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H.H. TAMAL KRISHNA
GOSWAMI
Newsletter
(Referred
to as Srila Gurudeva) - November 19,
2000
UPDATE: Srila
Gurudeva visited Dallas on November 15, 2000. After the long
flight he took prasadam and gave a two and one half hour
darshan at the home of his disciples Radha Vinode dasa and
Indra Nilamani dasi, enlivening the devotees after a long
absence from America. On Friday, November 17th Gurudeva flew
to Nashville, Tennessee, to participate in the annual
convention of the AAR, the American Academy of Religion, the
biggest such event in the world. He participated on a
Hindu/Buddhist panel and interfaced with many leading
scholars. After
returning to Dallas, on Thursday November 23rd, the
American “Thanksgiving Day,” Srila Gurudeva initiated 12
disciples.
In recent months
he has concentrated on his academic work and has not often
visited temples. However he has associated with god brothers
passing through England such as H.H. Gunagrahi Swami, H.H.
Rtadvaja Swami, H.H. Giridhari Swami and others. In this
newsletter, we will present the first part of a transcript of
Gurudeva’s talk given at the Hungary farm on this year’s
Vyasa-puja celebration for Srila Prabhupada. This transcript
will continue in future newsletters, and we eagerly look
forward to reports from devotees in America on Gurudeva’s
activities in academic and devotional
circles.
Lecture by
His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami
-Srila Prabhupada’s Glorious Vyasa-puja Day-(Part
I)
New Vraja
Dhama, Hungary - August 24, 2000
I offer my
respectful obeisances to the lotus feet of Sri Sri
Radha-Shyamasundar and Their associates on this glorious day
of the anniversary appearance of His Divine Grace, Om
Visnupada Paramahamsa Parivrajakacarya Sri Srimad A. C.
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
Their
Lordships are stationed at the lighthouse at Govardhana at
Dhangati, with the temple of Dhany Raya behind them. Since
Govardhan is one of the highest spots in Vraja, so the
lighthouse is properly situated there. Beneath Their feet are
the guru parampara—Srila
Jagannath dasa Babaji Maharaj, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura,
Srila Gaura Kisora dasa Babaji Maharaja, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta
Saraswati Thakura and our beloved Srila Prabhupada, ISKCON’s
Founder-Acarya. Srimati Radhika and Shyam are pulling a rope,
which is attached to the bow of the ship of ISKCON. [On] Srila
Prabhupada’s Vyasasana we see him sitting upon a ship.
For those
of you who will listen to this tape [or read the transcript]
in the future and are not sitting here, I am not speaking
figuratively—there really is a ship and
Prabhupada is sitting at the helm of the ship. He has a
steering wheel before him with the globe of the earth by his
left side, and he is piloting the ship around the world. The
ship has two nets that are hanging from its bow. On those nets
are many persons who are climbing aboard from the ocean of
material existence. The ocean is very turbulent and full of
dangerous sharks, whose names are written on their sides;
Karma-kanda, Mayavada, Apasampradaya, Sahajiya and Sunyavada.
There are also some unfortunate figures looking as if they are
hopelessly drowning. But many have climbed up the nets that
have been extended into this ocean, and they are being pulled
up into the boat.
On the bow
[front] of the boat stand their Lordships Sri Sri Dayal-Nitai
Gaura-Hari very magnificently. There are various personalities
very firmly situated in the boat. We can see them cut out in
figures, many of our stalwart ISKCON soldiers who are Srila
Prabhupada’s assistants. We see His Holiness Sivarama Swami,
His Holiness Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami, His Holiness Sripada
Puri Maharaja and Their Holiness’s Jayapataka Swami, B B
Govinda Maharaja, Indradyumna Maharaj and Gour Govinda
Maharaja. Also, many, many other Vaisnavas, whose names are
too many to mention here, are all situated nicely within the
boat. This is a very deep and meaningful presentation. From my
limited perspective, I have said to Sivarama Swami, that I
think this is the most outstanding darshan I have ever had.
