Chapter 35 – The Centre of the Spiritual World

(Prime Minister Moraji Desai’s letter to Jagat-guru Swami, 1977)

Seeing Jayatīrtha’s downcast expression, Mahārāja felt bad, but suddenly had an idea.
“You know what? If we make photocopies of this letter, we could use it when we go out and sign up life-members. This is big – the Prime Minister of India writing to one of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s sannyāsīs!”
Jayatīrtha’s mood immediately lifted; his eyes widened at the suggestion.
“Yes, that’s true. I’ll have my secretary make copies right away!”

In the meantime, Mahārāja sent a copy to Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Prabhu in Bombay, informing him of the idea to use it when approaching prospective life-members. He also mentioned that he intended to continue his correspondence with Morarji Desai. When the letter reached Bombay on April 30th, both Gopāla Kṛṣṇa and Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī, Prabhupāda’s secretary, informed him of Mahārāja’s correspondence:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: We got a letter from Morarji Desai. It was written to Jagat-guru…

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Swami.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Jagat-guru Swami got a letter from Morarji Desai.

Prabhupāda: Jagat-guru Swami? Who is?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He’s your…he’s that disciple that was in Africa for a while.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Tall sannyāsī.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He was preaching in Africa for a while, and he was in India for a while also. He’s one of your disciples.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: He took sannyāsa last year with Haṁsadūta Swami.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: His name is Jagat-guru.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: He collected a big donation in Middle East once, and he gave it to you, twelve thousand dollars or some…

Prabhupāda: Our…?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yeah.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, yes.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So he got a letter. Should I read it to Your Divine Grace? It’s signed by Moraji Desai. (reads the letter)

Prabhupāda: Hmm. That’s nice.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Jagat-guru Swami wrote to me that he is continuing his correspondence with Morarji Desai.

Prabhupāda: Then don’t continue much. Then it will be spoiled.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. Yeah, I’m not doing it.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Why is he writing at all to Morarji Desai?

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I don’t know. He’s in England. He’s independent…I can’t…

Prabhupāda: You can…one who…don’t.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda said, “Don’t ask Swami…”[?]

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Not… He shouldn’t…

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No. What good is he going to do? Prabhupāda should tell him.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Don’t become impertinent. Then he will say something and he’ll spoil the whole thing.

Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. He wrote to him from England. So I’ll write to him.

Prabhupāda: Don’t make much correspondence. It is courtesy he has replied. That’s all.

It was years later before Narasiṅgha Mahārāja heard the room conversation with Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: I never heard this recording for decades until somebody played it to me. It’s a fact – I mean, I wrote to the Prime Minister of India! In one sense, you could say it was pretty impertinent of me, and if I’d said the wrong thing, I could have caused a lot of damage. But being young, you don’t think straight a lot of the time, and there was this competition going on between me and Jayatīrtha.

But if you hear what Prabhupāda says initially, he says, “That’s nice.” He was favourable, and due to that, Gopāla Kṛṣna was also favourable – “He’s going to keep writing to Moraji Desai.” Tamāla Kṛṣṇa was being political – he was just waiting to see what Prabhupāda’s reaction would be before saying anything.
As soon as Prabhupāda said something which seemed to be slightly negative – “Tell him not to continue much, otherwise it will be spoiled” – then immediately, they were both like, “Yeah, why the hell is he writing to the Prime Minister anyhow?” Then Gopāla Kṛṣṇa lets the cat out of the bag – “He’s independent.” And that’s what it was about. It was all about control. The leaders didn’t like anyone being independent. Even in Prabhupāda’s time, they wanted to control everyone, and when they couldn’t, they were ready to throw them to the wolves.

Anyhow, Gopāla Kṛṣṇa wrote and told me that Prabhupāda had said not to continue my correspondence with Moraji Desai, so I didn’t. But for years, that letter was still being used by every life-membership devotee.

While in England, Mahārāja was reading The Teachings of Lord Kapila and, with the help of a technically inclined devotee, felt inspired to create a slideshow presentation on theistic Sāṅkhya philosophy. This marked the first of many ventures he would undertake in film presentation and multimedia. Despite having no formal background in science, his two-hour presentation was well received by the devotees.
Encouraged by this response, he wrote to Svarūpa Dāmodara Dāsa, head of the Bhaktivedānta Institute in Bombay – ISKCON’s scientific wing – inviting him to come to England and speak at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Svarūpa Dāmodara responded with equal enthusiasm. Thus began a long and cordial relationship between Mahārāja and Svarūpa Dāmodara.

