave the medicine to Prabhupāda in
a spoon made of pure gold, which one of his American disciples, Viśāla
Prabhu, had given him but which had never been used. The reddish-
brown pill was pulverized and mixed with honey. Śrīla Prabhupāda
took the mixture and joked, “Will the medicine have special effect if I
take it from a pure-gold spoon?”
Everyone was excited with new hope of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s recovery.
After taking the medicine, however, Prabhupāda started to feel so bad
that he decided not to take any more.
That evening, a Bengali devotee from another maṭha in Vṛndāvana
came to ask Śrīla Prabhupāda for a donation for a temple he was build-
ing. Prabhupāda sanctioned ten thousand rupees for the project. He had
known the devotee from Vṛndāvana, from before he had gone to the
West, and asked about some other devotees he had known.
Speaking in Bengali, Śrīla Prabhupāda then said that he had been
feeling terrible—as if he had been given poison. Although many devo-
tees were standing around, I was the only one who could understand
the conversation. I was shocked to hear what Prabhupāda had said, and
told Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, who shared my reaction.
After the Bengali devotee left, the devotees got together and I told
them in detail what Prabhupāda had said. Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, fol-
lowed by several senior devotees, went right to him and asked, “Śrīla
Prabhupāda, do you feel that you have been given poison?”
“No,” Śrīla Prabhupāda replied, “not that I have been poisoned. I am
just speaking like that.” He had simply been trying to express how bad
he had been feeling.
Adridhāraṇa Dāsa, the president of the Calcutta temple, had heard

about Śrīla Prabhupāda’s dream and about our search for a Rāmānuja
kavirāja who could make him makaradhvaja. Like us, he believed that
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Prabhupāda would be cured if he took the medicine, and with the help
of an influential life member, he had found an Āyurvedic doctor from
the Rāmānuja sampradāya whom he thought could be the right person to
prepare it.
Two days later, Adridhāraṇa arrived with the kavirāja, Damodar
Prasad Shastri, a pleasant middle-aged gentleman from Rajasthan.
The doctor felt Śrīla Prabhupāda’s pulse for some time, perhaps five
minutes, while talking to him casually. Pressing Prabhupāda’s feet
and hands, which were quite swollen, he asked about his pain and said
that his ailment was due to the malfunctioning of his kidneys. Tamāl
Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja said that the doctor in London had come to the same
conclusion.
Mahārāja, Damodar Prasad, and I went to the office to discuss Śrīla
Prabhupāda’s health and what needed to be done. Damodar Prasad did
not speak English, so I translated. He told us that Prabhupāda’s con-
dition was quite serious, further aggravated by his weakness—he was
not able to fight off or rectify his ailment. He mentioned that the kid-
neys played a crucial role—they filtered the blood that supplied energy
to the body, and, according to Āyurveda, diverted the urine to be ex-
creted. Therefore, when the kidneys malfunctioned, the impurities did
not get filtered but remained in the blood, causing swelling of the feet
and hands.
I told him that Vanamali Kaviraja had also said that Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda’s ailment was due to the malfunctioning of his kidneys and had
given him some medicines—two types of salt, one white and the other
pink—to be mixed with the extracts of punar navā and patharkuchi leaves.
Damodar Prasad agreed that the extracts were appropriate and asked
whether we were continuing with them. I related how Vanamali Kavi-
raja had treated Śrīla Prabhupāda four months before, how Prabhu
pāda’s health had improved, how he had decided to go to the West, and
then how his condition had deteriorated. When Prabhupāda had re-
turned to Vṛndāvana, Vanamali Kaviraja had resumed the treatment,
but he had stopped when he saw that his medicines were not working.
224 Ocean of Mercy
Back Home 225
Damodar Prasad listened carefully without comment. Then he said