(loud, enthusiastic applause). I guess that means everyone
agrees.
The
Deities are holding banners with important mantras about
surrender, as well as flags with ‘Jaya Prabhupada’ on them.
This is really what is happening. This is the truth, the
Absolute Truth. Radha-Shyamasundar and their associates are
pulling the ship of ISKCON with Srila Prabhupada at its
helm--with the Srimad
Bhagavatam, which now has written on it “Mariner’s Chart,”
directing how to steer the ship. Yesterday His Holiness Puri
Maharaja [from Scotland] glorified Sivarama Maharaja, and just
as Sivarama Maharaja has always been able to reveal to us here
the spiritual world of Goloka, so, I think he is also
revealing to us the spiritual world of Guruloka. Because
without understanding guru, how could he understand Krishna?
I take the
dust of all the Vaisnava’s feet, my god-brothers and
god-sisters and all the Vaisnavas. I pray that you will enable
me to speak something appropriate, although it is impossible
to fully speak the glories of Srila Prabhupada. May Ananta
Sesa give me strength and sufficient tongues to glorify Srila
Prabhupada’s wonders.
I am going
to speak from the twenty-six qualities of a pure devotee. I
thought it appropriate to show how Prabhupada does not have
any of the twenty-six qualities of a pure devotee [as will be
explained]. I will try my best, on the strength of Srila
Visvanatha Cakravati Thakura, to say everything opposite, in a
way to glorify Srila Prabhupada. That means that Srila
Prabhupada is
crowned with all the twenty-six opulences or qualities of a
pure devotee, but he is such a multi-faceted personality that
even if you speak the opposite of these twenty-six
qualities—you will still find him to be
glorious.
Just like
the first quality is to be merciful. We remember one of
Prabhupada’s disciples, an assistant Sanskrit translator,
approached Prabhupada after becoming very learned, having
associated with so many similarly elevated persons. As a
disciple of Prabhupada he approached Prabhupada and declared,
‘I pray to you that you give me the blessing to find a real
spiritual master.’ Prabhupada blessed him by saying, ‘I bless
you that in sixty thousand births, you will not meet a guru.’
This appears to be the opposite of mercy. But actually, we
have to recall that one of Lord Caitanya’s associates was
banished from His association. Sri Mukunda Prabhu, who was
banished from Lord Caitanya’s association, was going to take
his own life. Finally Lord Caitanya was asked is there any
time when you will ever see him again. He said it is going to
be many, many births before he is allowed to see Me again.
Then Mukunda danced in happiness saying, ‘I am all right; with
that hope I can stay alive.’ Considering the level of offense
this disciple committed, Srila Prabhupada actually showed he
was very merciful.
There are
many other ways in which it is possible to say the opposite of
what we normally consider mercy. I was sleeping on the porch
of that little hut in Mayapur—the first hut. Prabhupada was
sleeping inside and two or three of us were sleeping on the
porch (we had no other buildings in Mayapur at the time).
Suddenly I felt someone kicking me and I pushed his foot away.
Again they kicked me. Then I woke up and it was Prabhupada
kicking me! He said, ‘You are snoring.’ I said, ‘I don’t
snore, Prabhupada.’ He said, ‘You are snoring; go away from
here. You are disturbing my translation.’ So then I had to go
and find some place to sleep. I found some steel rods from the
construction, put some straw on them and went to sleep there.
So, in
appearing to not be merciful, Prabhupada did many merciful
things. Just like the way he would call all of the
impersonalists, jnanis, mundane scholars, all rascals. So many
harsh words! [But] this was his mercy. In showing the opposite
quality he actually demonstrated the real meaning of this
word.
The next
quality is humility. There is an opposite statement
Prabhupada says about how he feels proud. He said, ‘When I
think of my disciples, my chest swells with pride.’ Another
time, when we were preparing to go to India in 1970, we were
in Tokyo. At that time there was an attack on our movement by
his god brothers, who were trying to minimize Prabhupada and
take over his position. Because I was his GBC for India, he
had just made the GBC body a month before this. He was
preparing me to deal with his god brothers, so he told me
‘When they challenge that your guru should not take the name
Prabhupada, you ask them how many miles have you traveled? How many temples have
you opened? How
many books have you
printed?’ ‘That is why my guru is called Prabhupada, because
he has done so much more than you!’ Prabhupada said I should
not say these things, but the facts should be
known.