After a couple of weeks, Mahārāja received his new visa, and the day before his departure, the book distribution marathon concluded. Still in his possession was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s brass loṭā from the Kumbha Melā, which he presented to the brahmacārī who had won the marathon.

In mid-May, Mahārāja flew out of London to see Śrīla Prabhupāda in Vṛndāvana.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: While I was in London, I went to a very prestigious shop that sold paraphernalia for upper-class gentlemen – umbrellas, canes etc. It has been around since Victorian times. Anyhow, I brought Prabhupāda a nice bamboo cane from there.
I had also been told by Jayatīrtha that Prabhupāda’s secretary had sent a telegram saying that he needed some snuff and there was a brand from England that Prabhupāda preferred. Snuff is tobacco, and people sniff it to keep awake, so Prabhupāda would take it at night when he was translating – he would call it, “an old brāhmaṇa’s habit.”
So, some years later, there was a debate – “Did Prabhupāda take snuff?” One Indian sannyāsī who came from a brāhmaṇa family refused to believe it and said, “It’s not possible! This is bogus, because Prabhupāda was pure!” Now, that someone could think like that, doesn’t surprise me, but it is sad that Prabhupāda’s senior disciples could not establish that the purity of a pure devotee ultimately has nothing to do with such petty impurities? By the same logic, the gopīs are also impure – but the gopīs are accepted as the most surrendered, and the purest beings in eternity. Yet if you measure them by material circumstances, then they are impure. Anyhow, the fact is that Śrīla Prabhupāda’s silver snuff-box was on display in Prabhupāda’s room in Vṛndāvana, then when this became a controversy, they removed it! So when I hear, “Prabhupāda never took snuff,” I just laugh, because I bought it for him!

Also while I was in London, I went to a famous department store called Harrods – at that time it was one of the biggest stores in the world. I thought I would buy Prabhupāda a new pair of shoes. I looked, and looked, and looked, but I could not find the type of shoes Prabhupāda used to wear. He used to wear covered sandals called ‘house-shoes,’ but those were out of season because it was springtime in England. People wear house-shoes in the winter in foreign countries because it’s cold. Anyhow, I only found this kind of shoe which had these two criss-cross straps which your foot slips inside, but it wasn’t the kind that Prabhupāda wore.

Anyway, I bought them and I took them back to India. I came to Prabhupāda’s room in Vṛndāvana to give them to his secretary, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, along with the new cane and the snuff. I was feeling very shy because I knew the shoes were not the kind that Prabhupāda would wear – yet somehow or another, I was drawn to bringing those shoes there.

But what had happened was that in those days Prabhupāda’s feet had become so swollen that none of the shoes he had would fit. At that time, India had the worst selection of shoes in the world, so Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī was lamenting, “What are we gonna do? There are no shoes for Prabhupāda!”
Suddenly I showed up at the door with this box and said, “I bought some shoes for Prabhupāda in England,” Then he opened it and said, “Oh great! This is exactly what we needed!”
The other thing was that I had also bought the wrong size – they were too big. But because Prabhupāda’s feet had swollen, it was fine. So, Prabhupāda used those shoes and I think that those were actually the last shoes he wore. They are in a glass box in his room in Vṛndāvana.

(Śrīla Prabhupāda’s shoes, purchased by Narasiṅgha Mahārāja in London)

While Mahārāja had been in London, Prabhupāda had travelled from Bombay to Rishikesh in the hope that the climate and surroundings might help improve his health. However, after only about a week, he called for Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī in the middle of the night and informed him that he wished to return to Vṛndāvana immediately.

When Śrīla Prabhupāda arrived at the Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma Mandira, the devotees were overjoyed to see him. Their jubilation, however, quickly gave way to sorrow when Prabhupāda told them that he had returned to Vṛndāvana to leave this world.

Upon returning to Vṛndāvana, Mahārāja was confronted with this news and, like the other devotees, was left in a state of profound shock. Yet as the weeks passed, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s health appeared to improve, giving rise to renewed hope among the devotees. Simple-hearted and full of faith, many felt certain that Kṛṣṇa would never take Prabhupāda away from them.

