Brahmananda das Remembers Srila Prabhupada

Brahmananda: I went up to the Swami’s apartment and knocked on the door. The Swami opened the door. "Yes?" he said. I said, "I would like to speak with you." "Oh, yes. Come in." We went together into the sitting room. Prabhupada sat down behind a little metal box, and we started talking. It was very quaint. He asked me my name. I told him, "Bruce." Then Prabhupada told me that in India during the Raj period there was a "Lord Bruce." I started telling the Swami about myself, and I found myself saying, "I want to become your full time student." I had just finished taking a special training course for teaching, and I was employed by The New York City Board Of Education to teach remedial reading, a special program for culturally deprived children in the ghettos. I told the Swami, "I have just finished my training." My assignment was beginning the next day. I said, "I have a job beginning tomorrow, but I just want to be your student." Prabhupada said, "That’s fine, but you have a job." I said, "Yes." He said, "What is the salary?" Prabhupada explained Bhagavad-gita to me in a nutshell. He explained how Krishna told Arjuna to do his duty, to do devotional service, to work for Him, but not to partake in the fruits of the activity. He explained how one should give all the fruits of one’s activity to Krishna. Then Prabhupada gave me a practical instruction. It was my first instruction. He said, "You can be my student, and you can also do your job. You can give the fruits of your job to Krishna." So my first service was to work and give my salary to Prabhupada.

I had been home to visit my mother, and she knew we were strict vegetarians. We wouldn’t eat the food that she cooked because the pots were contaminated, and she was contaminated. The whole house was contaminated. She said, "Hey, what’s happening here?" One evening just before the kirtan she went to visit Prabhupada to see what we were getting into. Prabhupada had a folding metal chair in his room, which was meant for VIPs who couldn’t sit on the floor. My mother sat on this chair. Everyone else, including Prabhupada, sat on the floor. She asked Prabhupada, "What are you doing with my boys?" After explaining and preaching, Prabhupada told her, "I am taking care of your sons," because by that time Gargamuni and I had moved into the storefront. "I am feeding them, looking after them, and providing. Actually, we have no income here. Maybe you would like to give some donation?" My mother looked at us, looked at Prabhupada, and said, "Donation? I have already given a donation. I have donated my sons." Prabhupada said, "Oh, yes, very good." By her saying that, it was as if she gave us to Prabhupada.

When the Swami walked into the storefront to give class, everyone bowed down, and I started bowing down too. Gargamuni was the only one who wouldn’t. He would just sit there. This went on for some time, and Gargamuni felt a little self-conscious about it. After class, Prabhupada would always ask for questions, and on one occasion Gargamuni said, "When you come into the room, everyone bows down, but I don’t feel like bowing down, so I am not going to do it because it would be artificial. I am asking if this is all right." Prabhupada said, "You should bow down. By bowing down the feeling will come." This was a very nice instruction, and when Gargamuni started doing that, it worked.

Prabhupada told me to invite my parents to the initiation. My father wouldn’t come, but my mother came. Again she sat on the folding chair. We had the fire sacrifice, and at the end Prabhupada gave me my beads and I bowed down to him. Then Prabhupada said, "Now bow down to your mother." So I turned and bowed down. Of course, I said the mantra of obeisances to Prabhupada. My mother felt quite uncomfortable having her son bowing at her feet. Prabhupada instructed me, "Whenever you see your mother, offer your obeisances," and I did that. My family lived in Connecticut, and once I went there to distribute books to them and to friends. I rang the doorbell, my mother opened the door, and there was nobody there because I was on the ground offering obeisances. She didn’t like it, but it was Prabhupada’s instruction, and by doing it we felt closer to Prabhupada, and our family attachment dissipated. It made the relationship more formal. It was a nice instruction.

On Memorial Day weekend in 1967 Prabhupada had a stroke. After that he couldn’t type. He was partially paralyzed on one side. Gargamuni had seen office dictaphones in a store window, and when he told Prabhupada, Prabhupada said, "Yes. Bring that." Gargamuni bought one, a German Grundig, and had the salesman show him how to operate it. It took Gargamuni an hour to learn. He brought the dictaphone to Prabhupada and offered to show Prabhupada how to use it. Prabhupada said, "No, no. That’s all right. You just leave it here. I will see to it." Prabhupada was able to operate it without anyone showing him how to do it. Then Prabhupada dictated tapes, and we transcribed them. Everyone took a try at transcribing. We all found it tedious, and we weren’t making much progress on it. Prabhupada was doing more and more tapes, and this became a problem. Hayagriva was the best typist, but he was going to teach in the University. Then one day Neil from Antioch College walked in the storefront. At Antioch College, you can work at a job and get college credit for that job if it has something to do with your study. Neil came to New York wanting to work for the Hare Krishna organization for a semester. He didn’t know what we were doing. I asked him, "What do you do?" He said, "I am a typist and a transcriber." I said, "Okay." It was like the answer to a prayer. There were many little miracles. Everything with Prabhupada was always accompanied by little miracles one after the other. Neil raced through those tapes transcribing. He finished Bhagavad-gita, The Nectar of Devotion, Teachings of Lord Chaitanya, and the Sri Isopanisad. When his semester ended, he left and we never saw him again. But he had done so much, and it was just what was required.

