Prabhupada said, “Simply by circumambulating Krishna and Balarama, no more traversing up and down in the material universe.”
Tranakarta das: Pundarika Prabhu’s father was the managing editor of Playboy magazine. His mother was a big writer and they came to see Srila Prabhupada in Chicago in 1975.
His mother was respectful to the devotees and wrote favorable articles, but his father wasn’t so convinced.
When Prabhupada talked about meat-eating, the father started to debate with Prabhupada a little aggressively.
Because the father was so puffed up, Prabhupada finally stopped speaking and said, “Then why don’t you eat your own son?”
Pundarika was sitting in the room. Whoa— there was complete silence. Prabhupada had made his point.
Once in Vrindavan we were circumambulating Krishna-Balaram with Srila Prabhupada. When we came around the side, Prabhupada stopped.
His eyes got big and he looked right in my eyes and said, “Simply by circumambulating Krishna and Balaram in this way, no more traversing up and down in the material universe.”
Then he kept walking and chanting, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna…” Jaya, Prabhupada. Thank you, Prabhupada.
Srila Prabhupada cared about and loved the devotees. Like a concerned father, every morning he would come out of his room, come up to me and say, “How are you this morning?” and he meant it.
And there wasn’t anything that got by Srila Prabhupada.
One day we were chanting japa with Prabhupada while we circumambulated the Krishna-Balaram Temple, and when we came to the iron gate in the front, Prabhupada asked, “Why is the lock unlocked?”
From where we were, you couldn’t see that the lock was unlocked and we looked at each other thinking, “You can’t tell the lock’s unlocked.” One devotee ran over and, sure enough, it wasn’t locked.
Another morning Prabhupada said, “Why didn’t the chokidar ring the bell at two o'clock this morning?”
The chokidar was supposed to ring the bell every hour on the hour throughout the day and night.
The next day Prabhupada asked, “Why didn’t the chokidar ring the bell at three o'clock?”
Srila Prabhupada knew everything in Krishna’s service, including the minute things that we were oblivious to.
I would love to play the mridanga when Prabhupada sang Jaya Radha-Madhava, and since I followed him nicely, Prabhupada liked my playing. The mercy I got from him will last forever and is what keeps me going right now.
One morning I had the drum on my lap and Prabhupada was getting ready to sing when Hansadutta Maharaj said, “Let me have the drum, I want to play today.”
I said, “Sure Maharaj”, and gave him the drum. Prabhupada chanted one line, “Jaya Radha-Madhava,” and then opened his eyes and motioned twice with his finger, “Give Tranakarta the drum.”
I grabbed the drum. Through my whole stay in India, Prabhupada showered unlimited mridanga mercy on me.
If we went to a village or to do a program in somebody’s house, after Prabhupada spoke he would look at me and say, “Play the mridanga, we will sing now.”
Once Jagadish, a few other devotees and I were in Prabhupada’s room when Prabhupada was speaking in Hindi with some big political guests.
It was ecstasy seeing Prabhupada’s exchanges with these people but we couldn’t understand anything.
When it was time for them to leave, Prabhupada graciously walked them to the door and in English one of the guests said something to Jagadish.
Jagadish replied, “Accha,” in the same way that all the devotees say, “Accha.”
Prabhupada said, “Just see, he’s speaking Hindi!” Everybody in the room busted up with laughter.
Prabhupada cared about and loved the devotees. It was October or November and we were sitting on the marble floor of the Krishna-Balaram mandir.
One morning Prabhupada asked, “Are you cold?” “Yes Prabhupada.”
That day Prabhupada sent another devotee and me to Agra to buy big madras carpets to cover the floor so the devotees could stay warm.
Besides being the savior of the whole world, Prabhupada, like a loving father, was concerned about the health of all the devotees.
—Tranakarta
Excerpt from “Memories-Anecdotes of a Modern-Day Saint”
by Siddhanta das