Ācārya Siṁha
The Life of Swami Bhakti Gaurava Narasiṅgha Mahārāja
Chapter 33
The Kumbha Melā
(Andhra Pradesh, Allahabad – December 1976/January 1977)
When Narasiṅgha Mahārāja and his bullock-cart party entered the villages of Andhra Pradesh, it caused a genuine stir – both in the locals and also in him. This was nothing like his experiences in African villages. There, Kṛṣṇa consciousness was an entirely foreign presence. Villagers gathered out of curiosity, hungry hands stretched toward the peanut sweets being distributed, yet the mahā-mantra itself failed to take hold – voices scattered, unable to chant together in unison. Here, people knew Kṛṣṇa. They revered even a morsel of prasādam, and they joyfully chanted the Holy Names – loudly, clearly, and together.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: When we reached a village, it was the wonderful, pure bliss of saṅkīrtana. People would chant, take prasādam, purchase small books, etc. There were two carts and each was fitted with a bamboo roof – sort of like the old covered wagons that you see in cowboy movies. One cart was pulled by two ox and the other cart pulled by one ox. The carts were painted with the same colours that one usually paints a ratha-yātrā cart (red, blue, yellow, green) and I hung a few big bells on the sides of each cart so that people would hear them when we were entering a village. We didn’t have any Deities – only the Holy Name and a small photo of Śrīla Prabhupāda. The carts carried as many books as possible and the devotees walked along side.
Mahārāja and the brahmacārīs on the bullock-cart program had been away for three days. One afternoon on the farm, as Mahāṁsa Swami and Hari Śauri Dāsa were conversing outside Prabhupāda’s room, they suddenly noticed a tall figure approaching them. It was Mahārāja, walking steadily toward them, his daṇḍa resting on his right shoulder and his cloth bag slung over his left.
Mahāṁsa Dāsa: It was just two or maybe three days since the bullock-cart left, I suddenly see Jagat-Guru Swami walking back to the farm with his daṇḍa. I said, “What happened?” He said, “Oh, the cart was too slow. I could walk faster. This was all too slow for me.” Then, I realised that he was from America where everything is super-fast and everything is on another speed. He comes from America straight to this Hyderabad farm and then he sits on a bullock cart which was just the opposite speed of going one step after the other, so his mind was not able to cope the contrast. The contrast was too much. He could not do it. He says, “It was too slow.” The other boys carried on and he came back.
Mahārāja explained to Mahāṁsa and Hari Śauri that he had been sitting on the bullock cart, inching along the road for hours on end. Then, suddenly, a car sped past him. In that moment, the thought struck him, “This is the twentieth century! What am I doing sitting on a bullock cart? I could be doing far more preaching instead of wasting my time here.”
Unable to wait for the bullock carts to reach the next village, he climbed down and walked ahead on foot. When the carts finally arrived, Mahārāja was already there, preaching and distributing books.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: By the time we had hit the fourth village, we were sold out of books and then I started thinking that this was more of a life of sense gratification than of preaching. When all the books were sold out, I would just give a lecture and Acyutāgraja would translate it into Telegu. But without giving the people Śrīla Prabhupāda books, the program didn’t seem complete.
However, Mahārāja felt somewhat guilty about ditching the program altogether.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Having invested some time and money, and getting a few devotees fired up about the program, I decided to take out the party for a month anyway. When Prabhupāda had spoken to me about the bullock-cart party, there was a twinkle in his eye. Just by describing the program to me it appeared that he was relishing the simple life of a sannyāsī, far away from the burden of being a great ācārya. So, I felt it my duty to take out the carts at least for some time – more than just for a couple of days.
To encourage Mahārāja to carry on with the program, Mahāṁsa gave him additional brahmacārīs and supplied him with more books.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Acyutāgraja from the farm was there – he would translate what I said into Telegu. There was also Godruma from the States, Mahākratu from England, and about seven others whose names I’ve forgotten. It was a mixed group of scraggly brahmacārīs – mostly misfits who had no engagement and were simply floating around India – American, English, Indian, and German.
