We stood on a rooftop in Manhattan, gazing out over the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge toward Brooklyn. I asked him, “Do you actually love Krishna?” He thought for a second. “I love pleasure,” he said finally. “To be truthful.”
Vrndavana, India, the land of Krishna five thousand years after the disappearance of the Supreme Person, is invaded by eighty American and European disciples of Srila Prabhupada. The white and saffron robed pilgrims arrive in Vrndavana for Karttika, a celebration of Krishna’s rasa dance with the cowherd girls
Srila Prabhupada dropped a bomb no one was expecting. At the morning lecture, someone asked him about the significance of initiation, and he answered, “Initiation means you accept a spiritual master and agree to worship him as God.” There was a stunned silence.
I attended the first meeting in the little storefront with two of my friends. I was surprised to see half a dozen people there. The storefront was narrow and squalid. There was no rug on the wooden floors and no decorations save one painting in the window of Lord Caitanya dancing with His disciples.
When Srila Prabhupada walked in to begin kirtana, he looked at the newly decorated temple and showed surprise. “Ah, you are advancing,” he said. “This is very nice. This is Krsna consciousness.”
In Plato’s Republic, Socrates uses the allegory of the cave to illustrate the nature of man’s attachment to the illusory things of this material universe. He tells of men living in the depths of an underground cave, the entrance of which is open to the light.
It was almost like following a Martian down the street. Somehow Srila Prabhupada floated through it all, seemingly unaware of the stares, comments and general sensation he was creating.
It is by intelligence that I can understand that this body is not me. I may say, “My hand, my head, my arm,” but the use of the possessive pronoun indicates that these are my possessions and that I am situated apart from them.