Prabhupada wanted us to understand that we shouldn’t think, “Now I am very big, I can take over my spiritual master’s position.”
Dina Bandhu: Around 1970, we drove from Boulder to L.A. and were present when Prabhupada started playing the tape of the Govindam prayers. Although it’s taken for granted now, before that time we didn’t play that tape of Yamuna singing.
But on the second or third day that we were there, Prabhupada came into the temple, the tape was put on, and he paid his obeisances. He took some charanamrita and then sat down on the vyasasana, all the while singing along with the tape.
Suddenly we saw tears gliding down Prabhupada’s cheeks. We all felt unqualified to be in his presence. When Prabhupada experienced ecstatic symptoms, you just wanted to lift up one of those linoleum tiles and crawl under it, thinking, “I don’t belong here.”
Then suddenly Prabhupada sniffed, wiped his face, and started chanting the Isopanishad mantras that he was teaching us at the time. He had a deep, rich voice that reminded me of a sea captain.
Every day we would start from the beginning and chant all the verses we knew, and then he would teach us the next verse.
Whenever I came to L.A. I would sit at the foot of Srila Prabhupada’s vyasasana in the temple room. One day Prabhupada sat down on his vyasasana, looking rather concerned.
He pointed toward me but I didn’t know what was wrong. I looked down thinking maybe my dhoti was open but it wasn’t. I looked back up. Prabhupada nodded his head as if to say, “Everything is okay.”
My hands were resting on my knees, and I froze in that position thinking, “Now everything is all right. Whatever was wrong is all right now.” I sat there while Prabhupada lectured but in the middle of the lecture, Prabhupada got disturbed again.
I was wobbling my knee. Prabhupada stopped speaking, pointed at me, and said, “Don’t do that.” I stopped doing it.
On a morning walk in Vrindavan, Prabhupada was preaching heavily against abortion and birth control. He gave the example that,
“If I have rented an apartment and you stop me from living in it, that is illegal. Or if I am living in an apartment and you come and kick me out, that is also illegal. You will be arrested. Similarly, that soul has rented that womb which is his apartment, and if you prevent him from staying there it is illegal. He’s inside and you kick him out—that is illegal.”
He explained how those who commit abortion will go from womb to womb and will never see the light of day. He was so heavy.
On the way back, Prabhupada was a little quiet. Then one Indian man said, “I read today in the newspaper that Guru Maharaj Ji’s mother said that Guru Maharaj Ji is a bogus fellow. She’s denounced him.”
Prabhupada and everyone else laughed. We walked a few more steps and the Indian man said, “Yes, practically she has finished him.” Prabhupada stopped, dug his cane into the street, looked at all of us and said, “She should have finished him in the womb.”
Prabhupada explained that a mouse went to a yogi and complained that a cat was bothering him. The yogi said, “What do you want?”
The mouse said, “I want to become a cat, and then the cat won’t bother me.” The yogi waved his hand and the mouse became a cat.
Later the cat (who was previously the mouse) went back to the yogi. The yogi said, “Now, what’s the matter? You want something?”
The cat said, “Now a dog is bothering me. I want to become a dog.” The yogi said, “All right, become a dog.” So the cat became a dog.
After a while he came back to the yogi, who said, “Do you want something?” The dog said, “Yes, now a tiger is bothering me. I want to become a tiger.”
The yogi said, “All right, become a tiger.” When the dog became a tiger, he looked at the yogi with longing eyes. The yogi said, “Oh, do you want to eat me?” The tiger shook his head “yes.”
The yogi said, “punar mushika bhava,” which means, “again become a mouse.” The tiger immediately transformed into a mouse. When we heard this we all burst out laughing, but Prabhupada meant it to be serious, and later we understood what the story meant.
Prabhupada was telling us that if we become puffed up and fail to realize that Prabhupada is actually the power behind us, then we would fall back to our former position.
Prabhupada wanted us to understand that we shouldn’t think, “Now I am very big, I can take over my spiritual master’s position.” After he told that story, Prabhupada looked at me and said, “Try to understand. Don’t laugh.”
Excerpt from “Memories-Anecdotes of a Modern-Day Saint”
by Siddhanta das