The devotees carried no map and, as a result, had little idea where they were headed. At one point, Mahārāja became convinced that the party had wandered in a circle and visited some of the same villages twice.
Every half hour they would find a new village The villagers were simple and poor, and everywhere the party went they heard the same story – the children had grown up, and seeing no future in village life, had left for the big cities. Despite their poverty, the villagers gave generous amounts of grains and lentils to the devotees to cook and prepare prasādam for distribution.
One day, the party arrived at a large Śrī Vaiṣṇava temple of Lord Narasiṁha, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The temple brāhmaṇas explained that the Deity of Lord Narasiṁha was self-manifest and dated back to Satya-yuga, having appeared at the rear of a cave around which the temple had later been constructed. The devotees spent one night and one day there, engaging in kīrtana within the temple precincts. It was a deeply memorable experience, marred only by the sight of local villagers butchering chickens scarcely twenty metres in front of the temple – something the devotees found appalling.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: It was winter and so it was quite cold. We slept on the ground, bathed in rivers, begged, and chanted. As far as I was concerned it was the romantic life of a sannyāsī living one thousand years ago. But it was very austere and very difficult for the devotees. We were constantly on the move and anything that could go wrong did go wrong – sick bulls, rain, mud, bad roads, dysentery, unbalanced eating, etc. I loved it, but it was slow!
Mahārāja and his party continued their journey throughout the month of December, until at last, they all agreed that they had had enough. Leaving Acyutāgraja and the bullock carts at the farm, Mahārāja and the remaining devotees took a bus back to the temple in Hyderabad.
As they reached the front of the temple, they were greeted by the sight of one of Haṁsadūta Swami’s saṅkīrtana buses. The vehicle had clearly seen better days, yet from the bustle of devotees packing it with supplies, it was obvious that they were about to set off. Mahārāja called out to a brahmacārī who was frantically securing boxes to the luggage rack on the roof.
“Haribol prabhu, are you off on saṅkīrtana?”
“Hare Kṛṣṇa, Mahārāja – nein, ve are not!” the devotee replied in a thick German accent. “Ve all go to der Kumbha Melā in Allahabad, und Prabhupāda vill also be zer!”
Kumbha Melā – Mahārāja had heard the devotees speak of it while he was still at the farm. The Kumbha Melā is regarded as the oldest and largest religious gathering in the world. Millions of sādhus and pilgrims assemble there to bathe at the sacred confluence of the three rivers – the Gaṅgā, Yamunā, and the unseen Sarasvatī.
According to the Vedic scriptures, when the demigods and the demons churned Mandara Mountain, the nectar of immortality was produced. Both sides struggled to possess it, but Garuḍa, the carrier of Lord Viṣṇu, seized the pot of nectar, the kumbha, and flew away. As he did so, drops of nectar fell upon four holy places: Prayāgrāj (Allahabad), Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nāśik.
Religious gatherings, or melās, are held periodically at all four of these sacred sites, but every twelve years the Kumbha Melā at Allahabad draws the greatest multitude, becoming the largest of them all. Pilgrims arrive from every corner of India to take darśana of exalted sādhus and to bathe at the sacred confluence at the most auspicious hour, seeking mokṣa – liberation from material bondage.
However, the melā of 1977 was a Mahā Kumbha Melā – an occurrence so rare that it comes only once every 144 years.
“Do you have any room for us?” Mahārāja asked, gesturing toward the devotees who had come with him.
“Oh ja, Mahārāja – of course ve haf room!” the brahmacārī replied, beaming. “Please put your bags in der back.”
With that, Mahārāja and the devotees quickly climbed aboard the bus, stowing their bags among the stacks of supplies. Before long, the engine rumbled to life, another ten brahmacārīs from Haṁsadūta Swami’s saṅkīrtana party scrambled in, sat down, and the bus pulled away, carrying them northward.