Before he
formed the GBC body Prabhupada was already planning to make 12
GBC members. He received a letter from one his god brothers:
‘We are ordering you to come back to India because you have
made an independent society! We should sit together and decide
what should be done.’ Prabhupada told me to write back saying,
“We agree to come to the meeting where there are twelve
members, but eleven of them will be my disciples and me
because we are preaching in 11/12 of the world. Because you
are all locked up in India, you can select one of you to
represent you all.’ So Prabhupada showed his pride in so many
different ways.
Truthful! There
were times when Prabhupada showed what would appear to have
been a very opposite quality to truthfulness. One time, he was
holding a bank account with the Bank of America and we were in
Los Angeles. The bank made an error and issued a cheque twice
for $20,000. They pointed out that the error had been made and
could we please return the money. Prabhupada refused! Then the
Vice President of the bank sent Prabhupada a letter in which
he explained [the bank’s position] according to Prabhupada’s
books; he quoted:
isavasyam idam sarvam
yat
kinca jagatyam jagat
tena
tyaktena bhunjitha
ma
grdhah kasya svid dhanam
Everybody
has their just allotment, and you should know what is your
just allotment and not want more! (Prabhupada says this in the
purport). So he quoted Prabhupada’s own words and said, ‘You
should be only taking what is yours rightly.’ [However]
Prabhupada was unwavering: he did not budge. How can we
justify this? Generally Prabhupada was of the opinion that we
should follow the laws of the land. But sometimes, in the mood
of Krishna and Balarama he would say, ‘Who cares for the laws
of Kamsa!’ So he would [sometimes] do things which appear to
be untruthful.
He asked
his book distributor His Holiness Tripurari Maharaja, ‘When
you go and sell books in the Los Angeles airport, what do you
tell people? Tripurari explained that one lady had approached
him and asked if the book would solve the energy crisis. He
said, ‘Yes it will; it has the solution to the energy crisis.’
Prabhupada laughed about this and said that when a man is a
salesman he has to do anything to sell his product. (I say all
of these things but warn everyone not to necessarily imitate
these behaviors)
Now it
says that a pure devotee is equal to all, but we didn’t
find Prabhupada at all to be equal to all. As a loyal follower
of Krishna he perfectly upheld the verse where Krishna says samoham sarva bhutesu,
I am equal to all living beings, but those who are surrendered
unto Me I take special care. Srila Prabhhupada similarly was
not equal to all—I already told you how he dealt with one
offensive disciple. Similarly Prabhupada made many comments
which would appear to show a certain
inequality.
For
example, women! In ISKCON today women are making a big push
for equal rights. Of course, for everything done in ISKCON
people always take the name of Prabhupada, in order to get the
stamp of approval for what they want to say. The ritviks say their
philosophy is Prabhupada’s philosophy; the gurus say their
philosophy is Prabhupada’s philosophy; the womens’ libers say
their philosophy is Prabhupada’s philosophy and the male
chauvinists claim their philosophy is Prabhupada’s philosophy.
Poor Prabhupada! Prabhupada said it’s just like Krishna: when
a thief goes out to steal he prays to Krishna. [Yet] when the
rich man goes out he also prays, ‘Please protect my house from
the thief.’
So I will
give some instances to show that Prabhupada was not equal to
women. I was sitting with Prabhupada at 7 Bury Place. He told
me that if Yamuna Devi, the wife of the temple president, had
been a man she that would have been the Temple President. In
other words she was more qualified than her husband was, but
because she was a woman he could not make her the Temple
President. Later on, I was handed three slips of paper on
which the names of different persons were listed when
Prabhupada was preparing to form his first GBC. They finally
found these three pieces of paper in the archives. They are in
Prabhupada’s own hand writing on the backs of envelopes. On
one he lists three women and on another he lists two women. On
the third list I got he lists only eleven men, and when he
formed the GBC there were no women. Now, he wouldn’t allow a
woman to be a Temple President, so how could he allow a woman
to be GBC? I am just showing how [in this case] he wasn’t
equal.
