THE PIRATES OF VRINDABAN

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Aromas and Reflections

Over the past several years I have seen occasional tirades launched by our God-brother Nrisimhanada das against the two brothers of Vrindavana, our God-brothers Shriman Brahmananda das and Shriman Gargamuni das. Nrisimhanada characterizes the younger of the two in an apparently derogatory fashion, calling him “Gargamoney.” In fact, “Gargamoney” was the affectionate nickname Shrila Prabhupada gave to the then-newly initiated Gregory Scharf, around 1967. Unhesitatingly, this young disciple took this money-mission ordered by his spiritual master very, very seriously. Alone, Gargamuni aggressively proceeded to create Spiritual Sky incense, an aroma-therapy and devotional product line, the profits from which benefited all aspects of spreading Krishna Consciousness, including public chanting of the holy names of the Lord and public prasad distribution.

I was there when the New Yorker who was named for the family priest of Nanda and Yashoda first immersed joss stick into essential oils in the basement of 63 Second Ave. I was privileged to touch history then, too, for I even helped him dip the sticks on a few occasions. Sure, the former Greg Scharf could be hard to deal with, but what did I care? I hadn’t joined ISKCON to make friends. Under his expert leadership, the burning of incense, from fragrances as distant as Apple Blossom or Jasmine, caught on across America during the Age of Pachoulli. The Wall Street Journal even wrote up Spiritual Sky’s success. Indeed, so influential did Spiritual Sky become that it kicked off an aroma fad world wide.

What’s best is that each pack of Spiritual Sky incense prominently carried the mahamantra. Ironically, even Gargamuni’s imitators, businessmen from both America and India, included the mahamantra on their “duplicate” packs of incense. They laughed all the way to the bank, while we devotees laughed all the way to sankirtan. Now the holy names of Shri Shri Radha-Vrindavana Chandra were entering millions of homes worldwide. By the will of Shrila Prabhupada, each pack, even the rip-offs, advised:

Chant:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

and your life will be sublime.

As the fragrance business branched out into oils and soaps, more money poured in to the movement for spreading Krishna consciousness. Temples had devotee sales reps, and even I serviced a few accounts from time to time across America’s mid- and south-west in Detroit ISKCON’s 1971 Chevy Vega. As I reflect upon the beautiful sunrises over Route 66, let me tell you that Spiritual Sky incense was a glory road for the printing and distribution, often free, of books and spiritual foodstuffs. It was an effort of glory, like a great river fed by the streams of devotion, love and service to God and Guru Maharaja.

The Saffron Army

By 1970, preaching parties of austere saffron-robed brahmacharis were hopping into Ford and Dodge cargo vans, as devotees drove off to carry the message of Krishna and Arjuna to new areas of America. This included the Great Bible Belt that was middle and southern America. Each van was a complete temple. Cooking was performed over portable gas stoves, and bathing was often courtesy a roadside stream. Devotees slept either on the metal floors of their van, or outside with the rattlesnakes on pine needles or leaves. These parties were supported by temples each of which made money by dealing in, among other things, Spiritual Sky products. I am quite familiar with these parties, because I sometimes went on traveling sankirtan myself, and I found it rewarding yet risky work. Devotees were often harassed, beaten, arrested, jailed or met with sometimes fatal car accidents, and I can personally testify to the dangers that Prabhupada’s disciples joyously took upon themselves.

Many old preachers from the early days of ISKCON have stories about van sankirtan, so the next time you meet an early initiate, just ask him or her about what it was like to preach in the Americas and Europe in the late 60’s and early 70’s. What a book that would make, and like my Godbrothers, I have my own experiences of those early days of traveling to preach Krishna Consciousness as ordered by Shrila Prabhupada. Later on in this issue of Pavan’s Press, I’ll relate one incident of brave devotees, Shrila Prabhupada’s exalted disciples, serving Prabhupada unto the last on a lonely, late Pennsylvania interstate.

