PRABHUPADA’S PIONEERS
Spiritual Journeys of His Disciples of New Raman Reti.
Interviews ~ Articles ~ Photos of Their Lives in Service
compiled and edited by
Sri Devi Dasi
proofreading: Vegavati Devi Dasi.
Jitamitra Devi Dasi
I was 16 in the spring of 1971, and I enjoyed hanging out in Central Park on the weekends. This is where I first met the devotees. They would have a large harinama party near the fountain every Sunday afternoon. I got my first Back to Godhead and an invitation to the Sunday love feast while standing for hours watching the devotees chanting and dancing.
After reading my first BTG, I started going to the Sunday feast every week and making friends with devotees. By the summer of 1971, I was spending most of my time at the temple. This was starting to really concern my Catholic parents. Srila Prabhupada visited the Henry Street temple that summer and I got to be part of the preparations and anticipation for his arrival. It was so exciting and wonderful to be able to finally meet Srila Prabhupada. After his visit, I felt more serious and committed to taking up Krishna consciousness and wanted to be part of the mission - rather than just seeing it as a fun thing to do during my teens. After that blissful summer of morning programs and endless harinama adventures, I dreaded having to return for my final year of high school. I got through that year by chanting 16 rounds each morning before leaving for school, and by spending the weekends at the temple. I would go straight to the temple after school on Friday afternoons and then leave for school Monday mornings from the Henry Street temple. My parents were not happy about my new lifestyle, and would try to catch me doing something wrong - so they could ground me on the weekends and keep me away from the temple.
It was Krishna’s mercy that I had met the devotees and Srila Prabhupada when I was so young. Just before meeting the devotees, I had gone to a few parties where all my peers were drinking and smoking pot. And some of my friends were starting to have sex with their boyfriends. I did not really want to engage in these activities, but was starting to feel this would be required of me if I wanted to be with my friends. If I had not met Srila Prabhupada when I did, I probably would have gotten into these unhealthy activities of intoxication and illicit sex. So meeting Prabhupada had saved me from going down that path before I could even develop a taste for such activities.
Srila Prabhupada also saved me from a life of atheism. I had grown up in a strong Catholic family and had attended Catholic school. When I was in elementary grades, I would often attend mass on my way to school and even thought I might like to become a nun. But as a teenager, I became disenchanted with the nuns and the Catholic church. And instead of looking for God elsewhere, I tried to convince myself that there was no God. I was in this process of rejecting God for almost a year when I first met the devotees. When I first moved into the temple in Brooklyn, my main service was harinama. We would sometimes go out on two or three shifts in one day - I loved harinama! We would go to Times Square, Tompkins Square Park, Central Park, downtown where the big department stores were, Greenwich Village at night, and Wall Street in the early morning. I also became the caretaker for Tulasi and helped with Deity sewing when Sri Sri Radha-Govinda were going to be installed.
Later, when book distribution became our main outreach activity, I was expected to distribute books instead of harinama. I did this for about a year, but it was difficult for me. We would distribute at Port Authority, door-to-door, or on street corners in places like Times Square. I was struggling with this service, and finally was trained up to help with more Deity worship. I got first and second initiation within months of each other in 1973.
I married soon thereafter and moved to Dallas and then Los Angeles, where I had my first child in 1975. When my son, Krsna Caitanya Dasa, was four years old, we moved to Philadelphia because there was a school there. I helped start and run a nursery school at the Philadelphia temple and later moved to Vancouver and ran a girls’ ashram and taught K-1 academics when my first husband left me.
I later transferred to Gita Nagari where I ran a girls’ ashram and taught academics to the younger grade levels. I remarried in 1983 and helped my husband, Kalakantha Dasa, in his services of being the temple president in Houston, Potomac, and Miami. We also raised two more children during this time. We moved to Alachua in 1992. I did some evening Deity worship and taught in the gurukula. I also spent a few years homeschooling my girls, Laxmi and Leela, along with a few other children from the devotee community. In 2006, Kalakantha and I moved to Gainesville when he became the Temple president of the Krishna House. During our years at the Krishna House, I have had the service of managing all office related services and being the Krishna House treasurer. It has been a wonderful experience to see so many new boys and girls joining ISKCON and coming to live in the ashram at the Krishna House.
I am still engaged as the Krishna House treasurer, though working from home during the pandemic. I am also temporarily spending my mornings helping my granddaughter homeschool with her virtual school program during the pandemic. We are also presently trying to develop a homestead, gradually learning the art of gardening and caring for cows.
By the mercy of Srila Prabhupada and all the devotees, I feel I have had a most wonderful life. I am so grateful to him for the knowledge of Krishna consciousness and devotional service and I pray to remain in his service always - in whatever little ways I can be a part of his mission. I am also very grateful for the association of my husband of 37 years, my lovely children and my three grandchildren.
To read the complete book please click here: (51MB pdf file)
https://www.alachuatemple.com/files/PDFs/SP_Disciples_of_Alachua_2021.pdf