For days they travelled on dusty roads and through unfamiliar towns, stopping to rest, chant, and take simple meals along the way, until at last, they arrived at Allahabad, where the vast tide of the Kumbha Melā was already gathering.
To enter the city of Allahabad, they had to cross over the long Naini Bridge. The bus slowed to a crawl, inching forward amid cars, cycle rickshaws, bullock carts, and dense streams of pilgrims. From the great height of the bridge, Mahārāja looked down upon a vast sea of enormous grey tents spread out below, stretching to the horizon as far as the eye could see. He had never seen anything like this in his life. As a child, his parents had taken him to fairs and circuses, but those spectacles now seemed miniscule compared to the vastness unfolding before his eyes.
(Kumbha Melā camp, 1977)
The bus halted some distance before the ISKCON camp, and the devotees quickly gathered their belongings, disembarked, and set out on foot for the remaining stretch. The main road through the melā stretched on in an unbroken succession of camps – each enclosed by corrugated tin sheets, with painted signs announcing the name of the camp and its presiding guru. With an estimated fifteen million pilgrims in attendance, the Mahā Kumbha Melā was quite literally a who’s who of the Hindu world. Every prominent sampradāya, ācārya, and ascetic order was represented – anyone of consequence had established a camp there. Sādhus were everywhere, clad in countless shades of saffron and wrapped tightly in thick woollen blankets to ward off the biting January cold. As the contingent of white Vaiṣṇavas passed by, the sādhus fixed them with steady, unblinking gazes. For many, it was a startling sight – ‘sahibs’ dressed in the austere garb of Indian holy men, their brows marked with tilaka, softly chanting the Holy Names of Kṛṣṇa.
It was eight o’clock in the morning, yet a sharp wind swept across the grounds, driving dust into the devotees’ eyes. After trudging for nearly twenty minutes through the fine, silty sand, they reached a quieter stretch of the melā where the crowds had thinned. There, Mahārāja finally spotted a camp marked by a large sign emblazoned with the words “ISKCON.” Turning off the main path, the party made their way inside the enclosure.
As he began inquiring about accommodation, Mahārāja was greeted by his old friend from Africa, Bhāgavata Dāsa, along with Gurudāsa Swami, who had been overseeing the preparation of the ISKCON facilities for the melā. Gurudāsa looked both exhausted and anxious. Despite the bitter cold, beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead – a telling sign of the strain he was under.
“Mahārāja!” he exclaimed, “So nice to see you! You know Bhāgavata, don’t you? Anyway, perhaps you can help him arrange Śrīla Prabhupāda’s accommodation here. I have to fly to Bombay tonight to arrange finances for the Kumbha Melā and give a report to Śrīla Prabhupāda – he’ll be arriving here by train on the 11th of January, about a week from now.”
Without pausing, Gurudāsa took Mahārāja by the arm and led him to a hut which was being constructed with straw.
“See? We’re making this room for Śrīla Prabhupāda out of straw, because straw keeps the heat in. There will be bathroom facilities – a latrine and a bathing area – which must be separate and properly enclosed. And there should also be a kitchen exclusively for Prabhupāda’s cooking. Bhāgavata will handle all the external arrangements. I just need you to see to everything inside Prabhupāda’s room – blankets, buckets, bedding – all of that stuff.”
Gurudāsa reached into a shoulder bag and drew out a large wad of cash.
“Here’s 10,000 rupees – it should be enough.”
Before Mahārāja could ask a single question, Gurudāsa had already disappeared into a nearby tent to pack his bags.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Actually, 10,000 rupees was a lot in those days. For the next three or four days I was buying things for the inside of Prabhupāda’s rooms. I was meditating on what Prabhupāda would do every day, wherever he was, and brought things accordingly – sheets, a rope bed, a mirror, an almirah, and a big yak-fur blanket which was extremely warm. I also got a desk for Prabhupāda, carpets for all the rooms, and I made a small vyāsāsana.
