Chapter 29 – A Deal With the Devil

(Narasiṅgha Mahārāja’s Gaura Nitāi Deities)

To raise more funds for the Durban temple, Mahārāja decided to travel with his party across Africa – first passing through Rhodesia, Zambia, and Tanzania, then spending a few days at the temple in Kenya, before continuing on to Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somaliland, and Sudan, and finally returning to South Africa.
The preaching and fundraising efforts went quite well in Rhodesia, Zambia, and Tanzania. However, when Mahārāja considered traveling to Kenya, his thoughts turned to Brahmānanda Swami – the very person who had once tried to block his sannyāsa. From the devotees in South Africa, he had already heard troubling news: the Nairobi temple was now a shadow of its former self. Only five devotees remained, and Brahmānanda was reportedly in poor condition.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I heard that he was depressed, he wasn’t attending the morning program, not chanting any rounds – he would have prasādam brought to his room, eat, and then crash out again. In other words, he was in māyā. I certainly didn’t hold a grudge against him and I always remember him with fondness, but I was his junior, and I doubt anything I could have said would have helped fix things. I heard that later, Prabhupāda sent Tamāla-Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and another sannyāsī to help him get things together. Anyhow, we decided to just keep going through Kenya on the way to Ethiopia.

When the party arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, they quickly discovered that most of the Indian community had already fled. Conditions were far worse than during Mahārāja’s previous visit. The country was now in the grip of what came to be known as the ‘Red Terror’ – a brutal campaign of political repression and mass executions led by the Derg regime.
When Mahārāja considered traveling to Somalia next, his contacts warned him against it. The country was under the control of a radical military junta headed by the dictator Siad Barre, who was aggressively attempting to transform Somalia into a Marxist-Leninist state. Foreigners and religious groups were viewed with deep suspicion, if not outright hostility.
That left only Djibouti and Sudan. Mahārāja and the devotees did visit Djibouti, but preaching opportunities and fundraising were minimal. The local Hindu community was far more preoccupied with economic instability than with Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Despite the rather disappointing outcome, Cyavana Swami, who had suddenly resurfaced in Nairobi, wrote a glowing (if somewhat exaggerated) report about Mahārāja and his preaching efforts. The piece was later published in Back to Godhead magazine that year.

(Back to Godhead Magazine with report about African Preaching efforts)

Transcendental Safari Through African Northeast
Recently, Jagat-Guru Swami and several other devotees journeyed through the African states of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somaliland, French Afar, and Sudan to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and give classes on the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. The people of northern Sudan found Kṛṣṇa consciousness particularly attractive, and the devotees plan to return to that area soon. (Back To Godhead, October 1976)

By the time Mahārāja returned to South Africa in June, he had already resolved to go back to India. Although Śrīla Prabhupāda had originally instructed him to preach in India, he had, through Puṣṭa-Kṛṣṇa’s machinations, found himself once again in the Dark Continent. Now, reflecting on the poor results of their preaching in North Africa, he took it as a sign.  However, before leaving South Africa, Mahārāja had a couple of final services to perform.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Before I left India, Puṣṭa-Kṛṣṇa had asked me to make sure the brāhmaṇa initiated devotees were chanting their gāyatrī-mantras properly. There were only a couple of them, so it wouldn’t take too long. The devotees would come in, sit next to me and they’d chant their mantras out loud, and I’d correct them if they made any mistakes. So, the first devotee came in, chanted his mantras – no problems. The second one came and sat down, chanted – I think I corrected him on something, I can’t remember. Then the last one came in and I asked him to chant the first gāyatrī-mantra, the brahma-gāyātrī.
 He goes, “Tam-te-tam…tam, tam-te-tam…”
I was like, “What’s that??”
He said, “Well, I know the tune, but I’ve forgotten the words.”
Years later he became a guru in ISKCON – so I sure hope he knows the words by now!

Mahārāja was also asked to act as a ṛtvik on behalf of Śrīla Prabhupāda. On June 15th, Ṛddha Dāsa received the following letter from Prabhupāda:

On your recommendation, I am accepting the following devotees for first initiation:

Bhakta Warrick—Caitanya-caraṇa Dāsa
Bhakta Peter—Kṛṣṇāśraya Dāsa
Bhakta Mike—Ādi Puruśa Dāsa
Nadira—Śyāmasundarī Dāsī

Hold a fire yajña and you can have Jagat-Guru Mahārāja chant on their beads.