As Krishna consciousness caught on and new devotees witnessed the pure and practical potency of the message, preaching became the most important mission for Shrila Prabhupada’s growing ranks of disciples. We were all young rebels certainly, and now we had our cause. We could walk out the temple door and get in-your-face with the karmis about the real problems of life—namely jati, roga, vyadhi, mrityu (birth, disease, old age and death). We were armed with the mahamantra, a mantra we loved to give away with no price tag. For how could one put a material value on the holy names of God, our final solution to the problems of samsara? After millions of lifetimes, we had found liberation from matter through chanting:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Five hundred years before Christ, the great politician Chanakya Pandit noted in his collection of aphorisms called Shri Chanakya Niti Shastra, “Religion is maintained through money.” Incidentally, Chanakya’s selection of common-sensical, hard-headed wisdom was mostly gleaned from the Brihaspati Niti Sara of the Garuda Purana. Because he was faithful to Vyasa, and because Chanakya’s great accomplishments of unifying India had been predicted in the Bhagavata some 2500 years earlier, Chanakya’s advice must be accepted as being equal to the Vedas.

The spreading of Krishna consciousness in the service of Shrila Prabhupada took guts, and it took money. The devotees had the guts. And Gargamuni knew how to get the money. But make no mistake about it. Gargamuni also had the guts, and amply, as we shall see.

The Goddess of Wealth

When Prabhupada gave the affectionate nick name of “Gargamoney” to Gargamuni das Brahmachary, no one could guess that it was another stunning prediction on the part of the maha-yogi who is our Guru Maharaja. In the Yoga Sutras—as well as throughout the body of literatures known collectively as the Jyotish Shastras—there is the description of the mystic power called vak-siddhi. Vak, which means speech, is also identified by Shrila Prabhupada as a name of the goddess of learning. The goddess of wisdom, Saraswati Devi, is also the wife of Lord Brahma, the creator. While the Goddess of Wisdom holds a veena in her lotus hands, her lord Brahma obediently grasps the four Vedas in his four hands. Anyone who came under Shrila Prabhupada’s spell knows that His Divine Grace had this power of vak-siddhi in full, blessed as he was by both Goddess Saraswati and her loving Lord Brahma.

There are hundreds of examples of statements of Shrila Prabhupada coming true. For example, once upon a time in ‘66 in Thompkins Square Park, East Village, Shrila Prabhupada told a dull-witted man about his worldwide movement of gorgeous temples and beautiful devotees in the tens of thousands. It is recalled in one of the biographies that Prabhupada, then a lonely sannyasi moving along the Lower East Side, told his new “friend” that he was separated from his worldwide movement by a very thin wall of time. This is how the possessor of vak-siddhi views time and the Universe, as if in layers. Shrila Prabhupada always knew much more than he let on. But whatever he did reveal was certainly the “full nectarine”: His Divine Grace was always 100% resplendent in transcendental meditation upon the lila of the Lord. His faith was beyond unshakable because he was so solidly situated in the Absolute Truth.

So when Shrila Prabhupada gave the name Gargamoney to the Jewish lad from Manhattan, he was actually laying down another of his many thousands of prophecies. The spreading of Krishna Consciousness was itself a fulfillment of a divine prophecy made by Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Lord Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu spoke, sarvatra prachar hoibe mora nam. After half a millennia, those ancient words of the Lord would now be fulfilled when Shrila stepped off the Jaladuta to change world history.

Out on the high seas, Shrila Prabhupada had experienced a rather severe heart attack. He was aboard a freighter, the Jaladuta, the famous cargo ship of the mid-20th century. Along with the Jala Durga and Jala Moti there were over four dozen such ships belonging to the Vaishnava shipping magnate Sumati Morarjee, widow of the great pioneer Narottam Morarjee. I met Smt. Morarjee on several occasions, both at her office and her house, and found her to be a stellar Vaishnava and a most charming hostess. Unfortunately, her ships were all destimed for the scrap yards with the rising tide of container shipping. But in their day, they were great and proud ships, and like coal trains, they are now all history.