When Śrīla Prabhupāda arrived at the railway station in Allahabad at 9:00 a.m. on the 11th of January, he was received by a tumultuous kīrtana of some fifty jubilant devotees. The sound of mṛdaṅgas and karatālas filled the platform as they welcomed him with great enthusiasm. Owing to the unceasing river of pilgrims, it took considerable time for Prabhupāda’s car to make its way to the ISKCON site. At last, the vehicle passed beneath the railway bridge that loomed above the melā grounds and came to a halt.
As soon as he stepped out, Prabhupāda expressed his desire to inspect the camp without delay. Gurudāsa Swami and Bhāgavata Dāsa led him around, showing him the various facilities – which, in fact, had been completed only thirty minutes before his arrival.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: You could immediately see from Prabhupāda’s face that he was upset about something. Gurudāsa was showing him around and we were all trailing behind – he showed him the tents where the men would stay, where the women would stay, the kitchen, the prasādam area. The Allahabad government had given some very basic facilities to all the camps – taps, outdoor latrines, and some cheap army tents. While Gurudāsa was talking, Prabhupāda was looking up and turning this way and that way. Then he asked, “Where are the electric lines?” Then Gurudāsa told him that power lines didn’t reach that far, and Prabhupāda just exploded!
“If there is no power, how will people come for our program in the evening? You didn’t think about that? Who is responsible for this? Who got this land?”
Bhāgavata said, “When I came here a few weeks ago, I was told that all the big swamis would be in this area, so I thought the power lines would be coming here.”
Then Prabhupāda told him, “Nobody is here! Our camp is too far away.” Prabhupāda was shaking his head. Then he told Bhāgavata, “You were cheated. They know you have no experience, so they cheated you.”
As soon as Prabhupāda had seen where the camp was located he knew that it was a bad area. He’d lived in Allahabad for many years, so he knew the city like the back of his hand. I also heard later that Prabhupāda’s father had been cremated under the same railway bridge where we had our camp – I’m sure that also didn’t help Prabhupāda’s mood.
Late that afternoon, Prabhupāda observed that very few pilgrims were visiting the ISKCON camp. Upon further inquiry, he discovered that there was scarcely enough provisions to cook for the devotees themselves – let alone sufficient quantities for prasādam distribution that evening. Bhāgavata Dāsa was again called for and sharply reprimanded. “You have no brain!” Prabhupāda shouted. He then went on to criticise the location again, pointing out that the camp stood directly beneath a railway bridge, and the thunder of passing trains was already disturbing him. After nearly twenty minutes of stern chastisement, Prabhupāda finally dismissed him, concluding gravely, “There are no people coming, there is no electricity, there is no prasādam distribution, and it is noisy – this paṇḍāl is a failure!”
About an hour later, Prabhupāda summoned Bhāgavata again. This time his mood was markedly calmer. “If you can at least arrange some electricity, that will be good. Do you think you can do that?”
Bhāgavata assured him that he would make it happen, and, almost miraculously, by nightfall the ISKCON camp had power, though the supply was somewhat unsteady and prone to fluctuation.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: We were always being cheated in India. The tents were third class, there was no proper electricity, and it was very inconvenient – especially for Śrīla Prabhupāda. I remember the first night – it was freezing and windy. All the devotees were huddled up and in the middle of the night, I thought, “I wonder if Prabhupāda is alright.” So I went over to his room – Rāmeśvara had become Prabhupāda’s new secretary in Bombay and he was staying with Prabhupāda. I peeked through the door and saw that Rāmeśvara was already sleeping, but Prabhupāda was sitting at his desk, all bundled up, wearing gloves and a fleece-lined parka, doing his translation work. I didn’t want to disturb him, so I went back to my tent.
By the following morning, however, Prabhupāda had developed a heavy cold. His nose ran constantly, his eyes watered, and his hands and feet had become swollen from the damp winter chill. Throughout the night, Rāmeśvara had risen again and again to relight the small kerosene heater, which repeatedly sputtered out as gusts of wind swept through the thin straw walls.