Another
way that he was not equal is that after a while very rarely
did women accompany him on the walk. Now the women claim that
this was because the sannyasis (I don’t know which sannyasis)
were pushing the women away and not allowing them to have an
equal right. Without prejudice (which means I always have the
right to deny this statement), there may be some truth to
that, but Prabhupada allowed it. Prabhupada was not so unaware
of the fact that there were no women on the walk; he could
have said, “Where is so and so, where is so and so.” He did used to say “Where
is so and so,” but that “so and so” was always some sannyasi
or senior man. So, I don’t think that Prabhupada was equal to
all; now I will show you how he really wasn’t.
First of
all, when the movement was just beginning, he showed far more
equality to the women—when there were no sannyasis in the
movement he had a woman secretary, Govinda dasi… His first
secretary was a woman. He had ladies cooking for him and the
women used to come walking with him just as much as the men.
Yamuna used to lead the kirtans. Yamuna and Himavati used to
speak at public lectures. But gradually, as the movement
became more [developed] he tried to establish what you may
call Vedic culture—and that’s where he started to make his
distinctions. In his
mind he made no
distinctions.
One time
in 1977 Prabhupada asked me, “Where is…Upendra?” and I said,
“He’s cooking in the kitchen.” Prabhupada then said, “Who else
is in the kitchen.” I answered, “Sruti Rupa (the wife of
Abhirama),” and Prabhupada said, “Oh, that is not very nice;
they are in the same room together.” He said, “I am above all
these things now—I am an old man—but you are all young
sannyasis: you must be very careful.” So he did these things
to protect the sannyas ashram and in
general to uphold Vedic etiquette. It has nothing to do
with any statements on an Absolute level. A classic example is
where Prabhupada always maintained women are “less
intelligent, 32-ounce brains,” and quoting his professor from
Scottish Church’s College. But he said that a devotee woman is
not the same. So we have to judge these statements.
Having
said all of that, I will make a personal disclaimer. There are
two ways to view how to go forward with ISKCON: one is the
conservative view and the other is the liberal view. The
conservative view is to do everything as much as possible the
way Prabhupada did it. The liberal view is to interpret
everything according to the present. I’m speaking only for
myself; I’m not speaking for the other persons sitting here.
But my personal view is to be much more inclined to have to
constantly interpret what Prabhupada said at the time he said
it—but bringing it into the present context—because I believe
that Prabhupada himself changed many things over time. And he
himself would have interpreted his earlier things to see if
they were still appropriate.
Faultless, that
someone has no faults. (Now we have to show that Prabhupada
had some faults!) Well, I can first of all say what Prabhupada
told us about mistakes, which appear to be made by the guru.
He said, “Any fault or mistake that happens is your fault,” (as the
disciple) “and anything that is done right is my credit as the
guru.” He said,
“This is how a disciple must think.” Now what apparent faults
can there be?
I can say
many things. I was sitting with Prabhupada (I think I may have
told you last year); it was 1969. Prabhupada was eating a lot
of chapatis, and I personally counted that he ate thirteen
chapatis—because I was sitting in the kitchen. His cooks made
very light chapatis; you can eat them in three bites, and I
was counting them. So one time we were sitting in Bombay and I
reminded Prabhupada of how he had eaten thirteen chapatis. He
said, ‘I never ate thirteen chapatis!’ I said, ‘Prabhupada, I
counted the
thirteen chapatis,’ and he said, ‘You counted wrong!’ Then I
said, ‘Yes, Prabhupada, I must have counted wrong.’