that he would prepare something to give to Prabhupāda. Although he
had been brought to Vṛndāvana to prepare the makaradhvaja, he didn’t
mention it but prepared several other kinds of medicine instead. He
seemed confident of curing Prabhupāda, but when he spoke to us he ex-
pressed serious concern.
Adridhāraṇa was staying in the same room in the guesthouse with
Damodar Prasad, and sometimes he would observe the kavirāja sit-
ting up in his bed in the middle of the night. When Adridhāraṇa asked
if something was troubling him, Damodar Prasad told him that he was
worried about Prabhupāda’s condition and was considering what to do.
When he was speaking with Śrīla Prabhupāda, Damodar Prasad
assured him that he would cure him, but Prabhupāda responded that
medicine could not counteract the laws of material nature—birth, death,
old age, and disease.
I told Damodar Prasad about what Śrīla Prabhupāda had said about
feeling like he had been poisoned, but he brushed that aside. “When
someone feels pain or discomfort,” he said, “he may say something like,
‘I have been poisoned.’ Don’t worry about that. Śrīla Prabhupāda is a
pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa. By Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, he also has inconceivable po-
tency. These are all his pastimes.”
I told him about how Vanamali Kaviraja had considered giving
Prabhupāda makaradhvaja but had wanted to wait until Prabhupāda’s
condition had improved and until winter, when the cold weather would
help him process the strong medicine. I also told him about the makara
dhvaja that had been sent by the doctor in Delhi and how sick it had
made Prabhupāda.
Damodar Prasad thought for a minute and then said, “Makaradhvaja
is like nectar, but it is very strong. It is a tonic. Therefore, the body must
be able to absorb it. To give the medicine without even seeing the pa-
tient’s condition was not right. Whoever gave it like that made a mistake.
Besides that, it is prepared from mercury, so if the mercury is not cured
properly its effect can be quite harmful.”
226 Ocean of Mercy
I began to see what a big mistake had been made. “What can be done
now?” I asked.
“I am trying my best,” he said.
Although Damodar Prasad tried to console me, a terrible weight
remained in my heart. I told Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja about the conver-
sation and also about how Vanamali Kaviraja had not wanted to give
makaradhvaja to Śrīla Prabhupāda when he was treating him. I ex-
pressed my concern that now that Prabhupāda’s health condition was
much weaker, he would not be able to absorb such a powerful medicine.
But Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja reminded me that it was Śrīla Prabhupāda,
after his dream, who had wanted to take it.
Damodar Prasad was getting messages urging him to return to Cal-
cutta; his other patients were in need of his treatment. But he was deter-
mined to stay on and treat Śrīla Prabhupāda, saying that a personality
like Śrīla Prabhupāda should stay, for the benefit of the whole world.
Damodar Prasad felt that by going to Calcutta he might save one or two
people but that a personality like Śrīla Prabhupāda could save millions
of embodied souls from their suffering condition.
One day, while feeling Śrīla Prabhupāda’s pulse, Damodar Prasad
said, “Swamiji, I am convinced that this is all your pastimes. Just a while
ago when I felt your pulse, the beat seemed like that of a dying man, but
now it is strong and steady like that of a young man.”
We could see that his medicines were having their effect. Śrīla
Prabhupāda was not eating, and for some time he did not evacuate, but
the medicine had started to clean his stomach. That was important, Da-
modar Prasad told us; otherwise, Prabhupāda’s body would be flooded
with toxins. He suggested that we do not give Prabhupāda any solid
food—only diluted milk. So Prabhupāda started to take that regularly,
and we again had hope for his recovery.
When Jayapatāka Mahārāja arrived from Māyāpur one day, Śrīla

Back Home 227
Prabhupāda wanted to hear about Māyāpur and see him immediately.

To Prabhupāda’s delight, Mahārāja reported that everything was going
on nicely. Although they had only two books in Bengali—Gītār Gān and
Bhagavāner Kathā, they had distributed forty thousand books the previous
month. When Mahārāja told Śrīla Prabhupāda that some of the landown-
ers with property adjoining ours were willing to sell their land, Prabhu-
pāda asked him to buy two acres right away; he would forward the money.
Prabhupāda also instructed Mahārāja to develop nice relationships
with Prabhupāda’s godbrothers there, to build a nāṭ-mandira (large hall)
at the temple at the yoga-pīṭha (Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s birthplace),
and also at his godbrother Śrīla Śrīdhara Mahārāja’s temple.
Jayapatāka Swami told him about the devotees’ desire to start con-
struction on a new temple in Māyāpur. The original plan, to build a
temple 250 feet high, was a practical one, and it could have been accom-
plished with $15 million, but the architect, Surabhi Swami, was increas-
ing the height by 50 feet every day. The cost was going up $25 million for
each 50 feet, and now his design was for 400 feet and the cost was $90
million. Jayapatāka Swami expressed his desire to complete the temple
during Śrīla Prabhupāda’s manifest presence. At that, Śrīla Prabhupāda
just smiled and said, “It is now very brief. At any moment I can . . .”
Mahārāja’s voice became faint with emotion. “We’re all praying that
Kṛṣṇa will give you your strength back,” he said. “We are a bunch of
neophyte devotees. What can we do? What ability do we have? With-
out your inspiration, association—without your guidance—we won’t be
able to do anything. It will be impossible for us to do anything.”
One afternoon, Lokanāth Mahārāja—whose regular program was

padayātrā, walking and riding a bullock cart village to village across the
country—was telling Śrīla Prabhupāda about his trip to Badrinath, up
in the Himalayas. After visiting the Badrinārāyaṇa temple, he had gone
to Śrīla Vyāsadeva’s cave, where he had offered Śrīla Prabhupāda’s
228 Ocean of Mercy
English translation of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and then he had gone on to