A few days after the initiations, Mahārāja received word that Cyavana had blooped once again. He had returned to the Nairobi temple – much to the dismay of the devotees and life members, who were still recovering from the fallout of his earlier behaviour. Cyavana had left behind a trail of debts, and after a week or so, Brahmānanda asked him to take responsibility and help repay them. Offended by the request, Cyavana became indignant and abruptly left the temple that very night. He left behind a letter for Brahmānanda atop a pile of his sannyāsa cloth, stating that he was returning to America – and signed it with his civilian name. By now, Cyavana’s bizarre exploits had become so routine that when Mahārāja heard the news, he simply shrugged his shoulders.

By August, Narasiṅgha Mahārāja had returned to Vṛndāvana. Upon his arrival, he learned that several sannyāsīs – Haṁsadūta Swami, Guru-Kṛpā Swami, and Lokanātha Swami – were preparing to observe the Cāturmāsya–vrata. This four-month vow involved abstaining from shaving the head or face, refraining from cutting nails, increasing one’s chanting and reading, and reducing one’s eating. Inspired by the enthusiasm of these senior swamis, Mahārāja decided to join them in the observance.

The devotees in Vṛndāvana observed Baladeva Pūrṇimā on August 10th. One devotee – considered a so-called scholar who was studying Sanskrit under a gosvāmī outside the temple – convinced Haṁsadūta Swami that, according to śāstra, the main Deities of Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma on the altar should be bathed for the occasion.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Everybody just assumed you could do that. So Haṁsadūta got it going. It was a big abhiṣeka, and he ended up rolling on the floor of the altar in the caraṇāmṛta, and we were just throwing it by cupful’s into the crowd. It’s Vṛndāvana mayhem at its best – ISKCON style! We did it on Baladeva Pūrṇimā, and again a few days later on Janmāṣṭami.

(Krishna Balaram in ISKCON Vrindavan)

Despite observing Cāturmāsya, every day, Mahārāja and Lokanātha Swami would go out to preach and distribute books around Mathurā. Since they had been following Cāturmāsya for a month, both had grown some facial hair. But a few days before Śrīla Prabhupāda was scheduled to arrive from Hyderabad, Mahārāja pulled Lokanātha Swami aside.
“You know,” he said quietly, “I’m not sure Prabhupāda would be pleased with these beards.”
Lokanātha Swami nodded. “Yes, Mahārāja, I was thinking the same thing.”
Without delay, they headed to the local barber and shaved both their heads and faces clean. When the other sannyāsīs saw them afterward, they burst into laughter.
“Couldn’t handle the austerity, huh?”
“Was the beard getting too itchy?”

When Śrīla Prabhupada arrived in Vṛndāvana on the evening of September 2nd, however, he saw the unkempt appearance of the sannyāsīs and immediately admonished them.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: We were all in Prabhupāda’s room, and he took one look at them and said, “Out of my room! Shave! Immediately! Shave your beards!” Everyone immediately shaved up. Prabhupāda himself was clean-shaven and was always preaching. He wanted his movement to have the ideal appearance. If one is living in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s temple, then one abides by that rule. Living outside, or being in another mission – that is another thing altogether. Ultimately, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not about a particular dress, a particular hairstyle, or wearing clay on your forehead. It’s about a proper conception, siddhānta. But Śrīla Prabhupāda set a standard for his temples, and if you live in ISKCON, you should follow that standard. At the same time, there were occasions where Prabhupāda did allow – like in Māyāpura, but in general, the standard was that one should shave.

After taking darśana of Śrīla Prabhupāda, Mahārāja was requested by the temple president to organise the foot-bathing for Śrīla Prabhupāda during guru-pūjā the next morning.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Because Prabhupāda had arrived in the evening, we didn’t have a guru-pūjā for him – he just went straight to his room. The next morning, we arranged pañcāmṛta to bathe his feet – milk, yoghurt, ghee, honey, sugar-water, and I was in charge of making all the arrangements. I had all these loṭas and a conch covered in silver to pour the substances onto his feet. He came and sat on the vyāsāsana and so many sannyāsīs were there – each sannyāsī came and bathed his feet with one of the substances. I had the opportunity to dry one of his feet, and Yaśodānandana Swami came and took another towel to dry the other foot.

