NEWSLETTER about HIS HOLINESS TAMAL KRISHNA GOSWAMI
(Referred to as Srila Gurudeva)
December 22, 2000

Srila Gurudeva left England on December 18th for a one-night stop at the Dallas temple en route to his upcoming visit to Fiji, New Zealand and Australia. This will be his first visit to these countries for some time - due to studies, the political upheavals in Fiji and his previous surgeries and convalescence. Radha Krishna Prabhu, who preaches in Houston, will accompany Srila Gurudeva on the trip.

Before leaving, Srila Gurudeva visited his dear disciple Kirtida devi dasi at Royal Free Hospital in London on Saturday, December 16th, accompanied by His Grace Kesava Bharati Prabhu and Nakula dasa. Mother Kirtida has recently been diagnosed as having cancer of the esophagus. She is scheduled to undergo a surgical operation, to remove the tumor, on January 18, 2001. As a prelude to this she has started chemotherapy treatment. Kirtida has a background as a nurse and assisted Srila Gurudeva for six months when he had his surgery last year. Srila Gurudeva encouraged and enthused Kirtida very much. She felt exceptionally privileged that he took the time to personally visit her in the hospital. Also visiting her, at the same time as Srila Gurudeva, was Her Grace Mother Kulangana, a very saintly senior disciple of Srila Prabhupada from Bhaktivedanta Manor, who has been visiting Kirtida in the hospital and reading Srimad Bhagavatam. Present also were Ayataksi dasi, Gurudeva’s Chinese disciple who is studying in England, as well as Syamala Sakhi dasi and Bhakta Yuval, an aspiring Israeli disciple from the Manor. Mother Kirtida is requesting, and very dependent, on your prayers. Please pray for her complete recovery; that she may return to good health and maintain good consciousness. All your prayers and well wishes will be very, very welcome.

We have not yet received reports from devotees regarding Gurudeva’s trip to Dallas, Houston and the AAR Convention on his American trip in late November but when the reports come in we’ll send them on. What follows is a continuation of Gurudeva’s talk on Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa-puja this year at the ISKCON farm in Hungary. As reported previously, Gurudeva followed an unusual method of glorifying Prabhupada, as he explained at this beginning of the lecture:

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.”

Lecture by His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami on
Srila Prabhupada’s Glorious Vyasa-puja Day
New Vraja Dhama, Hungary - August 24, 2000
(Part II)

Here it says that a pure devotee is akincana, without material possessions. It is easy to show how Prabhupada [apparently] “violated” this. He used to boast that in every one of my temples I have… automobiles, a hundred servants, opulent palaces and so many material possessions. [Yet] what was the special quality of them? They were all used for Krishna. It is said that the goddess of fortune, Laxsmi devi, follows behind Lord Narayan; so wherever Narayan is being served the goddess of fortune is waiting as a maidservant. What to speak of when you serve Krishna who has unlimited Laxsmis or goddesses of fortune, the Gopis, who are following Him—Prabhupada had unlimited wealth. He used to say, I left India with forty rupees—I have forty crores now. Prabhupada, though, was so detached from everything. Here it says ‘without material possessions;’ he had material possessions, but he was totally personally detached.

I always remember this: when I was preaching to one very nice life member in Bombay, he told me about his guru—how his guru was so detached that when they gave his guru money to travel overseas his guru counted the money like a child. He was so simple and detached that he took the money they gave him and put it down on the table, like a child, and went one, two, three, four… to see how much money he had. So when I heard about how ‘detached’ his guru is, I said, “Oh, my guru is much more detached. My guru doesn’t count money like that. When we give him money he counts the money like this… like a bank teller, so quickly. I asked, “Now who is more detached, your guru or mine? Your guru has no money, and my guru has millions of dollars—but he uses it all for Krishna. So who is more detached?” And he was just silent.

