By Ananda Tirtha das
As the United Airlines jet descended on the San Francisco Bay area, Srila Prabhupada turned to his disciple Ranacora and said, "The buildings look like matchboxes. Just imagine how it looks from Krsna's viewpoint." Srila Prabhupada was seventy-one years old, and this had been his first air trip. Ranacora, nineteen and dressed in a suit and tie, was supposed to be Srila Prabhupada's secretary. He was a new disciple but had raised some money and had asked to fly to San Francisco with Prabhupada. During the trip Srila Prabhupada had spoken little. He had been chanting: "Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare." His right hand in his cloth bead bag, he had been fingering one bead after another as he chanted silently to himself. When the plane had first risen over New York City, he had looked out the window at the buildings growing smaller and smaller. Then the plane had entered the clouds, which to Prabhupada had appeared like an ocean in the sky. He had been bothered by pressure blocking his ears and had mentioned it; otherwise he hadn't said much, but had only chanted Krsna's names over and over. Now, as the plane began its descent, he continued to chant, his voice slightly audible- "Krsna, Krsna, Krsna..."-and he looked out the window at the vista of thousands of matchbox houses and streets stretching in charted patterns in every direction.