Originally, Prabhupāda had intended to walk to the Triveṇī to bathe at the sacred confluence, but in his weakened condition he instead bathed beside his quarters, using a loṭā filled from the hand pump just outside his room. Despite earnest pleas from several devotees urging him to move to a rented house in Allahabad town, Prabhupāda firmly declined. He insisted on remaining at the camp, explaining that he had come to the melā to preach and wished to stay where guests and pilgrims could easily approach him. When the sun finally rose, Prabhupāda asked his secretary, Hari Śauri, to carry his rope-bed outside the tent so that he could lie in the gentle warmth of the morning sun.
(Śrīla Prabhupāda sitting in the morning sun at the 1977 Kumbha Melā)
After the morning program, the devotees went out on hari-nāma saṅkīrtana led by Acyutānanda Swami and distributed Prabhupāda’s books. The sight of foreign sādhus chanting in saffron robes drew curious crowds, and before long a steady stream of pilgrims began making their way to the ISKCON paṇḍāl to take darśana of Śrīla Prabhupāda.
(Acyutānanda Swami leading kīrtana at the 1977 Kumbha Melā)
Behind the scenes, however, tensions simmered. That afternoon, devotees arrived from Māyāpura, and upon witnessing the obvious mismanagement of the campsite, they went directly to Prabhupāda with their concerns. He acknowledged their complaints, yet urged them to be tolerant and to concentrate on distributing as many books as possible during the Kumbha Melā.
Meanwhile, frustration was mounting amongst the sannyāsīs and managers. The prasādam was substandard, the accommodation inadequate, and the electricity was unreliable – flickering on and off without warning. Their list of grievances seemed endless, each complaint feeding the next. Naturally, the chief targets of their criticism were Gurudāsa Swami and Bhāgavata Dāsa.
As usual, Mahārāja kept himself aloof from all this. He was far too absorbed in attending to the needs of Śrīla Prabhupāda to become entangled in finger-pointing. Many of the complaints were, in truth, justified; yet at the same time, few of those voicing them were offering any tangible help to Gurudāsa or Bhāgavata. The prevailing mood seemed to be, “It’s not my service, Prabhu!”
(Śrīla Prabhupāda giving a morning talk at Kumbha Melā, 1977)
On the morning of the 13th, Prabhupāda decided to take a walk through the melā grounds. About thirty devotees accompanied him, and he was flanked by his sannyāsī disciples – Acyutānanda Swami, Lokanātha Swami, Gurudāsa Swami, Jayapatāka Swami, Nanda-kumāra Swami, Rāmeśvara Swami, Śrīdhara Swami, Guru-kṛpā Swami, and Pṛthu-putra Swami. Pilgrims at the Kumbha Melā were accustomed to seeing māyāvādī sannyāsīs carrying their eka-daṇḍas, but the sight of a contingent of Western tridaṇḍi sannyāsīs moving through the grounds was an eye-opener for many.
That morning, Narasiṅgha Mahārāja remained at the camp, cleaning Śrīla Prabhupāda’s room, carefully noting whether anything needed repair or replenishing. When Prabhupāda’s entourage returned to the site, Mahārāja was approached by Lokanātha Swami who had arrived the night before with his bullock cart party. For several months he had been travelling throughout North India with Haṁsadūta’s Nitāī-Gaura World Traveling Saṅkīrtana Party, using buses imported from Germany. However, when the permits for the buses expired, Śrīla Prabhupāda told him, “You don’t need to travel by bus in India. You can go by bullock cart.”
Lokanātha Swami had taken that instruction to heart and had been preaching in that way for some time. Knowing that Mahārāja had also engaged in bullock-cart preaching in Andhra Pradesh, he was eager to hear about his experience. Mahārāja, as always, spoke with complete frankness and told him that, although it was pretty idyllic for a sannyāsī, he also felt it was too slow for him.
Lokanātha Swami nodded his head, “Yes Mahārāja. I also feel like that. I was thinking of ending the bullock-cart program here at the Kumbha Melā and getting a van to preach.”