the place where Bhīma, the second of the five Pāṇḍava brothers, had left
his body during their mahā-prasthāna (final journey). When Yudhiṣṭhira
Mahārāja had learned of Kṛṣṇa’s departure, he had decided to leave this
world by walking toward the Himalayas without eating, drinking, or
sleeping, and his other brothers and Draupadī had followed. The first one
to fall had been Draupadī, followed by Sahadeva, Nakula, and Arjuna.
Bhīma had left his body high in the Himalayas, near Badrinath.
Hearing of Lokanāth Mahārāja’s pilgrimage, Śrīla Prabhupāda
asked him if he could organize a bullock-cart parikramā (circumambula-
tion) of Vṛndāvana for him. Lokanāth Mahārāja was excited by the idea
and assured him that it would not be difficult.
The devotees shared Mahārāja’s excitement, but those of us who had
been serving Śrīla Prabhupāda closely and were more intimately aware
of his condition—Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, Bhavānanda Mahārāja, Upen
dra, and I—were concerned that he was not fit for such a venture. The
roads were rough and in disrepair, and we knew that he was in no shape
to undertake such an arduous journey on a bullock cart.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and Bhavānanda Mahārāja tried to persuade
Śrīla Prabhupāda not to go when his body was so weak. Prabhupāda
agreed to reduce the parikramā to just Govardhana, but he did not give
up the idea altogether.
Not fully understanding the gravity of the situation, the devotees
greeted the proposal with unbridled enthusiasm. They were joyful
both at the thought that Prabhupāda was healthy enough to go on the
parikramā and that they could join him. Two bullocks were arranged
and were standing along with the cart on the road by the gate in front of
Prabhupāda’s house. The atmosphere of the temple was vibrant. Some
devotees were thinking that the parikramā might produce a miracle and
Prabhupāda would be cured.
So many senior devotees were so excited about Śrīla Prabhupāda go-
ing on the parikramā that I did not feel qualified to question their judg-
ment. I was expecting that Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and Bhavānanda
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Mahārāja would do more to stop him, but they were not opposing the
plan as strongly as I had hoped.
Devotees were discussing the travel details in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s
presence. It all sounded absurd to me, really out of the question, but
Prabhupāda seemed content.
Finally, when it was decided that Prabhupāda would take rest at
night in a tent under a tree, I could not contain myself. “Do you know
that Śrīla Prabhupāda cannot even turn to his side?” I shouted. “When
we are not careful enough to help him turn, he feels pain. In this con-
dition you want to take him on a bullock cart through all those bumpy
roads full of potholes and rocks? You are planning to make him stay
under a tree, in a tent, at night? Even in this room here, in spite of the
heater and three blankets and a quilt, he feels cold at night.”
No one said a word.
Then Śrīla Prabhupāda broke the silence. “Bābājī Mahārāja will
come in the evening,” he said. “I will ask him.”
That gave me a little hope. I would tell Bābājī Mahārāja about the
whole situation, and he would convince Prabhupāda not to go.
That evening, as I was waiting for Bābājī Mahārāja to arrive, I
went to the kitchen to do something for Śrīla Prabhupāda. When I re-
turned to his room, I found Bābājī Mahārāja already there, sitting on
a chair next to Prabhupāda’s bed, and they were happily planning the
parikramā.
Śrīla Prabhupāda asked Bābājī Mahārāja to join him, and he agreed.
Hearing that, I gave up my last hope. But then I had an idea. I went to
the kitchen, made a plate of prasāda, and brought it to the room next to
Prabhupāda’s. Then I announced that I had prepared prasāda for Bābājī
Mahārāja. Prabhupāda suggested that I bring it in, but when I said that
it was already arranged next door, he told Mahārāja to go.
While Bābājī Mahārāja was eating, I told him about the whole situ
ation and how when Lokanāth Mahārāja had told Prabhupāda about his
visit to Badrinath and the place where Bhīma had left his body, Prabhu-
pāda had suggested the bullock-cart parikramā of Vṛndāvana. I told him
230 Ocean of Mercy
that I suspected that just like the Pāṇḍavas had gone on a mahā-prasthāna
after they received the news of Kṛṣṇa’s disappearance, Śrīla Prabhupāda
was planning to leave his body doing parikramā of Vṛndāvana.
After hearing everything, Bābājī Mahārāja declared, “Then he
shouldn’t go.”
“Please tell him that,” I begged.
“Me?” he replied. “How can I tell him?”
“Mahārāja,” I insisted, “you are the only one who can stop him.”
I explained that we, his disciples, could not force Śrīla Prabhupāda
to change his mind but that he would listen to his friend and godbrother.
Bābājī Mahārāja stood up, washed his hands and mouth, and walked
straight into Prabhupāda’s room. “I’ve heard everything,” he told him,
“and I don’t think you should go on this parikramā.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda replied, “If you feel that way, then I won’t.”
Relieved, I hurried out to inform Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja. As I
was sprinting up the guesthouse stairs to his room, I ran into him and
Bhavānanda Mahārāja coming down and explained to them that Bābājī
Mahārāja had convinced Prabhupāda not go on the parikramā.
They had just been on their way to see Prabhupāda to request him
not to go. Excited, we all rushed to his room.
“Śrīla Prabhupāda,” Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja said, “you put us
through such anxiety that we could not make out how to deal with the
situation.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda looked at Bābājī Mahārāja and told him, “See how
much they love me?” He told Mahārāja about the humiliation and dis-
tress that Bhavānanda Mahārāja had gone through for him in Māyāpur.
Bābājī Mahārāja replied, “They are fortunate that they have a spiri-
tual master like you.”
News of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s critical condition was spreading, and, antici

