His lecture is very basic and yet (for restless youth) heavily philosophical. Some can’t take it, and they rise to leave. Some, upon hearing his first words, have already risen rudely, put on their shoes at the front door, and returned to the street.
In the early summer of 1966, Srila Prabhupada was sharing a Bowery loft with a young American friend. But when the boy went crazy on drugs and drove him out, suddenly Prabhupada found himself in the street, homeless and alone.
Thousands of young people were walking the streets, not simply intoxicated or crazy (though they often were), but searching for life’s ultimate answers.
So the first thing is that one should be searching after a spiritual master, just as when you search after some school, you must have at least some preliminary knowledge of what a school is.
The dingy loft, its rafters unpainted, was more like an old warehouse than a temple. The members of his audience, most of them musicians, had come to meditate on the mystical sounds of the Swami’s kirtana, his chanting.
“His American church”—yes, Srila Prabhupada had hope and determination. There was life in his lectures and kirtanas (chantings), his morning and evening gatherings in the loft. At least he was acquiring a small, regular following. But from India there was no hope.
Most of the Bowery’s 7,600 homeless men slept in lodging houses that required them to vacate the rooms during the day. Having nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, they would loiter on the street—standing silently on the sidewalks, leaning against walls, or shuffling slowly along.
I am trying to open a temple here because Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura wanted it. I think that after the temple has started, some men, even from America, may be available.
I’d been attending kirtanas regularly for quite some time, and when Prabhupada came there for a visit I was, of course, quite anxious to meet him. There were various theological and philosophical questions that I was concerned about.
For the disciple the advent of the spiritual master is the most blessed event in the world. It is even more important than Krsna’s advent, because the spiritual master gives us Krsna. Without the spiritual master there would not be any Krsna consciousness.
Almost all of Prabhupada’s Bowery friends were musicians or friends of musicians. They were into music—music, drugs, women, and spiritual meditation.
When Srila Prabhupadas bus arrived at the terminal, it was past midnight. Mr. Gopal Agarwal, his sponsor, was waiting with the familys Volkswagen bus to drive him to Butler, about an hour north.
Robert Nelson and Srila Prabhupada made an odd combination. Srila Prabhupada was elderly and dignified and was a deep scholar of the Bhagavatam and the Sanskrit language, whereas Robert was artless in both Eastern and Western culture and inept in worldly ways.
“Better to have warm legs and a cool head,” he went on, “You must have a cool head to understand this Krsna consciousness philosophy.”
Prabhupada was convinced if he could start a place where people could come and associate with a pure devotee, the genuine God conscious culture of India could begin in America. But because his plans depended on obtaining a building in Manhattan, his goal seemed unreachable.
Some personal recollections by his disciples. I remember being with Srila Prabhupada once when a cynical reporter interviewed him. The man challenged, “You claim God is speaking to you directly, telling you what to do?” “Yes,” Srila Prabhupada said. Sitting there beside Srila Prabhupada, I could feel the reporter’s skepticism. “How can God speak to […]
In New York, Srila Prabhupada had nowhere to stay but the asrama of an impersonalist svami. To see students listening to a speaker who denied the Personality of Godhead was painful for the pure devotee. But was he to go homeless and beg in the streets?
In December of 1971, I arranged speaking program for Srila Prabhupada in Madras, India. Thousands of people came to hear him, and the leading newspaper carried a summary of his lecture every day.
When I first met Your Divine Grace in 1966, I was lost and fallen. It was my inestimable good fortune that I became your disciple. I did your typing tasks, donated my salary, and brought you a daily mango…
Man is surely great, and his real greatness lies in his ability to understand God’s message: that he is made in God’s image; that he is an eternal soul, part and parcel of God; and that God is the supreme.