“Here is a real saint.”
Bhutatma das: I had made friends with a noted religious scholar, Mark Juergensmeyer, one of the professors in the Religious Studies Department at Berkeley University.
I asked him, “What do you think about having a program with Srila Prabhupada and some of the faculty?”
Juergensmeyer was enthusiastic and one of the people he invited was Dr. Staal, who had already had scholarly exchanges with Prabhupada about chanting the mahamantra. That exchange was printed as a brochure that we distributed to validate the scholarly nature of our movement. Dr. Staal was already well known to devotees.
Twenty or twenty-five faculty members plus their wives attended, quite a big turnout for that kind of group. They were interested to meet Prabhupada because of the history behind our movement. We set up a room and put a vyasasana on top of a table, which I think seemed a little pretentious to them—a colorful, big chair with peacocks on it so high up that the base of it was head height for them. Some of them seemed to question the appropriateness of this arrangement. When Prabhupada arrived, I accompanied him to the building saying, “Prabhupada, it’s an old building, but …” He said, “We don’t care, old or new, the building doesn’t matter.” The entrance to the room was from the back—the people were facing the other way. I held the door and Prabhupada walked in, and as everyone turned around I saw their expression. The moment they saw him, such a transcendent figure dressed in saffron that the little subtle edge melted away. Their sense of someone pretentious or pompous was eliminated, and they sensed, “Here is a real saint.” Prabhupada was pleased by the turnout and he smiled and got on the vyasasana very naturally—"Yes, I do belong here, I’m representing Vyasa.“ He spoke not about Radha Krishna but about Vedic and brahminical culture. Pradyumna, Svarupa Damodar and I sat on the side. After the talk one of the professors asked, "You are interested in making people brahmans and bringing the brahminical culture to the West. What about your followers here, are they brahmans?” I wondered what Prabhupada would say because we were not really brahmans. But Prabhupada handled it adeptly. Prabhupada said, “They are trying to become brahmans,” with a tone that said we weren’t struggling vainly but we were going to be successful, we were on the path. It disarmed the challenge and gave us the appropriate status that we were sincere and we were following the correct process, even though we may still be conditioned by the modes of passion and ignorance. Prabhupada also had a little exchange with Dr. Staal. He said, “I see the illustrious Dr. Staal is here.” Of course that flattery made Dr. Staal happy. Every time I saw Prabhupada interact with anyone, the common theme was that Prabhupada was completely in command, not by dint of assertiveness, but because on some level everyone knew he was a bona fide representative of God. Prabhupada never had a trace of lack of confidence. Neither did he have any hubris or pride. Prabhupada had that overwhelming sense of self-confidence that comes when one’s self-realized. Everyone at this scholarly gathering sensed that. After we left the meeting Prabhupada said to me, “This was an important meeting,” because he had met scholars and had established the credibility of our movement. And later one of the scholars told me, “I was a little skeptical in the beginning. I thought, ‘Maybe this will be some kind of elderly Bengali brahman who is caste conscious,’ but after I heard him speak I understood that this person was someone very special.” That comment confirmed what I had perceived that evening. —Bhutatma . . Excerpt from “Memories-Anecdotes of a Modern-Day Saint” by Siddhanta das