A few days his arrival, Mahārāja ran into his old friend Ṛkṣarāja Dāsa. “Mahārāja, I’ve got a great service for us!” he said, almost bursting with excitement.
“Well, prabhu, I’ve only just got here – but anyhow, what is it?” Mahārāja replied.
Ṛkṣarāja gave a slightly mischievous smile. “Just trust me, Mahārāja, you won’t want to miss this! Meet me outside Prabhupāda’s room at 4:30 this afternoon.”
Prabhupāda’s room? What was going on? Were they going to clean it? Decorate it? Whatever it was, any chance for some personal service to Śrīla Prabhupāda sounded good to him.

When 4:30 came around, Mahārāja went to Prabhupāda’s room and found Ṛkṣarāja already there, deep in conversation with Gargamuni Swami. Gargamuni was the younger brother of Brahmānanda Swami. Both had joined in the early days of ISKCON, and Gargamuni had been appointed as the society’s first treasurer – prompting Prabhupāda to jokingly refer to him as ‘Garga-Money.’
“So what’s this about?” Mahārāja asked.
Gargamuni turned to Ṛkṣarāja, slightly surprised. “Ṛkṣa, you didn’t tell him?”
Ṛkṣarāja shrugged. “I thought it’d sound better coming from you.”
Gargamuni cleared his throat. “Well, Prabhupāda wants me to take charge of the pūjā in his bhajana-kuṭīra at Rādhā-Dāmodara Temple… and I was wondering if you and Ṛkṣa would like to help me.”
“Do you even need to ask?” Mahārāja said, breaking into a wide grin.
“Great! Then let’s go in and speak to Śrīla Prabhupāda.”
With that, Gargamuni immediately walked straight into Prabhupāda’s room. Mahārāja and Ṛkṣarāja were taken off-guard – they hadn’t expected that they would actually be speaking directly with Śrīla Prabhupāda, but they followed him inside.

When they entered, Prabhupāda was sitting at his desk, wearing his thick glasses, signing some letters. He slowly looked up at the three devotees who were offering obeisances to him. “Hare Kṛṣṇa!” he said in his transcendentally sonorous voice. Gargamuni explained why they had come and Prabhupāda motioned for them to sit down.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Prabhupāda told us, “Generally, worship in the spiritual master’s bhajana-kuṭīra doesn’t start until after his departure – but I want to initiate the system of worship now, so I know that it’s going on.”
Prabhupāda said he wanted a written inventory of all the things in his rooms, including how many books, manuscripts, pots, plates, spoons, cups – everything. He gave us explicit instructions regarding sevā, cleanliness, relationships with the gosvāmī family there, where to shop for bhoga, etc. He was very specific in his instructions about everything.

 He said that Gargamuni Swami would oversee everything, but that his sannyāsī disciples from around the world could come and do service at his rooms at Rādhā-Dāmodara. The sannyāsīs should stay in his rooms for one to three months and then rotate – just like during Prabhupāda’s presence, he was always calling his top preachers to come and serve him, and then sending them out. The sannyāsīs were supposed to go shopping, buy everything, cook the offering for Śrīla Prabhupāda, and basically live there just like he did. The position was more than just being a caretaker – that person was like Prabhupāda’s personal cook. They would cook some preparations, offer that to a photo of Śrīla Prabhupāda along with some prasādam from Rādhā-Dāmodara, and then offer an ārati.

Prabhupāda also told us that Rādhā-Dāmodara temple was the centre of the spiritual world because of the activities that went on there among the followers of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, because of the intimacy of that association, what was revealed there to the devotees, and what they experienced there. The intensity of the divine rapture would make it the centre no matter where it was. But it also happened to be in Vṛndāvana.

The next day, Mahārāja and Ṛkṣarāja waited for Gargamuni to arrive so they could go together to the Rādhā-Dāmodara Temple. But after two hours he still hadn’t shown up. Not wanting to delay the service, Mahārāja decided they should go ahead as instructed by Prabhupāda. Ṛkṣarāja had the key, and when they unlocked the room, they were immediately met with a thick cloud of vraja-raja – Vṛndāvana dust mixed with flakes of old cement.

The first day was spent cleaning and making a list of what was needed to fix the rooms. They realised that large parts of the floor needed replacing, but the walls were impossible to fix as the salt in the original construction caused the plaster to perpetually flake off.