pating that Prabhupāda might soon leave his body, Śrīmān Nārāyaṇa
Back Home 231
and Ramakrishna Bajaj came to see him. They were old acquaintances,
and at one point they wanted to speak with Prabhupāda privately, so he
suggested that the rest of us leave the room.
Before leaving, however, I pressed the record button of the tape
recorder on Prabhupāda’s bedside table. When I told Tamāl Kṛṣṇa
Mahārāja what I had done, he thanked me and said that it had been a
smart thing to do.
When the meeting was over, I took the tape recorder to Mahārāja’s
office and played it. Śrīmān Nārāyaṇa and Ramakrishna Bajaj had
asked Prabhupāda about who would be his successor, and he had told
them that he was not going to appoint one. He was giving the legacy to
all his disciples, all his followers.
A few days later, in the evening, several of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s god-
brothers came to see him. As they sat on chairs around his bed, Prabhu
pāda admitted that he had used strong expressions while preaching.
He begged their forgiveness and requested that they ask all the other
Vaiṣṇavas to forgive him as well.
Śrīla Bon Mahārāja, sitting next to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s head, told
him that he had been in a position to chastise them and that there was
no offense in his action. He expressed his appreciation for Śrīla Prabhu
pāda’s achievements in preaching around the world, fulfilling the pre-
diction of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
When Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja showed the group copies of the Tenth
Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrīla Bon Mahārāja, his voice ringing with
appreciation, admitted that they were rich both inside and out. Inside
the books were rich with the wisdom that Śrīla Prabhupāda had pre-
sented, and outside the artwork, layout, and printing were of the highest
quality.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja told them how Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books had
been translated into so many languages and how in Moscow the Russian
government had shown its appreciation for the books in a certificate not-
ing their contribution to peace and progress. Everyone listened with rapt
attention as Mahārāja described how a skyscraper in Manhattan had
232 Ocean of Mercy
become a Kṛṣṇa temple, and how 108 temples had been established all
over the world. Everyone was extremely impressed, and Śrīla Prabhu
pāda then asked us to serve them prasāda.
After the group left, Śrīla Prabhupāda started to experience some
pain in his right thigh. He did not usually show his pain, but he was ob-
viously suffering, and he asked me to tie some salt in a piece of cloth,
heat it, and press it on the area of his discomfort. The compress brought
him some relief, but it was heartbreaking for us to see him in that condi-
tion, lying on his bed without saying anything.
Tamāl Kṛṣṇa, Bhavānanda, Upendra, and I all went sleepless
that night. At around five the next morning, right after maṅgala-ārati,
Damodar Prasad told me that Śrīla Prabhupāda had not passed urine in
twelve hours. If he did not pass urine soon, in about fourteen hours he
would leave his body. He asked if he should use a catheter to help.
I described the situation to Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, who immediately
called a meeting of the senior devotees. He told them about Damodar
Prasad’s report and also that Prabhupāda had emphatically instructed
that nothing should penetrate his body—no needles. Everybody agreed
that a catheter should not be used.
It was clear that Śrīla Prabhupāda was about to leave his body. The
doors of his room, which for months had been closed and guarded, were
thrown open, and devotees streamed in. Those who could not fit stood
outside the large windows next to Prabhupāda’s bed. Everyone was
chanting. I was standing by Prabhupāda’s head. When from time to time
he opened his mouth, I would give him a bit of water.
Kṛṣṇadāsa Bābājī Mahārāja came, and we sat him next to Śrīla
Prabhupāda’s bed, near his head. Pisimā was sitting on the floor next to
him. The kīrtana went on nonstop for over twelve hours; I lost track of
all time and bodily needs. I just stood by Śrīla Prabhupāda’s bed holding
the small silver loṭā, pouring water into his mouth as he opened it from
time to time.
At one point when Śrīla Prabhupāda opened his mouth and I was
about to pour a few drops of water, Bābājī Mahārāja commented, “See,
Back Home 233
234 Ocean of Mercy
he is still chanting.” Though Prabhupāda was not making any sound, I

