Chapter 23 – Chasing Cyavana

Cyavana Swami was en route to Addis Ababa, leaving the Nairobi temple in utter disarray behind him. Ironically, despite his complete mismanagement, just before leaving Kenya, he had written to Śrīla Prabhupāda requesting to be appointed as a GBC. A few weeks later, he received the following reply:

My dear Cyavana Swami,

Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated 16/11/75 and am glad to read the contents. I am glad that you are traveling and preaching. This is the business of a sannyasi. Please follow my order in this regard. Africa is huge field, so you have plenty of opportunities for traveling and preaching. This will keep you enthusiastic. So do not neglect it. Of course, if the young people there are interested, then you should stay there to instruct them. Then if you can collect and send money to Nairobi, that is very good. In this way their debts can be paid. I am also glad to see that you are taking seriously the Life Member program. So many Life Members they are complaining they are not receiving books or they are not being treated nicely. So if you can rectify this situation, that would be very good.

So far your becoming GBC is concerned, yes, I had wanted that, but there are so many complaints. This is not good. GBC must mean that by his managing, there is not any complaints so that I can be relieved in order to do my translation work. Anyway, you go on with your preaching program and we shall discuss this matter in Mayapur meeting time. In the meantime, I am sending Brahmananda Swami to rectify the situation in Nairobi and later on we shall see.

I hope this meets you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

(Prabhupāda’s letter to Cyavana Swami)

After an absence of two months, Brahmānanda Swami returned to Nairobi at the beginning of December, only to be met with one crisis after another. Most of the devotees had left the temple, and whoever remained voiced their complaints about Cyavana’s general mismanagement and erratic behaviour. Even the life members and congregation were outraged by his actions. When Brahmānanda wrote to Prabhupāda complaining about Cyavana’s poor leadership, Prabhupāda offered no sympathy.

Our movement is so large it requires expert management and strong vigilance. Now you are finding out so many things were mismanaged, but why didn’t you find out before? What is the use of complaining now? It is your fault that you remained absent for so long. The GBC’s first business is to manage their zones. You said you were training Cyavana. Anyway, just try to mend things and restore it to its original position.

Meanwhile, in Sudan, Narasiṅgha Mahārāja and Ajāmila were successfully making many members from the Hindu community in Khartoum, completely unaware of the situation in Nairobi. They had no knowledge that Cyavana and Nirāghadeva were in neighbouring Ethiopia.

Wherever he went, Mahārāja made it a point to collect membership contributions from all the new members on the auspicious day of Ekādaśī. But when Ekādaśī arrived in Khartoum, Ajāmila wasn’t having any of it.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: This had been going on for a while – in Ethiopia, in Djibouti and in Sudan. The day I would go round and collect membership money from all the people we were preaching to was Ekādaśī. On the first Ekādaśī, Ajāmila said, “Okay, but I’m fasting! I won’t eat anything!”
So we went out, made ten or twelve life-members in the daytime, and four or five more in the evening. We met almost twenty members and they all offered us fruit and milk, plus one full breakfast, one full lunch and one full dinner – and I had to eat everything because Ajāmila was fasting! So later, we argued about this, and he kept saying, “No, Ekādaśī is very inauspicious!”
The next Ekādaśi came and he said, “No, I’m not going out today! Ekādaśī is inauspicious. I’m staying back to chant sixty-four rounds! In fact, next Ekādaśī, I’m not even going to talk!” So I had to go out alone that day. I collected, he chanted.
When the next Ekādaśī rolled around in Khartoum, it got even worse – “No, no! Ekādaśī is inauspicious. You shouldn’t talk and you shouldn’t even step outside!”
I told him, “Well, just zip up your sleeping bag and stay there. Why even bother waking up? Which part of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is inauspicious? I don’t get it!” We would argue all the time about this.

Then after a few months of this, we went back to Nairobi and many new tapes of Prabhupāda had arrived from Los Angeles. It was great! Brahmānanda would give us a couple of new tapes and all day long, you’d be listening to Śrīla Prabhupāda. So, I was listening to one tape as I was doing my temple service – it was a morning walk in Chicago. All of a sudden, a devotee asks, “Prabhupāda, is Ekādaśī inauspicious?”
Prabhupada laughed, “Inauspicious? No, no, it is the most auspicious!”
So here was the question and there was the answer from Prabhupāda. Then I went to Ajāmila and set the tape at that point and told him, “Hey Prabhu, I have a really nice lecture by Prabhupāda that I want you to listen to.” Then I put my headset on him, turned the tape on, and just walked away.
For the Vaiṣṇavas, Ekādaśī is the most auspicious day of the month because on that day, Kṛṣṇa increases His desire to enjoy and we can accelerate our service to meet Kṛṣṇa’s necessity. So, in order to increase our service, we minimise something externally.