[Another of the twenty six qualities] They perform welfare work for all. This is a hard one [to show the opposite in regards to Srila Prabhupada]. He was quite critical of apparent welfare activities like opening hospitals [which treated only symptoms and not the deeper existential malady, i.e. lack of Krishna consciousness]. I was with Srila Prabhupada in Hrishikesh: I’ve written about this in TKG’s Diary. One lady met Prabhupada in Hrishikesh. She asked him: ‘What are you doing for the people?’ Prabhupada responded, ‘What is your idea of welfare work? You don’t know what it means to help people.’ This was a European lady. She was very nice, but Prabhupada was so heavy with her: ‘What do you know what welfare activities are? Your idea of helping others is simply like blowing air on a boil.’ If you have a boil in your hand and it’s full of pus—then blowing air on it isn’t going to help you—you have to cut it. That is mercy. So Prabhupada explained that we are cutting the ignorance, the [material] attachment people have: that is our welfare work. We don’t care about other welfare work.

Another time Prabhupada was staying at the house of a very wealthy businessman in Bombay; the man himself was not so wealthy, but coming from his wife he was from a very wealthy family. And the head of that wealthy family used to conduct an eye clinic to help people’s sight—especially poor people and sadhus. Prabhupada was very critical. He said, ‘When they get their eyesight, what will they see? Better to give them the knowledge by which they can see even without these eyes.’ Prabhupada didn’t give an inch. His idea of welfare work was only one thing: directly give love and knowledge of Krishna. I don’t think in Prabhupada’s mind that he felt there was no need for hospitals or eye clinics; he understood the value of these things. But because he had a limited time, and because he had a limited number of devotees, whatever he had he wanted to use for the one thing that was missing in the world—Krishna consciousness. When there is enough money, when there is enough devotees, then you can build a hospital, like we are doing in Bombay. When you have that kind of money, those types of doctors—that His Holiness Radhanath Swami has as disciples—then fine, then offer that hospital [in Krishna’s service].

The next quality is peaceful, santa. Was Prabhupada ever agitated? Prabhupada could certainly get “agitated.” He would become very agitated about the Bombay court case, fighting for the land. There’s another point about truthfulness [which was discussed earlier]. I may have told this story about how we went to Hyderabad to meet with Mr. N., the owner of the Hare Krishna Land before we got it. He sold it to us but then he wouldn’t agree to carry out the conveyance deed. So Prabhupada arranged to bring Mr. N. to meet him in Hyderabad. And Mr. N. brought with him a sadhu, a sannyasi to protect him against Prabhupada, to protect him against Prabhupada’s influence. Prabhupada was so tricky. He wanted this man to again sign…because the time had run out—so he wanted to get a fresh agreement. So he made us cook a big dinner and feed our two guests, but Prabhupada did not eat; I noticed he was not eating very much. Then afterwards Prabhupada started to yawn, and the man said to Prabhupada—the sannyasi said to Prabhupada, “Swamiji we don’t want to tire you: you look very tired. You should take some rest.” And Prabhupada answered, “Actually, I’m feeling very tired.” So Prabhupada went to take rest, and after Prabhupada went to take rest the sannyasi and Mr. N. also laid down and fell asleep. So five minutes later I heard Prabhupada call my name. He said, “Go into the next room, and you’ll see they’re probably sleeping. [if so] Wake up Mr. N. very quietly—don’t wake up the sannyasi—and bring him to me.” And I brought Mr. N.; the sannyasi was snoring, and I shook Mr. N. and whispered something is happening, and very quickly he ran out of the room with me. And there was Prabhupada sitting in a chair and he started to talk with Mr. N., who was groggy from having eaten and slept. And in the next room he had Shyamasundar typing up a new agreement. And he brought it in and had Mr. N. sign it. And he got a new agreement signed while the sannyasi slept through the whole thing!

So Prabhupada’s “peacefulness” could be disturbed. He became very upset [in the struggle for] Hare Krishna Land many times because of the way the government was stopping us from building… And I remember at the final end of those two years of long, drawn out fighting. Mr. N. had died and Prabhupada wrote Giriraja that Lord Narasimhadeva had killed him. And Giriraja Maharaja, being very simple, made copies of the letter distributed widely to everybody. And even Mr. N’s wife got a copy. So it took two years for us to get the situation back.