could see his tongue vibrating in rhythm.
Then Damodar Prasad Shastri, who was standing next to me, said
that Śrīla Prabhupāda had left his body.
I could not yet accept that, so I said, “Please check him carefully.”
He took a small piece of cotton cloth and placed it in front of Prabhu
pāda’s nose. It did not move. I told him to use the stethoscope, and he
did, but there was no heartbeat.
I was on the verge of breaking down, but Damodara Prasad placed
his hand on my back and said, “Please don’t cry. He is going back to
Godhead; let him go. Don’t cause any hindrance to his journey back to
the Lord.”
Everybody understood what had happened. Pisimā was one of the
first to react—tears started to flow from her eyes as if a waterpot had
broken.
Maṇihāra Dāsa was sobbing, and I told him what Damodara Prasad
had told me: “Śrīla Prabhupāda is going back home. Let us not cause
any hindrance to his journey back.”
The devotees kept chanting. Some left the room. The senior men
got together and discussed whether or not to put Śrīla Prabhupāda
in samādhi that night. Then news came from the leading Vaiṣṇavas of
Vṛndāvana that the following morning he should be taken to all the
prominent temples in Vṛndāvana for a final darśana of the Lord.
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s body was placed on his vyāsāsana in the temple
room. Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja led the kīrtana through the night. In the
morning, we placed the body on another vyāsāsana and carried it in a
procession to all of Vṛndāvana’s major temples.
When the procession returned to the temple, Prabhupāda’s body was
placed next to the burial pit, which had already been dug. Nārāyaṇa
Mahārāja guided Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and me in performing all
the required rituals—bathing the body and dressing it in new clothes.
Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja himself handled the kaupīna, but he did not wrap it
around the groin and tie it at the back. I wondered how Śrīla Prabhupāda
Back Home 235
236 Ocean of Mercy
Back Home 237
could be put into the samādhi without the kaupīna being properly tied, but
I did not say anything.
Then Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and I went into the pit and Śrīla
Prabhupāda’s body was lowered in. While it was being lowered, the un-
tied kaupīna got wrapped around my wrist. I quickly untangled it and
tied it around Prabhupāda’s back. I felt that he was still there, taking
care of everything.
Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja guided us through the ārati and the rest of the
ceremony. Then he told us to put salt around the body, and afterward
the devotees began to pour loose soil into the pit.
A profound feeling prevailed in my mind: I did not want to leave
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s side; I wanted to stay and continue serving him in
his samādhi.
When Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja climbed up and the devotees began pour-
ing more soil, I still did not move. But Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja knew
what was going through my mind. He just grabbed me by my hand and
dragged me out of that holy pit.
Śrīla Prabhupāda had entered into Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa’s eternal pastimes.
AFTERWORD
T he afternoon after placing Śrīla Prabhupāda’s body into samādhi, I

went to his room, lost in the emptiness of his departure. I couldn’t be-
lieve he wasn’t there. Although he had always taught us that we would all
have to leave the material world one day and showed us by his personal
example how we should prepare, his absence was difficult to accept.
I knelt by Prabhupāda’s bed and laid my head on his fine woolen
chaddar, folded on his pillow. It still bore his fragrance. Unable to control
myself any longer, I broke down and cried, as if my heart wanted to es-
cape from its cage but could only melt in a torrent of tears. I just let my
agony pour out in sobs.
After a while—whether minutes or hours, I had no idea—I felt a
hand on my shoulder and looked up. It was Tamāl Krishna Mahārāja.
He did not say a word, but his touch told me that he understood—and
shared—my anguish. Several devotees had gathered in the room, and
they were all looking at me. Embarrassed, I walked out, with Mahārāja
by my side.
239
240 Ocean of Mercy
The next day I left for Māyāpur with Jayapatāka Mahārāja, carry-
ing an ornate metal container holding flowers from the samādhi. They
would be buried in a puṣpa-samādhi, above which a temple would be built
where devotees and others could worship Śrīla Prabhupāda and feel his
presence.
Māyāpur was somewhat of a relief for me. The memories were not so
fresh there, and I was surrounded by friends and godbrothers. Still, my
world felt vacant.
The first time I dreamt of Śrīla Prabhupāda, the dream was so real
that although in the back of my mind I was aware he had departed, I
perceived him so clearly that my heart danced with joy at being with him
again. I offered my obeisances and held his lotus feet, bathing them with
my tears. He lifted me up and asked whether I was chanting the Hare
Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra on my beads. Unable to speak, I remained silent. He
asked me to show him my tongue. When I did, he took hold of it with
his thumb and forefinger, and as the thrill of his touch ran through my
entire body, he asked me, “Are you using it to chant the holy name?” I
tried to say something, but he was still holding my tongue, and then my
struggle to speak woke me up.
With the wonderful feeling of meeting Śrīla Prabhupāda still vivid
in my mind, I sat on my bed and wondered about the meaning of the
dream. What did he want to tell me? It seemed that he was reminding
me that Māyā would try to hold my tongue and prevent me from chant-
ing but that I should never stop. No matter the difficulties, I should
never stop chanting the holy name.
I felt immensely grateful and remembered Śrīla Prabhupāda’s as-
surance that although he would someday disappear from our vision, he
would always be present. For a while, in order to lead us onto the spiri
tual path, he had become visible to us, and then he had left our sight to
motivate us to move forward toward the spiritual world to find him.
When I had decided to join ISKCON in Māyāpur in July of 1976 as
a full-time devotee and shaved my head, a thought had run through my
mind—that my hair would grow back in two months and that if I did not
Afterword 241
like being a devotee I could return to my old life.