The name Jala Duta (lit. “Servant of the Water”) describes the ship’s noble mission on behalf of Varuna Deva, lord of the oceans. As Shrila Prabhupada slowly unfolded the puzzle of his struggle after so many years, some sort of celestial decision in our favor, and witnessed by our Guru Maharaja mid-ocean, kept Shrila Prabhupada on this earth— thankfully, for missing the association of a pure devotee can set a jiva back for uncountable lifetimes. What I do know is that Shrila Prabhupada thought that he was going to leave this world, but that Krishna kept him here as His instrument. For Lord Krishna had a plan for Shrila Prabhupada for all of us and for the future well-being of our planet. For the next dozen years, Guru Maharaja preached tirelessly converting millions of all races and all languages to the family of Krishna’s devotees. It was Lord Krishna’s will that Shrila Prabhupada would stay on Earth and to fulfill the mission of Lord Chaitanya’s sankirtan movement, the only saving grace in the face of a tsunami of evil. As the mahamantra became a household word, people everywhere began chanting:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Within a few years, Shrila Prabhupada would credit his sankirtan movement in the West with stopping the war in Viet Nam. Many, many times Shrila Prabhupada gave the command to go out and gather wealth exclusively for the service of Lord Krishna with words, as I recall, that went something like this. Shrila Prabhupada would tell us: “Follow the example of the Personality of Godhead Lord Ramachandra. Lord Rama fought valiantly against the demons Ravana and Kumbhakarna as described in the Ramayana, the world’s oldest book. This 24,000 verse Ramayana describes the bellicose glory of the battle for the liberation of Lakshmi on the island of Shri Lanka. From that terrible battle, which saw blood run in streams, Lord Ramachandra and His devotees naturally emerged victorious. Now at the war’s end, Lord Rama was reuinited with Goddess Sita Devi, the veritable expansion of Goddess Lakshmi Herself, the Supreme Queen, who in Her divine lila had been kidnapped by the now slain demon king Ravana. So you devotees must go out as the soldiers of Rama in battle with Maya. Armed with the holy names of Rama and Krishna, mridanga and books, you must liberate the goddess of Fortune in the form of money, returning Her to Krishna’s service.”

Prabhupada would sometimes continue: The Battle of Shri Lanka was nothing less than the enactment of the lila of the Supreme Lord, Who wished to fulfill the words of His devotees the Four Kumaras, namely, Sanat, Sanak, Sananda and Sanatan. These sons of Lord Brahma had once cursed the twin guardians of the Gates to Vaikuntha—Jaya and Vijay—to undergo three lifetimes as demons upon the earth. Now the Supreme Lord had appeared as the great King Rama. In a pastime that was displayed for the liberation of earthly denizens for millions of years into the future, Lord Rama gave liberation to millions of demonic soldiers at the Battle of Shri Lanka. The tremendous influence of the Lord‚s divine presence upon the Earth restored dharma in the bellicose wake of the slain hosts of Ravana’s evil army. Each demonic combatant received sayujya-moksha, the fifth type of liberation by the grace of the Personality of Godhead.

Often Shrila Prabhupada would end the story with his observation, or “purport” that, “It is noteworthy that the enemies of the Lord who are killed by Him receive the same sort of liberation that is so desperately sought after by mayavadis, Buddhists and impersonalistic yogis.”

As the ever-victorious Lord Shri Rama flew in His divine aircraft back to Ayodhya, His faithful devotees lit ghee lamps below to give Him guidance, thus giving birth to the first Deepavali or Diwali. This is a festival of welcoming the Goddess of Fortune Sita Devi or Lakshmi into the devotee’s life, just as Queen Sita and King Rama returned to Their palace alongside the most sacred stream Sarayu. As the Personality of Godhead in His avatara as the great King Rama, returned home with the rajya-matru Queen Sita by His side, the blessings of pure devotion to God showered the planet. All over the Earth, smiles returned to weary faces for the Supreme Lord and His Spouse had returned to bless Their Kingdom of Ayodhya once again. Thus, according to Shri Vyasadeva (krishnas tu bhagavan swayam), did Shri Krishna appear in Treta Yuga.

On many, many occasions Shrila Prabhupada explained to us just how money used in Krishna’s service is factually transcendentally transformed into the representative of Goddess Dhana-Lakshmi. She is none other than the eternal wife of the Personality of Godhead Lord Vishnu Himself, and through Her constant service and devotion to Her husband, She sets an example for the rest of us. Remember that “Vaishnava” means “humble servant of Vishnu”, and no man can call himself a Vaishnava unless he is fully dedicated to the pure devotional service of the all-pervasive, all-seeing Personality of Godhead Shri Vishnu.

Sometimes Prabhupada joked by comparing the transformation of material energy into spiritual energy to being just like a yogi who turns bell metal into gold. The yogi first drinks mercury, then he transforms his urine to a liquid that in turn can transform base metal into gold. “In this way the yogi settles his financial problems,” he laughed.