Prabhupada was determined to publish Bhagavad-gita As It Is, but we didn’t have enough money to print it ourselves. Allen Ginsberg, who wasn’t a devotee but who was very sympathetic and enthusiastic tried to help. Allen had been to India and liked chanting. Prabhupada had instructed him to chant Hare Krishna before he read poetry, and Allen used to do that. He gave Prabhupada a harmonium, which he had brought from India. He also gave donations, and he was helping with Prabhupada’s immigration papers. Allen sent Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita manuscript to his publishers, but they rejected it. He sent it to some other publishers, and they also rejected it. After about six months of trying, he lost interest. Prabhupada gave the manuscript to Rayrama, who was the editor of Back to Godhead magazine. Rayrama sent it to academic publishers, and again everyone rejected it. He gave up. Then Prabhupada gave the manuscript to me. By that time I could see that this book had no commercial value. Every page was Krishna consciousness. I thought, "If you are not Krishna conscious and you are not interested in Krishna consciousness, you are not going to be interested in this commentary." There was no fancy poetry, no scholarly footnotes, no academics, and no esoteric things. I had no faith, and I didn’t know what to do. I went to bookstores and the library to learn how to get a book published. In the meantime, Prabhupada had recorded the Hare Krishna record, which the Beatles eventually got interested in, and the record was doing well. One alternative radio station, WBAI, played it over and over again for ten hours. I used to get the mail, bring it to Prabhupada, and he and I would go over it together. He would dictate the answer, and I would take notes. One day an order came for the record from the worldwide publishing company, MacMillan. The order was on MacMillan letterhead, and a check was included. I rushed to Prabhupada and said, "Prabhupada, someone’s written from MacMillan!" I didn’t know what to do. I was helpless. Prabhupada had to tell us everything. Prabhupada thought for a while and then said, "You personally bring the record tomorrow. Tell the person that you have a Bhagavad-gita that you want to publish." I said, "Okay. Should I bring the manuscript with me?" He said, "Just tell them." I said, "Okay. But I have to say something about you as the author. Maybe I should bring some of the books you published in India." He said, "No. Just tell them that you have a Bhagavad-gita to publish." I said, "Okay." The next day I dressed in a suit and tie and went uptown to the MacMillan Company skyscraper. The person who bought the record was an accountant. He added numbers and had nothing to do with publishing. I was thinking, "How am I going to tell him? What am I going to tell him?" We were talking about the record and the mantra and I was bewildered. Then the door opened and all of a sudden the accountant said, "This is James Wade. He is our senior editor." I shook hands with Mr. Wade, looked him right in the face, and said, "I have a Bhagavad-gita to publish." He said, "A Bhagavad-gita? By a swami? An Indian swami? Here in New York? He did this himself?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Complete? The entire Bhagavad-gita?" I said, "Yes. Yes." He said, "That’s exactly what I am looking for to fill out our religion section. I’ve got Buddhism, the Koran . . . We have everything, but we don’t have a Bhagavad-gita. We will publish it." I couldn’t believe what had happened. He agreed to publish it without seeing the manuscript. Everyone else had rejected it for whatever reason, and here he accepted it without even seeing it. I flew back to Prabhupada and told him the news. I was so excited. Prabhupada nodded as if he had expected it.

Prabhupada had a serious stroke on Memorial Day weekend when everyone had left New York City. Prabhupada couldn’t function. We didn’t want to bring him to a hospital, so I called my family doctor, but he was out of town. I started making random calls, but everyone was out of town for the weekend. Ultimately an old Jewish doctor came to see Prabhupada. The devotees were walking around barefooted, wearing jeans and T-shirts, chanting. We had no furniture, just a carpet. The doctor couldn’t figure out what was going on. Meanwhile Prabhupada was very sick. It took the doctor a long time to understand what was going on, what to speak of examining Prabhupada with the stethoscope and this and that. Afterwards we asked, "What’s wrong?" He said, "I think the old man prays too much." We said, "Oh. Yeah. Okay." The doctor said, "He’s got to get out. He’s got to get some exercise." Prabhupada could hear him from the other room. "In the mornings he should go to the park for a walk." Then the doctor left. Eventually Prabhupada went to the hospital. When he came out we took him to a rented house by the seashore in New Jersey, where he recovered. One day he announced, "Now I will take a morning walk. That doctor said something valuable." We thought the guy was nuts. Prabhupada said, "No, no. He has given a good instruction. I will take that up." Prabhupada proceeded to take a morning walk, and Prabhupada always took that morning walk, no matter what his condition, what his health. When Prabhupada was in a hotel in Switzerland it was snowing. Prabhupada couldn’t go outside for his morning walk, so he took it in the hotel corridors, walking and chanting just as if he were outside. When Prabhupada and all of us were injured in an automobile accident in Mauritius, we had aches and pains, but the next morning he went on his morning walk. Prabhupada followed that doctor’s instruction.