However, when Lokanātha Swami later presented his idea to Śrīla Prabhupāda, hoping for reconsideration, Prabhupāda firmly insisted that he continue. Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Dāsa was pushing for Lokanātha Swami to give up the bullock-cart preaching and become the ‘bhakta director’ in his zone, but Prabhupāda immediately dismissed this proposal and was emphatic that Lokanātha Swami continue with the bullock-cart program.
Upon hearing Prabhupāda’s decision, and recalling how he had once instructed Narasiṅgha Mahārāja to take up the bullock-cart program only for a short period, Mahārāja began to appreciate more deeply how the spiritual master expertly engages each disciple according to time, circumstance, and individual capacity – offering different instructions to different disciples.
That evening was even colder than the last. At around 9:00, Mahārāja left his tent and went to Prabhupāda’s room. Prabhupāda sat cross-legged on his bed, wrapped in the yak-fur blanket and his parka coat, chanting japa. In one corner, Rāmeśvara crouched over the kerosene heater, once again struggling to keep it lit. Mahārāja gently asked Prabhupāda if he was warm enough. Prabhupāda merely wiggled his head and said, “Yes.”
During Prabhupāda’s stay at the Kumbha Melā, Mahārāja witnessed a veritable river of sādhus flowing through the ISKCON camp to take darśana of Śrīla Prabhupāda. He had heard that prior to coming to the Melā, Girirāja Dāsa had asked Prabhupāda in Bombay why they were going to the melā. Prabhupāda replied that they were going for association. He explained that sādhus would be coming from the Himalayas – great ascetics, some reputed to be hundreds or even thousands of years old – as well as demigods. Many of them, he said, would fly there.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: In retrospect, I think Prabhupāda was just ‘pulling our noses’ but we all had so much faith in Prabhupāda’s words that we accepted it.
I would go for a walk early in the morning when the fog had lifted and see all these white circles of dust on the ground. After hearing what Prabhupāda had said about these thousand-year-old sādhus and Devas coming to attend the melā by flying, I thought that these white circles must be where these Devas and sādhus ‘teleported’ and left a mark.
A few days later, I went out earlier to see if I could spot any of these great personalities teleporting from Devaloka. I didn’t see any teleporting Devas or sādhus – what I did see was that early in the morning, the pilgrims would pass stool on the side of the road and the municipality would come round with a cart, sweep up the stool and throw a handful of white lime powder where the stool had been. This was the real nature of the ‘teleportation signs’!
I was very keen to examine that person. I didn’t see anyone flying. The only person we saw come in the air was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who came in a helicopter. Nobody levitated in. But all during that Kumbha Melā, I was very keen to examine any person I saw who looked like a yogī to me.
Then one day, when we were in our camp, four very bright-faced, effulgent, renounced-looking sādhus with very long dreadlocks came into our camp. They wore short cloth above the knees, had very shiny brass kamaṇḍalus, and were wrapped in wool chaddars. Everyone was gone – Prabhupāda was in his tent, there was one disciple who was doing the service of guarding the gate, and I was organising a bhoga list for the kitchen – when I saw these three people come to the gate. They stood there for a few minutes. Then the devotee at the gate spoke to them, went inside Prabhupāda’s room, and Prabhupāda’s servant came out. There was a little more talk, and then, to my surprise, they entered Prabhupāda’s tent. I was busy with my service at a distance of thirty yards or so, and they remained in Prabhupāda’s tent for about fifteen or twenty minutes.
Then they came out, and as they were leaving, I gave up what I was doing, walked over to the gate, and greeted them in Hindi. They returned with a type of casual greeting in English. Again, I marked that they were very, very bright-faced. Many times, sādhus in India tend to look very dark-faced because of spending so much time smoking hookahs and not enough time in meditation, but these four sādhus were definitely a notch above the usual ganja-toting nāgās at the melā – they were very mode of goodness. Anyway, I talked with them for a few minutes in mixed Hindi and English, and they left. In my mind, because there were four of them, I was wondering if they were the Four Kumāras in disguise.
