Tosan Krishna das remembers Yamuna devi.
“When one is on the bhakti marga everything is personal. Yamuna devi’s abundantly nutritious persona was the direct catalyst making the crucial difference between myself merely looking at the honey inside the jar and my deliberate decision to dive in.
By way of my attendance of a Srimad Bhagavatam class she gave one morning in the summer of 1968 at the Frederick Street temple in San Francisco (my first visitor’s experience of a temple morning program), I, a 17-year-old agnostic, was delightfully treated to the warm realization that Krishna Consciousness was not only a very good concept but was, in fact, a wealth of wholesome food-for-the-soul that you could practically experience, relish and be fortified with. She was the unpretentious personification of this with both heart and soul.
As an existential sojourner, I was weary of 60’s faux counter-cultural promises. Yamuna was a breath of rich nourishing reality. She was the un-hippy, the real deal, hard-core, with a soft inner-core. She delivered. I wanted what she was dishing out—shabda brahma, transcendental sound spoken with piercing intelligence, deep love and a beguiling, sparkling, playful smile—transferred from one soul to the next. Simply put, Yamuna was the key impetus for my deciding to move into the temple and then take initiation from Srila Prabhupada. She placed the kanti mala around my neck. Profoundly understood—she saved my life.”