Those two months have turned into forty years, but they have flown
by, and by Śrīla Prabhupāda’s causeless mercy my life has found its per-
fection. My realization that I am an eternal part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa and
that my life’s goal is to develop my loving relationship with Him is all
due to the mercy of Śrīla Prabhupāda, who took me by the hand and led
me to that relationship. I know that I have found the true path to perfec-
tion, and that achieving success is only a matter of continuously moving
forward without deviation. Sometime in the future—it does not matter
when—I will reach my ultimate destination and once again be at the lo-
tus feet of my beloved Śrīla Prabhupāda.
GLOSSARY
A
Ācārya—a spiritual master who teaches by his own example, and who sets the
proper religious example for all human beings.
Ārati—a ceremony in which one worships the form of the Lord or His pure
devotee by offering incense, flowers, a lamp with burning ghee-soaked
wicks, and other sacred items.
Āśrama—one of the four spiritual orders of life—brahmacārī-āśrama, or
student life; gṛhastha-āśrama, or married life; vānaprastha-āśrama, or retired
life; and sannyāsa-āśrama, or the renounced order of life; a place where
devotees live and execute spiritual practices.
Aṣṭāṅga-yoga—the eightfold system of mystic yoga, propounded by Patañjali,
meant for realizing the presence of Paramātmā, the Lord in the heart.
Āyurvedic—pertaining to medical practice based on the Āyurveda, the section
of the Vedas expounding the science of medicine delivered by Lord
Dhanvantari, the incarnation of the Supreme Lord as a physician.
B
Bhagavad-gītā—a seven-hundred-verse record of a conversation between
Lord Kṛṣṇa and His friend and disciple Arjuna, in which Kṛṣṇa teaches
him the science of the Absolute Truth and the importance of devotional
service. This five-thousand-year-old Sanskrit work contains the essence
of all Vedic wisdom.
Brahmacārī—a celibate student under the care of a spiritual master.
Brahma-jyoti—the effulgence emanating from the transcendental body of
the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa. It constitutes the brilliant illumination of the
spiritual sky.
Brāhmaṇa—a member of the intellectual, priestly class in Vedic culture. A
brāhmaṇa is meant to be wise in Vedic knowledge, fixed in goodness, and
243
244 Ocean of Mercy
knowledgeable of the Absolute Truth.
C
Caitanya-caritāmṛta—the foremost biography of Lord Caitanya
Mahāprabhu.
Cakra—one of six centers of vital energy located in the body
Chapati—a flat bread made from whole-wheat flour.
D
Dāl—spicy bean soup.
Dhotī—a long cotton cloth, traditionally worn by Indian men, that covers the
lower half of the body.
Dīkṣā—spiritual initiation.
G
Gaṅgā-jala—Ganges water.
Gopīs—the cowherd girls of Vṛndāvana, who love Kṛṣṇa unconditionally.
J
Janmāṣṭamī—the appearance day of Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Japa—the soft recitation of Kṛṣṇa’s holy names as a private meditation, with
the aid of 108 prayer beads.
K
Kachorī—a deep-fried savory filled with spicy bean paste.
Karatālas—hand cymbals.
Kṣatriya—the third of the four orders of the varṇāśrama system (vide). A
warrior who is inclined to fight and lead others. The administrative or
protective occupation according to the system of four social and spiritual
orders.
Kurtā—a shirt.
L
Lakh—100,000.
M
Maṅgala-ārati—the daily predawn worship ceremony honoring the Deity of
the Supreme Lord.
Glossary 245
Maṭha—a temple-āśrama (vide).

Mokṣa—liberation from birth and death.
N
Naiṣṭhika-brahmacārī—a lifelong celibate monk.
P
Bhagavat-prasāda—food prepared for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa and offered to
Him with love and devotion. Also known simply as prasāda.
Pakorā—a vegetable fritter.