Of course
there were his little faults in pronunciation, which he would
always turn into a very nice meaning. In San Francisco there
was a shop opposite or caddy-corner to the temple. It was a
donut shop, and Prabhupada would always call it ‘do nots.’ Or
he would use the word, ‘skyscrapper’—little faults in speech
that endeared him to us. It’s not so easy to find faults like
this. I’ll give another [example] of what I thought was a
fault, the way he pushed forward book distribution, especially
in O’Hare airport [in Chicago]. O’Hare is an Irish name.
Prabhupada said O
Hare (as pronounced in the maha mantra) and he
told Tripurari Swami to go to the airport manager and to
suggest that the airport be re-named, ‘O Hare Krishna Airport’ (they hated
us at that airport; the managers disliked us because we were
disturbing all the passengers by selling books). And right in
their face, Tripurari, the main culprit of the book
distributors, had to tell the manager, ‘My guru says that you
should re-name your airport O Hare Krishna Airport.’
I once
went to Prabhupada after he had told me to go to China. I must
have been still feeling a little hurt from the whole incident.
[Gurudeva has explained that the assignment to go to China was
a shock because his preaching at that time in America was
going very well, yet suddenly and unexpectedly he was asked to
go to a totally unknown and foreign place]. So I asked
Prabhupada, ‘We’re getting so much bad publicity from this
book distribution, because you are pushing so strongly. Don’t
you think it would be better that we try to have some
different techniques and don’t be so aggressive on book
distribution?’ Prabhupada became very angry and he said, ‘If I
could do it again I would do everything exactly the same way.
I would not change the techniques.’ The women went to
Prabhupada. They said, ‘You are telling us we should be chaste
and humble, but you’re pushing us to distribute books!’ And he
told his women disciples that he came to America as an
aggressor, and they should be very aggressive.
Anyway,
some slight fault, and there are other “faults” also [which
are really not faults in the highest sense]. Like some
devotees have pointed out that Prabhupada made mistakes with
particular words in the books, perhaps, or some inaccuracy or
contradiction—where he says one thing in one place and
contradicts himself in another. Well, I think one answer to
this is very simple. Prabhupada was once asked, ‘Do you know
everything that’s in the minds of your disciples?’ Prabhupada answered,
‘I’m not God.’ So what do you expect? How is it possible for
someone to translate 80 four hundred page books and write
commentaries; open 108 temples and initiate 5,000 to 10,000
disciples—and not contradict himself in some place in a book?
Prabhupada is faultless
because there was never a moment when we ever observed that he
was not purely and perfectly devoted to Krishna; there was
never a fault in his devotion to Krishna.
Magnanimous: now we
have to show how Prabhupada was miserly [the opposite of
magnanimous]! It is difficult to speak this way, a greater
challenge. How was Prabhupada apparently miserly but
actually magnanimous? [Gurudeva consults his god brothers]
Puri Maharaja has given many good examples. Yes, Prabhupada
was very frugal, and frugality may be considered a type of
miserliness. Frugality means to save in any way possible. When
I became Prabhupada’s secretary I noticed that he was being
cheated in certain bank accounts of a few paisas [a few pennies
or less], and Prabhupada insisted that I write the managers of
each of the banks telling them they had cheated him of only a
few paisa. And when
Surabhi Maharaja needed a check to keep the construction
going, Prabhupada asked which would be cheaper, to send
through the bank or through the post? And to save a few paisa he sent it by
post.
Mild and
clean: what have
I gotten myself into? Now I have to show that Prabhupada was
not mild. Well, there are many examples of Prabhupada’s
…what’s the opposite of mild? Harsh. There are many, many
harsh statements by Prabhupada. As I said earlier he
criticized anyone who was not upholding pure bhakti, suddha bhakti. He was
very harsh with his god brothers. In the Caitanya Caritamrta
he criticised them. Even his most respected and dear god
brother, Sripad Sridhar Maharaja, when he heard this asked the
BBT that they should remove such statements (after Srila
Prabhupada departed). So harsh, but why? Because he felt they were
criticizing his mission."