Goddess Lakshmi, or Shree, is Herself none other than the Divine Expansion of Shrimati Radharani, the most beloved eternal consort of Lord Shri Krishna. Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was so enthralled by the devotional force emanating from followers of the sampradaya that comes down from Goddess Lakshmi Herself that He remained for a full four months of monsoon-vrata at Sri Rangam Kshetra, the sacred temple town of Lord Ranganath (Mahavishnu).

It is well documented by the King of Poets, Shrila Krishna das Kaviraja Goswami, that Shriman Mahaprabhu used to enjoy visiting many types of temples as He traveled, all the while planting the seeds of nama-sankirtan. Sri Ranga Kshetra is also home to the sacred temples of Lord Jambhukeshwara. Significantly, this “Water Linga” is second of the panch-bhuta mahadeva tirthas of dravida-desh, as per the Puranic mantra:

prithivi aap tejo vayu akash amedhya sudhantyam
jyotir aham vaedja vipapma bhu yasham.

Shri Uccha Pilliar, “highest” Ganesh, also lives in this temple town of Thiruchi, and this particular Deity of Lord Shiva’s son has a rare lila that ventures all the way back to the Treta Yuga, and War for the Liberation of the Goddess. The Vaishnava teachings of the Shri sampradaya coming from Goddess Lakshmi, were disseminated throughout South India by Acharya Ramanuja, an incarnation of Lakshman. For four months of rain, Shriman Mahaprabhu stayed tight within the compound walls of Shri Ranganath, enjoying Krishna-katha with the highly learned pandits of the Ramanuja sampradaya. The divinely personal para-prakriti or internal energy of the Suptreme Lord is also a Loving Mother to all entities, for who is there who that lives and breathes is not a part and parcel of Lord Hari? And for Lord Hari or Vishnu, none is dearer than Goddess Lakshmi.

Devotees never approach the lotus feet of the Mother of the Universe with material desires, for they are smart enough to know that material baubles can be “enjoyed” for a short time at best, and that only after a painful material birth from which fall-down is inevitable, as are waterfalls in springtime. The worship of wealth exclusive of the service to the Supreme Lord is the “worship” (lust, really) of the nature of a little Ravana. Foolish materialists, whose intelligence and power of discrimination have been stolen away by envy and desire, approach Goddess Lakshmi in the form of Her shadow as Maha Maya. For those who worship the feminine side of God as separate from the masculine principle of the Supreme, the results will be eternal samsara, rotation in the painful wheel of birth and death and rebirth once again. Greed or lobha alone is the motivating force for those who would dare to worship Lakshmi apart from Vishnu.

The feminine and masculine energies, personified as Shri Radha and Krishna in Their Supreme Form, can never be separated except in the twisted mind of an all-out demon. For the devotees, however, Goddess Durga is Vaishnavi, and she is not only a great devotee of the Lord, but She appeared in Mathura to protect her beloved Brother, Lord Krishna at the time of His appearance in Mathura. Thus, Prabhupada urged us one and all, “So liberate Lakshmi from the hands of the demons and use her energy in the service of the Lord.”

Thus was the mission of “Gargamoney” fulfilled by the desire of the greatest spiritual force in the latter half of the Twentieth Century.

After founding Spiritual Sky, Gargamuni moved onto Hare Krishna Land Bombay, then still under construction, to organize the Life Membership program, which remains the most important preaching work in India for ISKCON to this day. Then he did something even dearer to Shrila Prabhupada’s heart: he organized the Bombay-based BBT Library Party to put full sets of Prabhupada’s books in the many college and University libraries of India. I, too, was there: Gargamuni made me the Director of Reviews. Thanks, elder brother.

Gargamuni came up with a catchy tag line for Prabhupada’s massive writings. These books would not someday be remembered as the mullings of some romantic Swami or the speculations of some “yogi philosopher,” nor even as mere translations with commentary. No, the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Shrimad Bhagavatam and Shri Chaitanya Charitamrita, numbering around four dozen volumes, were now the “Library Encyclopedia of Vedic Knowledge.” Devotees like Abhinanda, Bahushiras and Yagna traveled all over India selling complete sets to the very institutions whose job it was to revere learning. Books found their way to the libraries of colleges and Universities all over India, where they sit to this day. Prabhupada was overjoyed. Go ahead and check out the BBT website, Nrisimhananda. Yep, they’re still using the tag line Gargamuni came up with three decades ago.