By the end of November, Mahārāja decided it was time to leave Sudan and return to Kenya via Ethiopia. After informing Śāstrī-jī in Addis Ababa of their arrival, Mahārāja and Ajāmila boarded a plane. However, when they arrived at the airport, they were not only greeted by Śāstrī-jī, but also by Brahmānanda Swami and two other brahmacārīs from the Nairobi temple. Mahārāja was pleasantly surprised. Beaming, he said to Brahmānanda, “Hey, I thought you were traveling in the US. I had no idea you were even in Africa!” He could tell by Brahmānanda’s scowl that something was seriously wrong.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I was so happy to see the other devotees, but Brahmānanda was not happy at all. We were wearing sannyāsa lungis because the only material we could get out there was so thick that you couldn’t make a dhotī out of it, so we wore it like sannyāsīs. When Brahmānanda saw that, he looked us up and down, turned round and got in the car. On the way to the dharmaśālā, Brahmānanda was dead quiet – not a word! When we got there, he went back in his room and eventually he sent one of the brahmacārīs to get me. “Brahmānanda wants to see you in his room.” And as I got up to leave, he said, “He’s gonna beat you up. He already punched us all out this morning!” That was Brahmānanda – he was just ‘rule by fist!’
So, I went in his room and he was sitting behind a desk fuming. He said, “Come over here!”
I told him, “No way! I ain’t going anywhere near you!” I just stood by the door, in case I had to make a quick getaway. He had a life membership card in his hand and he said, “What’s this?”
“It’s a life-membership card.”
“Yeah, I know that – whose name is on it?”
Now, I used to sign all the life membership cards as ‘Jagat Guru ‘Swami’’ because the Indians wanted a swami. You’d point to the back of your dhotī and tell them you were a brahmacārī, and they’d just say, “Yes, Swami-jī.” So I just added ‘Swami’ to ‘Jagat Guru.’ I was already on the sannyāsa waiting list, but I guess Brahmānanda thought I was jumping the gun. Plus, I was wearing a sannyāsī lungi.
“Swami? And look at that sannyāsī dress! You’re in māyā, Jagat Guru!”
Then I just lost it and got in his face, “I’m in māyā? I’m not in māyā – YOU’RE in māyā!”
I’d brought this bag of gold with me and it was behind my back, and I threw it on his desk. That’s how we would get money from one country to another. The economy of all these African countries was falling apart at that time, so we’d make members, collect the money, then go to a jewellers and buy twenty-four caret gold. We’d all wear these gold chains and bangles when we left the country. So, I threw this big bag of gold on his desk and started yelling at him. “You don’t chant your rounds, you don’t attend the morning program, you buy yourself new watches, you eat like a horse, you send us to these God forsaken countries where we’re risking our lives to collect – and you’re saying I’m the one in māyā??”
Then he was quiet and calmed down.

Mahārāja knew that Brahmānanda Swami had not flown all the way from Nairobi to Ethiopia just because of a few life membership cards. There was something more behind it, and It wasn’t long before Brahmānanda revealed all. “There’s been an incident,” He sighed. Brahmānanda proceeded to recount the mismanagement by Cyavana in Nairobi during his two-month absence, explaining how Cyavana had suddenly fled Kenya with Nirāghadeva to preach in Ethiopia.

“Oh, so now Cyavana’s here in Ethiopia?” Mahārāja asked. Brahmānanda sighed again, cupping his large head in his hands. “No, he’s in Djibouti.” There was a brief pause, signalling that the news was about to get worse. “When I was in Nairobi, I got a call from Śāstrī-jī saying that during a program here, Cyavana lost control and hit a life member in the head with a pair of karatālas! Now he’s on the run.”

Mahārāja was at a loss for words. He had already noticed Cyavana’s odd behaviour the last time they met, but this new turn of events took things to a whole new level. Brahmānanda had come to Ethiopia for two reasons: first, to pacify the life members who were outraged by Cyavana’s violent outburst, and second, to find Cyavana and rein him in before he could cause any more damage.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: So that night there was a program at the Sītā-Rāma Temple. All the Hindu life members came along with the guy that Cyavana hit. They had no idea who Brahmānanda was – I was the one who made them all members. Brahmānanda was watching to see how I would deal with the situation. When they came in, they were all angry and practically ready to rip up their membership cards. In ten minutes, I’d turned them all around – they were smiling from ear to ear, and offering invitations to their homes. Brahmānanda saw me do that and in his own words, he said it was “amazing.”

Now that the life members had been pacified, the next task was to track down Cyavana in Djibouti. Mahārāja, Brahmānanda, Ajāmila and the two brahmacārīs took a train to the outskirts of Djibouti where there was a sizable Indian community. They learned that Cyavana and Nirāghadeva had passed through a few days earlier – fortunately there had been no major incident.

Upon arriving in Djibouti, Brahmānanda contacted some of the local members, who informed him that Cyavana and Nirāghadeva were staying in a dharmaśālā and that Cyavana was “acting strange.” When Mahārāja and Brahmānanda finally found them, Cyavana was totally incoherent.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: We thought he’d gone mad. Brahmānanda gave one slap to him to see if he’d come to his senses, but he was completely crazy. You couldn’t even talk to him at that point. He looked like he was stoned. Brahmānanda figured that Cyavana was so out of it that we should take him to a hospital. In order to do that, he cut off his śikhā, removed his neck beads and dressed him in a safari suit. Then we drove him to the hospital and Brahmānanda told them, “We found this guy wandering down the street.”