Over the next two days, Mahārāja and Ṛkṣarāja brought sandstone slabs and re-laid the floor. Prabhupāda’s original charpoy (string bed) had been completely eaten through by insects and was beyond repair, so they arranged a new one from Mathurā. They also brought an extra vyāsāsana from the Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma Temple for Prabhupāda’s picture to sit upon in the kuṭīra.

(Early Photos of Prabhupāda’s Bhajana-Kuṭīra at Rādhā-Dāmodara Temple, circa 1977)

On the fourth day, Mahārāja prepared a full inventory of the items in both the bhajana–kuṭīra and the kitchen. Many of the articles were found to be in a state of deterioration, so they collected them and carried them back to the Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma Temple for proper preservation.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: Under Prabhupāda’s original bed was a small metal trunk whose bottom had rusted out. When I looked inside it was full of pieces of paper with verses written on them in English, mostly from the Bhāgavatam, with translations. There were a few exercise books, the ones you see in Indian schools, and Prabhupāda had meticulously written down all his expenses in them – for subji, for rice, for paper, for ink. And right at the bottom in an old Manila envelope was a stack of papers. It had a manuscript in it in Prabhupāda’s handwriting. The title was, ‘Lord Caitanya: His Sannyāsa and Saṅkīrtana Movement.’ I took the manuscript and carried it with me for many years. Later, we published it under the title, “In Search of the Ultimate Goal of Life.”

After about a week, the rooms had been fully refurnished. Gargamuni Swami was still absent, but Mahārāja and Ṛkṣarāja were excited to finally begin cooking and making offerings in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s kuṭīra.
However, after only a couple of days, they were visited by Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī.

“There’s been a change of plan, Mahārāja,” he said with a deadpan expression. “I’m sending Jaya Śacīnandana and his wife down here to take care of Prabhupāda’s kuṭīra.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute,” Mahārāja replied, shaking his head. “You can’t do that! Prabhupāda specifically told myself and Gargamuni that sannyāsīs are supposed to – ”
Stepping forward, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī, inclined his head slightly and locked eyes with him.
“Sannyāsīs are supposed to what? They’re supposed to preach! So my suggestion to you is that you do just that – go out and preach.”
Mahārāja also stepped forward, “Where’s Gargamuni?” he demanded. A tense standoff hung in the room.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī didn’t answer. He looked at Mahārāja, then simply turned on his heel and walked out.
Mahārāja and Ṛkṣarāja stood there, open-mouthed, staring at the empty doorway where, moments earlier, Prabhupāda’s secretary had been. Mahārāja’s face went red as he felt a surge of anger rising. He let it go.

Narasiṅgha Mahārāja: So that was that. Tamāla got his hand in it, and the next thing you know, Ṛkṣarāja and I were both out, and Jaya Śacīnandana and his wife were in. I have no idea why he pulled that off or how, but he did – but his plan didn’t last long. 

In the couple of weeks that transpired, one day it was really, really hot and Jaya Śacī and his wife didn’t go down to Rādhā-Dāmodara to cook for Prabhupāda. It just so happened that in the afternoon, Prabhupāda asked to see Jaya Śacī and he asked about the offering that day, and Jaya Śacī said, “Well Prabhupāda, it was too hot for my wife, so we didn’t go there today.” I was told later that when Prabhupāda heard this, his lip curled with disgust and he called him ‘a dancing dog in the hands of a woman.’ And it was true – a month later, Jaya Śacīnandana and his wife gave up their service at the bhajana-kuṭīra and flew back to Los Angeles, because his wife couldn’t stand the heat.

Anyhow, after Śrīla Prabhupāda’s time, different devotees were doing the sevā in Prabhupāda’s bhajana-kuṭīra, but it wasn’t according to Prabhupāda’s instructions. Some devotees were actually living in his rooms, which was not what he wanted. He wanted devotees to come from Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma Temple, do the sevā, and then go back. But when devotees actually began living in Prabhupāda’s rooms, they would hang their laundry everywhere, leave piles of books, papers and clothes on the floor and it was a total mess. The rooms began falling apart again, and the relationship between ISKCON and the Rādhā-Dāmodara gosvāmīs also fell apart. That finally culminated in a messy court-case which was totally unnecessary.