As mentioned, I had signed on to the Bombay BBT Library Party under Gargamuni as the “Director of Reviews.” For me, this was a welcome opportunity to introduce Shrila Prabhupada’s books to the greatest minds throughout India. With my position came a carte blanc to travel alone all over India with a Who’s Who in India in hand. “Namaste, Professor.” I’d begin politely, keeping my distance. “We have heard that you were awarded the distinguished honor of Padma Bhushan in literature and that you lectured at Moscow University for a year. Our spiritual master has sent me here to introduce ourselves and discuss his 30-volume Shrimad Bhagavatam, “The Beautiful Story of the Personality of Godhead.” So thanks to Gargamuni, I was able to see India during a very historical period. It was the time of the Great Social Emergency of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and yet the West was just waking up to India. The many reviews I collected from leading scholars and politicians were always immediately sent to Gargamuni and onto the devotees writing up the sales of full sets of the “Library Encyclopedia of Vedic Knowledge.” The reviews I had collected were the stamps of approval from India’s greatest scholars of the day. Once the librarians saw these stamps of approval from scholars they revered, the sale of a set was a done deal. I always sent a copy of each review to Shrila Prabhupada, who would make Tamal Krishna Goswami read them to him. (see Reviews)

Gargamuni was tight. I had to survive on $50.00 per month, or a dollar and change daily, with which to cover travel, room and board. But for the real devotee, living it up on the Guru’s treasury was unthinkable. I traveled by second class or third class bus and trains. I lived at temple dharmshalas for two or three rupees a night, and stayed healthy by accepting the prasadam that the temples offered in their generosity. I found that everywhere people spoke English, and I preached to everyone I met. Because I was Shrila Prabhupada’s only representative in many remote areas of the vast, swirling “third world” that was the land of India in the mid-seventies, I tried to behave in an exemplary fashion. In my spare time, I was fortunate enough to visit thousands of tirtha-bhumi, many of which (according to Shri Chaitanya Charitamrita, Madhya VII) had been made even holier by the lotus feet of our Lord Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Shrila Prabhupada often mentioned that holy places become burdened with the sins of the pilgrims, and Mahaprabhu, out of His causeless mercy, had cleansed any number of such tirtha-bhumis during His all-India sankirtana. Truly, obtaining these reviews had put me in on a trail sanctified by the sacred footprints of Mahaprabhu half a millennia earlier. And what an honor it was to perform this service for my very dear spiritual master.

Gargamuni’s gamble paid off, as we discovered that not only the greatest scholars and politicians of India truly loved Prabhupada and his books, but so did the yogis and renunciates who reside penitently in sacred shrines and holy ashrams. I often was invited to camp with yogis at secluded retreats and hermitages, and they cared for me like gentle saints. Many an ascetic expressed to me with a wondrous yet loving gaze “Aapka guruji bahut accha hey: Your spiritual master is first class.” They were looking through me to see my Guru within! When those to whom we wish to preach cannot follow my language, nor I theirs, following the principles and following Prabhupada’s example had to do the talking.

I was so overjoyed to represent such man of such immeasurable greatness, our spiritual master, for I had concluded years before that Shrila Prabhupada is none other than an empowered representative of the Supreme Lord, a transcendentalist whose every act, word and deed is Krishna-centered. Over the next year and a half I had collected two hundred reviews of Shrila Prabhupada’s Shrimad Bhagavatam from all corners of the sub-continent, signed by the pens of India’s greatest thinkers. Not long afterwards, these signed documents of appreciation would prove to be the same reviews that were read to Shrila Prabhupada by Tamal Krishna Goswami as Shrila Prabhupada lay departing from our mortal vision in Vrindavana in Kartika-mas of 1977. Indeed Prabhupada had taken the burden upon himself of giving the world an understanding of the planet’s greatest literary works, and Gargamuni can be credited with putting these great and immortal writing of Vyasa—translated from chaste Sanskrit into easily understandable English—into India’s leading libraries. Thanks to Gargamuni, any devotee can go to most campuses of India, lay his hands on Prabhupada’s sacred literatures, and preach for a day. Or teach a course from the vast Library Encyclopedia of Vedic Knowledge.