Then Prabhupāda gave a very enthusing lecture about preaching, and how we should preach all over the world. He commented in that lecture several times that it’s better to die preaching than simply sit down somewhere and stop preaching. It will be a noble death if Kṛṣṇa sees you have died in His service, preaching. That was the essence of that lecture.

Then, when Prabhupāda went to his room, I went with the temple president, Akṣayānanda Swami, who asked him, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, the foot-bathing was nice?”
Prabhupāda immediately said, “The brass was filthy dirty!”
Actually, I’d polished the brass before the guru-pūjā, but because it hadn’t been polished enough over the months, it became so tarnished that you couldn’t polish it. Also, some of the paraphernalia had been purchased at the last moment, and they weren’t polished.
Then Prabhupāda said, “But what do you know? You all eat off paper plates or wax paper – you do not know that a sādhu cleans his brass loṭa at least once a day, if not twice, either with sand, or lemon, or salt.
Then Prabhupāda went to his bathroom, and all his brass buckets were tarnished where the handle joins the bucket. Then he kicked the buckets out of his bathroom with his foot and shouted to his servant, “Bring buckets!” Then I left.

To make matters worse, a few days later, Śrīla Prabhupāda was informed about the abhiṣeka for the main Deities on Baladeva Pūrṇimā and Janmāṣṭamī. He was not happy.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I wasn’t there in the room, but I heard that he was furious. He called the so-called ‘scholar’ a rascal, and the managers fools for listening to him in the first place. He said it was too dangerous to bathe the big Deities. Only the small Deities should be bathed.

One morning, as Mahārāja was leaving the temple room after class, he was approached by Haṁsadūta Swami. Haṁsadūta had taken sannyāsa on the same day as Mahārāja. Born in Germany and raised in the United States, he was a charismatic figure – known for his unconventional spirit and independent nature, which often set him apart from many of his godbrothers. He also had a reputation for being somewhat wild.
“So, I heard you’re looking for some service,” he said with a smile.
In that moment, Mahārāja was hit with a flashback to Māyāpura – recalling how several managers had vied for his involvement in their respective projects, each eager to get his support and expertise in collecting.
“Hmmm…I guess I am,” he replied pensively, waiting for the next sales-pitch.
“Well, we’ve started a new preaching project – it’s gonna be great! It’s called the Nitāi-Gaura World Travelling Sankīrtana Party. We have a fleet of buses, so we can travel all around the world distributing books and preach.”
The prospect began to intrigue Mahārāja. Haṁsadūta continued.
“I left straight after Gaura Pūrṇimā and just came back with our men from Germany in our buses – we travelled through Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and finally arrived in India. We plan to go into South East Asia next.”
The concept of travelling around the world spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness certainly appealed to Mahārāja’s adventurous nature, and it wasn’t long before he agreed to Haṁsadūta’s proposal. Together, they devised a plan: Mahārāja would head to Indonesia, stopping en route in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to explore the potential for preaching there.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Once again, it showed how much the devotees lived in a bubble at that time. All we knew was that the Andaman Islands belonged to India, so naturally we thought, “Oh great! There must be tons of Hindus living there.” It was only years later that I learned that, apart from Port Blair and Havelock Island, most the islands are inhabited by tribes of head-hunters and cannibals!

Haṁsadūta informed Mahārāja that he had already looked into everything. The only flights to the Andaman Islands departed from Madras, in South India. As a foreigner, Mahārāja would need to first travel there, stay at the newly opened ISKCON temple for about a week, and obtain a Restricted Area Permit (RAP) from the FRRO (Foreigners Regional Registration Office). The Andamans were generally off-limits to foreigners due to their strategic military importance. Haṁsadūta assured him that he would send word to Bhavabhūtī Dāsa, the temple president in Madras, to assist him.

Then came the catch: Haṁsadūta told Mahārāja he would have to pay his own way to Indonesia. This was a problem. Mahārāja was flat broke – whatever funds he had were spent just getting to India.
Haṁsadūta shifted uncomfortably when he heard this. “Hmm… okay. I guess I can lend you the money. I’m tight myself, so you’ll have to pay me back later, alright?”
“Yeah,” Mahārāja replied. “No problem.”
“You sure?” Haṁsadūta asked, eyeing him with suspicion.
“Of course.”
Haṁsadūta extended his hand, and Mahārāja shook it.

What Mahārāja didn’t realise was that he’d just struck a deal with the Devil…