The next day, Brahmānanda went back and asked the nurse how he was. She told him “Oh, he’s feeling much better today. He’s just finished a nice big bowl of chicken soup!” So it was like, “Yep, he’s gone!”
Then Brahmānanda went to the US Embassy and told them, “We just committed this guy in the hospital, and he needs help. Here’s his passport.” After that, we went back to Addis Ababa and flew to Nairobi, and Cyavana was repatriated back to the US.

I never figured out what exactly happened to him till years later when I met him – Cyavana said it had something to do with the medication he was on after the jeep accident. They were heavy drugs and he had become addicted to them. When he didn’t have them, he would go crazy. That was why he was acting strange for so long.

No sooner had they returned to Nairobi than Brahmānanda reminded Mahārāja about the BBT debt that still needed to be paid off. While in Ethiopia, Mahārāja had been informed by the life members there that there were many Hindus living in Yemen and Dubai, but they had no contacts in either place. Brahmānanda was relentless – “I don’t care! Go back to Ethiopia, make your way collecting the best you can, wherever you can. Then I want you to go to Yemen and Dubai and collect. We’ve gotta pay this debt!” Two days later, Mahārāja was back in Addis Ababa with Ṛkṣarāja Dāsa, a brahmacārī from Miami, doing programs with the Hindu community.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: We were staying at a Hindu dharmaśāla – not Śāstri-jī’s, but a different one – and the hall we were having programs in had all these pictures of Śiva and Pārvatī everywhere. There were so many, it was ridiculous. We were also sleeping in that hall, and wherever you pointed your feet, you were pointing them towards these pictures, so we took them down and placed them on the floor up against the wall.
One day, when we were out, some members brought this paṇḍita to meet us. He had just come from India. When they entered the hall, they saw all the pictures off the wall, and they took this as a huge offence. It ended up that this paṇḍita was very envious of Śrīla Prabhupāda and he told the Hindus, “Actually these boys are not to blame. It is their teacher’s fault because he has not taught them properly.” Then he got them to write a letter of complaint to Prabhupāda.
I was ready to strangle this guy! One day, he came to see us with about ten members, and we ended up having a philosophical argument – he was coming up with the usual Hindu māyāvāda nonsense how we are all God etc. and finally, I defeated him and he was silent. Then, when he’d finally shut up, I started glorifying Śrīla Prabhupāda and explained how he was the only Indian to leave India and spread Vedic culture all over the world. All the Hindus were sitting there nodding their heads.
But because I knew that they had written a complaint to Prabhupāda, I also wrote a letter, telling Prabhupāda exactly what had happened. I thought maybe I had done something wrong, so I said, “We’ll never do that again, Prabhupāda.” He never replied.

In order to reach Dubai, it was necessary to first go to Yemen and secure visas. Their plan was to travel to Yemen, make life members, obtain the visas, and then continue on to Dubai. Like Ethiopia, Yemen was another country in turmoil. North Yemen and South Yemen were locked in a political struggle: while North Yemen maintained ties with the Arab world, South Yemen had a close relationship with the Soviet Union. Both sides hated each other.

Acting on information they had received in Addis Ababa, Mahārāja and Ṛkṣarāja first visited the main city of Aden in South Yemen – to discover that only a handful of Hindus remained there. Previously, there had been thousands of Indian migrants living in Yemen for centuries. However, due to the policies of the Marxist government in South Yemen, many foreign nationals, including Indians, had been recently expelled. Only a few families now remained, out of which, Mahārāja made three life members. Travelling to North Yemen, Mahārāja and Ṛkṣarāja arrived in the capital city of Sana’a.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: In Sana’a, everybody carried guns, everybody carried knives, everybody smoked cigars, all of the streets and most the buildings were made of earth. People were walking down the streets with automatic rifles and World War II bazookas! The streets were full of storehouses filled with thousands of guns, flintlocks, and all of these outdated weapons from World War I and World War II, that the western world had just forgotten about and dumped. They were all on sale in Sana’a. At that time, I think you could buy them for five bucks a piece. You would see people in the street wearing these fancy curved daggers with mother of pearl inlaid on the hilts.

When we travelled in these places, we had our heads covered. We never wore bright saffron – we wore bleached rock dyed cloth and some people just thought we were Muslims on haj. One day a man approached us. “Please, I want to talk to you”
I said, “Sure.” He took us to this house which was made of mud and wooden planks, and we followed him up these stairs to a small room. This house looked medieval, as if it had been built in the time of the Crusaders. He closed the door, looked out of the window and told us, “If we are caught having religious discussions, we could both be executed.” We talked for about an hour, I gave him some beads, we left and we never saw him again. Maybe he got caught, I don’t know. It was a similar situation with the policeman in Khartoum. It was so dangerous to preach in many of these Muslim countries, what to speak of doing kīrtana.

(Sana’a, Capital of Yemen)

(Yemeni Men)

(Yemeni Villagers)

(Streets of Sana’a)

(Earthen houses in Sana’a)

(Villagers in Yemen)