Prabhupada didn’t specifically order the different aspects of the movement. He guided us, but we had to find them out for ourselves, from our enthusiasm and realizations. He never made any demands, even with initiations. He didn’t say "All right. Now I am going initiate you." No. We had to come to Prabhupada and ask, "Would you initiate us?" He never said, "Now you wash my clothes." We had to come to Prabhupada, "Can I wash your clothes?" That was the way it was done. "Can I learn how to cook?" And even with harinam. . . when Prabhupada was there, he led every kirtan. He would play the drum. He would say the prayers. No one even dreamed of leading a kirtan. The Swami did it. When Prabhupada left to go to Vrindavan after his stroke, then we had to do it ourselves. As a matter of fact, when Prabhupada left to go to San Francisco and do the Mantra Rock Dance that Mukunda had arranged, all of a sudden those of us in New York thought, "Who is going to give the lecture?" Prabhupada had given every lecture. "Who is going to play the drum?" We were standing around not knowing what to do. "All, right. Why don’t you try?" "Okay. I will give the lecture." We just started doing it. I wrote a letter to Prabhupada, "We miss you." Prabhupada wrote back. "It’s very nice that you are missing me, and if you like you can put my photograph on my sitting place." That meant in Prabhupada’s apartment where he would sit. We didn’t even have a photograph. No one had a camera. We didn’t even wear watches. That is where we were coming from. We didn’t want things. I asked the devotees in San Francisco to take a photograph of Prabhupada and send it to us. We had it blown up and framed, and we put it on Prabhupada’s desk. On Sundays Prabhupada used to take us to the park. We would carry the rug, and Prabhupada would sit under a tree and have a kirtan. But it was Prabhupada having a kirtan. Nobody ever thought, "Well, we will go ourselves," because everything was done by Prabhupada. It’s hard to believe, but we were shy and reluctant. Just to do what we were doing at that time was far out, and people didn’t know what to think of us. We felt self-conscious. One summer night in New York we were having kirtan in the storefront, and it was too hot to be in there. Someone said, "Let’s go outside." We went outside and started having kirtan. When we had kirtan in the storefront, some people would stop and look in, scratch their heads, and walk by. They thought that it was nuts. Mostly, the people who came in were drunks, Bowery bums. They would lurch in, and then I would lurch them back out. Only young hippie kids would actually walk in and stay. I will never forget that first outdoor kirtan. We went to the street corner. I thought, "If we chant loudly enough, maybe Prabhupada will hear it in India. Somehow we will call out and connect." Someone played the tom-tom drum, and everyone chanted enthusiastically. A huge crowd formed, hundreds of people, some of them chanting along with us. We had flyers but no books. In the temple at the end of kirtan we used to pass around a collection bowl. Someone put that bowl on the sidewalk, and people started pitching money in. We realized, "Hey, this is a way to spread Krishna consciousness and to also get support." I wrote Prabhupada in India relating what happened. Prabhupada said, "Oh, very good. You continue this. Expand it." Prabhupada always guided us, but from behind.

In the final days we were with Prabhupada in Vrindavan taking turns to softly chant with little cymbals in a vigil kirtan. At a certain point I got sick. I collapsed in my room with a fever, and it took me about a week to recover. Then I was able to again go and see Prabhupada. When I came into his room Prabhupada was lying on his bed conversing with his servants. Sometimes he would ask who was leading the kirtan. That particular day he mentioned my name. Prabhupada said, "Oh, Brahmananda?" I came forward. He said, "You were ill? You were not feeling well?" Here is Prabhupada completely shriveled up from fasting, but he was concerned that I was not feeling well. I just had a little fever, and here is Prabhupada on his departure bed saying, "Oh, you are not feeling well?" with such concern and love. I was totally affected by that, how Prabhupada could be thinking that I wasn’t feeling well. The thing that affected me most was how much Prabhupada loved us although we are not very lovable as we all had defects. Why did Prabhupada love us? He loved us because he saw us as servants of Krishna. He said that we were sent by his Guru Maharaj to help him in his mission. Prabhupada saw us as Krishna’s servants, and Prabhupada’s mission was to spread Krishna consciousness. Whatever we could do to assist in this cause of Krishna consciousness, Prabhupada very much appreciated. I think that is the essence of Srila Prabhupada. He can see us as servants of Krishna. So let us just try to be that. That’s all.