Parikramā—circumambulation.
Purīs—deep-fried puffed bread.
S
Sabjī—a vegetable dish.
Sādhu—a saintly Kṛṣṇa conscious devotee, or Vaiṣṇava.
Samosā—a baked or deep-fried pastry with a sweet or savory filling.
Sannyāsa—the renounced order, the fourth stage of Vedic spiritual life, a
stage in which one is free from family relationships and all one’s activities
are completely dedicated to Kṛṣṇa.
Śiva—the demigod who oversees the mode of ignorance and takes charge of
destroying the universe at the time of annihilation.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam—the foremost of the eighteen Purāṇas, books of ancient
Vedic wisdom. It contains the complete science of God, bhakti-yoga, and
establishes the supreme position of Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Śūdra—a member of the fourth social order, the laborer class, in the
traditional Vedic social system.
T
Thālī—a low-rimmed metal plate.
U
Upmā—vegetable-and-semolina pudding.
V
Vaiśyā—a member of the mercantile or agricultural class in the Vedic social
system.
246 Ocean of Mercy
Varṇāśrama—the system of four social and four spiritual orders established in

the Vedic scriptures.
Vedanta-sūtra—Śrīla Vyāsadeva’s conclusive summary of Vedic philosophical
knowledge, written in aphorisms.
Vedas—the four original Vedic scriptures—the Ṛg-, Sāma-, Atharva-, and
Yajur-veda—and the 108 Upaniṣads.
Vyāsa-pūjā—worship, on his appearance day, of the bona fide spiritual master
as the representative of Vyāsadeva.
Vyāsāsana—the seat of Vyāsa, on which the representative of Vyāsadeva sits.
Y
Yajña—a Vedic sacrifice.
Yoga-sūtra—Patañjali’s book on aṣṭāṅga-yoga (vide).
SANSKRIT PRONUNCIATION
GUIDE
The system of transliteration used in this book conforms to a system that

scholars have accepted to indicate the pronunciation of each sound in
the Sanskrit language.
The short vowel a is pronounced like the u in but, long ā like the a
in far. Short i is pronounced as in pin, long ī as in pique, short u as in
pull, and long ū as in rule. The vowel ṛ is pronounced like the ri in rim,
e like the ey in they, o like the o in go, ai like the ai in aisle, and au like
the ow in how. The anusvāra (ṁ) is pronounced like the n in the French
word bon, and visarga (ḥ) is pronounced as a final h sound. At the end of
a couplet, aḥ is pronounced aha, and iḥ is pronounced ihi.
The guttural consonants—k, kh, g, gh, and ṅ—are pronounced from
the throat in much the same manner as in English. K is pronounced as
in kite, kh as in Eckhart, g as in give, gh as in dig hard, and ṅ as in sing.
The palatal consonants—c, ch, j, jh, and ñ—are pronounced with the
tongue touching the firm ridge behind the teeth. C is pronounced as in
chair, ch as in staunch-heart, j as in joy, jh as in hedgehog, and ñ as in
canyon.
The cerebral consonants—ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, and ṇ—are pronounced with
the tip of the tongue turned up and drawn back against the dome of the
palate. Ṭ is pronounced as in tub, ṭh as in light-heart, ḍ as in dove, ḍh
as in red-hot, and ṇ as in nut. The dental consonants—t, th, d, dh, and
n—are pronounced in the same manner as the cerebrals, but with the
forepart of the tongue against the teeth.
The labial consonants—p, ph, b, bh, and m—are pronounced with
247
248 Ocean of Mercy
the lips. P is pronounced as in pine, ph as in uphill, b as in bird, bh as in

rub-hard, and m as in mother.
The semivowels—y, r, l, and v—are pronounced as in yes, run,
light, and vine respectively. The sibilants—ś, ṣ, and s—are pronounced,
respectively, as in the German word sprechen and the English words
shine and sun. The letter h is pronounced as in home.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Page 9—Pilot training in Calcutta