I made the biggest mistake of all. After Prabhupada got that sale agreement, Shyamasundar and I flew to Bombay; we had ten days in which to execute the deed. And we got cheated by our lawyers. Mr. N.’s lawyer made a deal with our lawyers, and then our lawyers advised us in so many bad ways to cancel that agreement. Prabhupada was in Poona, or I think a nearby town, and he asked what was happening with the Bombay land. When I told him that we had canceled the agreement—over the telephone I told him—all that I heard was the phone go “click.” He was so angry with me that he hung the phone up.

Another time I saw Srila Prabhupada at the Kumbha Mela in 1971. We had a number of tents [called ‘pandals’] that we had rented and Madhudvisa, who was not very knowledgeable, had gone with this sannyasi from the Gaudiya Math named S. Maharaja. The sannyasi cheated us but we didn’t know that, and he made a contract with the Sikh pandal-wala, but he kept the money. He told him [the pandal wala] that we would pay him when we left. Madhudvisa didn’t know this. Everybody [all the devotees] had to then go on a train to Gorakpur, and the last persons were supposed to be Prabhupada and myself, taking him to the train. So our whole camp of forty devotees all went, and they were all in the trains. I got Prabhupada’s little bag that he carried and got ready to go. Then these huge Sikh men come in and say, “Where’s the money? Where’s the balance payment?” These men were six feet tall—there were two of them, brothers—huge guys! Prabhupada was only five foot five inches: not a very [physically] imposing or big person, nor am I. Well, Prabhupada was not intimidated. He started to argue with them and then he stood up and clenched his fist, and Prabhupada was shouting at them! He said, “These people are cheaters. Take the bag, we’re going out of here.” Prabhupada stormed out of there. And he walked, and they were screaming after him, and Prabhupada was walking ahead, his head up in the air, moving his cane—just walking and walking. And he called the riksha, got in the riksha and told me, “Just get in the riksha.” And the pandal wallas were telling the riksha drivers, “They cheated us—don’t drive the riksha!” And Prabhupada took his cane and held it over the riksha walla, and said “Pedal this riksha!” and the riksha rode off with the men screaming—then they came after us in a riksha. It was a chase scene, and we went to the train and Prabhupada jumped on the train, then he told the train people, “Don’t let these people on the train; they don’t have tickets.” So they were stopped from getting on and Prabhupada was at the glass window, and he was just looking at them while they were screaming at the window—looking at them and chanting. He wouldn’t pay them. His point was, “I gave the money; you get the money from this person who cheated. He cheated me. Take the money from him—I’m not going to pay again.” That was Prabhupada’s logic.

I remember in the Bombay pandal in 1977 [you can here this on tape] someone started to question Prabhupada and he became so heavy with the person. The person was just questioning, challenging Prabhupada. Prabhupada did not take it. He became very heavy. Prabhupada could be very heavy sometimes and other times he was—as it says here—very peaceful. In other words, for Krishna a devotee is prepared to get angry and fight. But, in fact, sometimes I saw life members say, “Your guru is not really a sadhu: he criticizes other sadhus; he becomes angry from the Vyasasana. Your guru is not a real saint.” Prabhupada was not some kind of a ‘plastic saint.’ That’s why he could save the world.

Surrendered to Krishna [another of the twenty-six qualities of a pure devotee]: sometimes Prabhupada used to take a position in argument, playing a ‘devil’s advocate,’ [to train his disciples how to respond to materialistic arguments] and he would take a materialist’s position. Or sometimes when he was acting as the devotee and his disciple was representing the materialists’ position, if they gave a bad argument, he would say, “No. That’s the wrong argument.” Sometimes he would say, “Never mind: forget the philosophy. Forget about surrender to Krishna. Even just from a material point of view this is a better way of life—better food, better music, etc. Anyway, in some ways he showed that even if you are not surrendered to Krishna—still you should become a devotee—because the devotee way of life, even from a material point of view, is better than a non-devotee’s life.


The End

Newsletter Index

Contact: Radha Krishna Das