Sometimes
Prabhupada could say some very cutting remarks. He could make
a disciple feel… I remember I was serving him so sincerely and
I made one mistake (I made many mistakes but that day I made
one mistake), and he just looked at me and shook his head and
said, ‘There’s nothing inside your head. It is just zero
inside.’ So then he would say, ‘You have cow dung instead of a
brain.’ You know, sometimes disciples can’t take any criticism
from their guru. I don’t know what they think Prabhupada was
like. He could be very cutting.
And now,
what about clean? Was Prabhupada unclean? Well, one thing is
that cleanliness begins in the mind. Prabhupada used to
astonish people with his knowledge of the world. Just like you
would think that a sannyasi should not talk about prostitutes.
Prabhupada once sat there and told us about the Delhi
prostitutes. In Hindi he said a ‘Delhika ladhu,’ which
is a nickname for a prostitute. So that doesn’t sound like the
mind of a sannyasi, [he] should not be knowing these types of
things. Another time Prabhupada was telling me about the taste
of fish, and he said that when you make this preparation baddhi chatri, he
described it, a Bengali preparation… if you put some fish in
it, it really becomes tasty. So I asked Prabhupada, ‘How do
you know how tasty it is?’ Prabhupada said, ‘It is said like
that. I’ve heard it said.’ He was not actually contaminated by
such things.
We were on
a train going from Calcutta to Allahabad. And so Prabhupada
said, ‘Let’s have breakfast.’ It was a night train. Then we
got up and took breakfast. Prabhupada’s servants were serving
and eating, and so then they wanted to go wash their hands and
Prabhupada said, ‘When you’re eating like this you don’t worry
about that. Just serve more prasadam.’ Little, little ways in
which he violated what would normally be considered
cleanliness. Why did this not affect Prabhupada? Because his
mind is always absorbed in love for Krishna. I was told by one
of Prabhupada’s god brothers, his sannyas guru Kesava
Maharaja used to take bath once in thirty days—and [yet] his
body never smelled bad.
When
someone is a pure devotee they get all kinds of miraculous
qualities. And Prabhupada is a topmost pure devotee; these
things did not in any way make him unclean.
(End
of Part I)
Recipe
Section: Krishna Kripa’s Quick Peanut Butter
Fudge
This recipe may not have entirely
originated with Krishna Kripa, Srila Gurudeva’s longtime
disciple in Houston, but he has refined it for use in his
cooking class at Rice University, catering and for festivals,
as it can be made easily and quickly in big quantities. While
for a long time the recipe usually used milk, he learned that
it can also be made for Vegan catering using water instead of
milk. Since for health Srila Gurudeva has to limit his intake
of dairy products, he occasionally takes this quick fudge made
without milk, and prefers unsalted peanut butter. (note: if
you use store-bought peanut butter you cannot offer this to
installed temple Deities. Store bought peanut butter works
best, however, because it is more finely ground).
2 lbs.
peanut butter (either chunky or smooth is okay)
1 cup
sugar (more or less sugar can be used according to taste, but
the ratio of 2:1, two parts sugar to 1 part liquid, should be
maintained)
1/2 cup
milk or water (works either way)
1)
Heat the milk or water in a small pot that has high sides. Add
the sugar and bring to a boil.
2) Best is
to boil on high, but if you do, the milk or water will foam
up, so make sure it doesn't go over the side of the
pot.
3) Boil
until the sugary liquid starts to thicken up--technically,
it's when you get the "strand" effect. Usually when you see
when the foaming level of the milk or liquid drops
significantly, that's enough.
4) At this
point, turn off the heat and quickly spoon the peanut butter
into the same pot with the milk mixture and stir immediately
in one direction (clockwise, counter-clockwise, etc.).
5) Quickly
you should feel it thickening up. When it is mixed thoroughly
and is definitely thickening, spoon it onto a cookie sheet or
something like that, spread out evenly & smoothly, about
1/2 inch thick. Do this quickly before it thickens and hardens
too much.
6) Let it
cool, then cut into squares.
[note: if
you cook it too long it may crumble; if so you can form it
into balls by hand rather than cutting into squares. On the
other hand, If you don’t let it thicken enough, it won’t
harden properly]
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