I was very curious what they talked about with Prabhupāda, so I went to ask his servant and secretary, but no one knew because they had talked in Hindi. They had sat comfortably, talking for some time, and then they had gone. I thought maybe these were yogis of the more genuine type.
Early in the morning of January 15th, Mahārāja made his way to Prabhupāda’s room to tighten the ropes of his bed, which he had noticed were sagging more and more each day. Just as he was about to enter, Rāmeśvara Swami, emerged carrying a bundle of laundry.
“I’m just going to fix Prabhupāda’s bed,” Mahārāja explained.
“There’s no need,” replied Rāmeśvara, “He’s leaving this afternoon.”
Prabhupāda had planned to stay for two weeks at the Kumbha Melā, but after five days of tolerating fluctuating electricity, biting cold, and declining health, he resolved to leave and proceed to Bhubaneswar. The continual mismanagement of the campsite had annoyed him. His chief concern was that the unreliable power supply prevented him from operating his dictating machine, and thus his vital service of translating the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam was being impeded.
(Swami Narasingha plays karatālas during Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Guru Pūja)
(Śrīla Prabhupāda’s giving class in the Kumbha Melā camp)
At 7:00 a.m., Prabhupāda came out of his room and took his seat upon the vyāsāsana. After a kīrtana, he began to speak about the Kumbha Melā and the qualities of a genuine mahātmā:
This Kumbha Melā is a chance to get opportunity of mahat-sevā. Mahat-sevā dvāram āhur vimukteḥ. Many… Of course, it is Kali-yuga. There are so many so-called mahātmās in dress for earning livelihood. That kind of mahātmās is not required. Mahātmā is also described in the Bhagavad-gītā: sa mahātmās su-durlabhaḥ. Actually we have to associate with such mahātmās who is su-durlabhaḥ, not very easily obtainable. And who is that su-durlabhaḥ mahātmās ? That is also described:
bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate
vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ
(Bhagavad-gītā 7.19)
So you’ll get so many mahātmās who are declaring atheism: “There is no God. I am God. You are God. Where you are searching out God? The God is loitering in the street, the daridra–nārāyaṇa.” If you associate with such mahātmās, so-called… They are not mahātmās. They are durātmās. So be careful that you may not mistake who is mahātmā. Mahātmā, very simple thing:
mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha daivīḥ prakṛtim āśritāḥ
(Bhagavad-gītā 9.13)
Mahātmā has nothing to do with this material world. They are under the care of daivī–prakṛti, spiritual world. Mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha daivī prakṛti…, bhajanty ananya-manaso. The symptom is that he’s fully engaged in serving Kṛṣṇa. Mām. Kṛṣṇa is original, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So we have to catch up the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante. It is not very easy, but it can be done if we have got intelligence.
That afternoon, as Prabhupāda was stepping into his car to depart for the railway station, a contrite Bhāgavata Dāsa approached him.
Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Before Prabhupāda left, Bhāgavata Dāsa apologised to him and said, “I am sorry Prabhupāda. I worked so hard to make sure everything was right.”
Prabhupāda replied, “Yes, you worked hard – like an ass!” and stepped into the car. It’s true – Bhāgavata Dasa had really tried hard, and such a remark could have destroyed someone’s faith in Prabhupāda and crushed them, but Bhāgavata stayed faithful.
Just before Prabhupāda left, Mahārāja overheard someone ask Guru-kṛpā Swami, “What’s going to happen to Prabhupāda’s tent now?”
Guru-kṛpā replied, “Don’t worry – Jagat-guru can clean everything up!”
No sooner had Prabhupāda’s car departed than Mahārāja ran to his tent, packed his bags, slipped out through the back, and made his way through the corrugated fencing. Before leaving, however, he detoured into Prabhupāda’s room, took one of the brass loṭās he had purchased for Prabhupāda’s bathing, and tucked it into his bag.