2. Page 13—Picnic by a riverbank in Kurdistan, Iraq
3. Page 15—Experiencing hospitality of Iraqi women
4. Page 19—Picnic on a beach in Alexandropoulos, Greece
5. Page 27—Meeting Marian’s family in Bremen, Germany
6. Page 35—Drinking water in the Himalayas, in Joshi Math
7. Page 46—With devotees of the Calcutta temple
8. Page 52—Devotees are surprised to see me shaved up so quickly
9. Page 58—Snake and mongoose in Māyāpur field
10. Page 63—Funeral procession mistaken for an attack by dacoits
11. Page 77—First meeting with Śrīla Prabhupāda, on train
12. Page 83—Śrīla Prabhupāda arriving in Māyāpur
13. Page 88—Receiving life-changing instruction from Śrīla Prabhu-
pāda while he has his massage
14. Page 91—Deprogrammers kidnapping a female devotee
in New York City
15. Page 121—Śrīla Prabhupāda invites a Muslim gentleman from
Kuwait to a ‑program in Bombay
16. Page 127—Receiving instructions from Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Goswami
17. Page 129—Śrīla Prabhupāda asking not to be disturbed while trans-
lating Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
18. Page 135—Serving juice to Śrīla Prabhupāda
19. Page 145—Serving Gaṅgā water to Śrīla Prabhupāda in Rishikesh
249
250 Ocean of Mercy
20. Page 149—With Tamāl Kṛṣṇa Goswami on the bank of the Gaṅgā
in Rishikesh
21. Page 162—Śrīla Prabhupāda crossing the Gaṅgā in Rishikesh
on his way to Vṛndāvana
22. Page 173—Banamali Kavirāja showing medicinal herbs in the fields
of Vṛndāvana, to treat Śrīla Prabhupāda
23. Page 183—Meeting senior devotees in the dining hall after receiving
sannyāsa
24. Page 202—Śrīla Prabhupāda instructing Madhudviṣa Prabhu
to never leave ISKCON
25. Page 207—Bowing to Śrīla Prabhupāda in the Delhi airport
26. Page 209—Meeting with Māyāpur devotees after returning from
Vṛndāvana
27. Page 224—Śrīla Prabhupāda being treated by Damodar Prasad
Sashtri, an Āyurvedic doctor from Calcutta
28. Page 233—Giving Yamunā water to Śrīla Prabhupāda to drink
29. Page 235—Śrīla Prabhupāda’s final parikramā of Vṛndāvana
30. Page 236—Śrīla Prabhupāda’s enters into his samādhi.
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Bhakti Chāru Swami

THE BHAKTIVEDANTA BOOK TRUST

The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

Previous printing, 2016: 10,000

© 2019 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust

U ndeniably, it is love that is the most powerful force in life. And it

O cean of Mercy is a unique memoir. We are given entrance into a fas-

eternal spiritual master, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Mrityunjaya Chatterji, head of an advertising company in India, sug-

I was always drawn to spiritual life. As a child, I loved to sit with my

thought, so peaceful, as if she were sleeping.

of the interdistrict tournament. Early in the final game, we were being

I could have continued my studies in Tripura, but I decided to attend a

countries along the way—Iraq, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Switzerland

home. We happily accepted. He was a simple, poor shepherd, yet he of-

In Thessaloniki Mark and I stopped in a youth hostel, but to stay there

manager on my behalf, and he succumbed to the pressure.

friendship became deeper. On Saturdays I would cook Indian food,

ahead and surrendered entirely to spiritual life. But during my travels

asked me to tell everyone about my plans.

W hen I landed in Delhi, I went straight to Haridwar—one of the

I submerged myself, however, my whole body felt rejuvenated—warm

After traveling to various places of pilgrimage, the man had landed in

pilgrimage in the mountains and his life practicing meditation in such a

Next I descended to the Gangetic plains. I stayed at many āśramas and

decided to take me to Anandamayi Ma, who was in Benares.

purpose in life and that he was internally content in that position.

The Nectar of Devotion

T his period in Calcutta was among the most difficult of my life.

Now he had returned to help the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement in In-

would like to render some service, I immediately agreed, and he took

with relief, free from any anxiety or distress.

hankering. And Śrīla Prabhupāda had created a perfect arrangement

Madhusevita came to me and apologized. He told me that there was

most had rather bohemian and carefree backgrounds, he had been a

Life in Māyāpur was very simple in those days. Everyone, irrespective

There was only one completed structure in Māyāpur at the time—the

The Māyāpur Deities, Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava, were eighteen inches

when I was overtaken by a profound realization: by chanting the

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare

I was actually communicating with Kṛṣṇa, and He was listening. I

immediately attracted, especially after reading Śrīla Prabhupāda’s

K umbha-melā, held in Allahabad every twelve years, is the world’s

described the churning of milk ocean by the devatās (demigods) and

he got the name Nīlakaṇṭha, “the blue-throated one.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda, who was staying in a large tent surrounded by corru-

books. The festival was a great venue—we were surrounded by millions

a throne. He sat upright in a lotus position, with a flower garland around

Śrīla Prabhupāda responded that welfare help, though good, was

My time at the Kumbha-melā was going wonderfully, and I was feel-

attempts, not even an offer of a million dollars, had succeeded. Due to

­ umbha-melā to take their auspicious bath, he explained, any service

When we arrived at the Calcutta temple, Śrīla Prabhupāda was

impressed with the Deities’ śṛṅgāra—Their outfits and adornments.

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s stay in Calcutta was extremely busy. He knew a

With Śrīla Prabhupāda

With chanting and dancing devotees leading the way, Prabhupāda

īhā yasya harer dāsye karmaṇā manasā girā

opulence. Just as government servants are granted special privileges,

My service of translating Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books into Bengali gave

One morning I saw a bright-looking personality walking with

make the person give up his or her newly acquired faith.

umbha-melā to take their auspicious bath, he explained, any service

attraction for anything in this material nature—na dhanaṁ na janaṁ na sun