In 1969, a couple of years after I first met Gargamuni and sometime after my second initiation, Gargamuni actually saved my life. One night, all the devotees including Brahmananda, Gargamuni, Vaikunthanath, Nayana Bhiram, Madhusudan, Kanchanbala, Lila Sukha, Balai, and Adwaita were out on sankirtana. We were chanting around the fountain at Washington Square Pare, Greenwich Village. We used to walk over from our temple in the lower rent East Village to chant for the beatniks. As all the devotees were enjoying a nice sankirtana, some derelicts began rolling a shopping cart around the devotees. I snatched the shopping cart from the drunk’s hand, when suddenly, the group of thugs took off after me. I ran for my life, but Gargamuni bravely intervened. The leader of the thugs had pulled out a glistening pocket knife with a ten inch blade. But Gargamuni stood firm, preaching Krisna consciousness with such sincerity that the hoodlum pocketed his sharp, angry blade. Brahmananda continued to chant blissfully gazing at the heavens and beating a very “marching” beat on his mridanga. Since that day, I have always felt that I owed Gargamuni my life. Gargamuni show tremendous heroism befitting a fearless devotee, and I am always grateful that he came to my rescue.

I first met Brahmananda das Brahmachary in 1967 at the old Matchless Gifts, to this day an ISKCON center Manhattan (Shrila Prabhupada’s first temple in the West). A wandering Zen beatnik, I even went on sankirtan with him in Tompkins Square Park, the spot where Shrila Prabhupada had actually inaugurated the sankirtan movement in the West, just a year earlier. But I was not yet ready to surrender. The next month found me back on America’s lonely windswept dusty roads walking and hitching rides: destination San Francisco. There in the town that Shrila Prabhupada would soon designate as “New Jagannath Puri,” I found Lord Jagannath at Ocean Beach and prasadam on Frederick Street. Thereafter I wandered around the Big Sur coast, chanting Hare Kishna. For a while, I lived in an underground ceremonial native people’s kiva, a man-made cave at the Placitas, NM Domes Commune. The grand power of the mahamantra was taking hold, and I soon found myself becoming entangled at the Lord’s lotus feet in my heart and in my mind.

I continued chanting the mahamantra as I marched along the roadside. Hitching rides through the Great Southwest, I told everyone I met about this new religion of personal worship of God that Prabhupada had brought from India. I bathed at the sacred springs of Taos, and was blessed by Little Joe the Medicine Man of the Taos tribe. Then, around Oct. of 1968, I stumbled upon the seventh Krishna center of the Western world, Santa Fe, New Mexico. It can only be the will of Lord Krishna, Who is so kind that He ever shelters His devotees life after life, that everywhere I went across America I ran into the early sparks of the Hare Krishna Explosion.

I arrived in Santa Fe and met Subal das. Subal was the President, and everything else for that matter, since he was the only devotee there. Apparently all the others had abandoned Subal, but he was bravely determined to carry on alone. Subal was an austere man in those days, and he seldom smiled. Santa Fe was a mystical sort of village, with an impressive high desert altitude of around 5,000 feet. It was in Santa Fe during the winter of 1968 that Shrila Prabhupada initiated me. He later ordered me to go to New York, study book binding for the planned ISKCON Press. He wrote to me that “Brahmananda will take care of you.”

I hitch hiked to Los Angeles to receive Shrila Prabhupada’s darshan, and turned around and hitch hiked to New York. I had already met Brahmananda at 26 Second Ave., and now I was returning to his as an initiated devotee joining his NY brigade of the saffron army. Soon, I got a job binding books for a Jewish bookbinder who bound medical journals into volumes for doctors.

On another occasion, my late mother, who had met and spoken with Shrila Prabhupada on a few occasions, donated her car to the temple. It was ISKCON NY’s first car. Soon my mother had “donor’s remorse” and changed her mind. To keep the peace, Gargamuni returned her the car with his good wishes, even though he knew that things once offered up to the Lord’s service should never be taken back. For this I admired his honesty in personal dealings, though he always hid his good intentions from his detractors.

Regarding the copyright dilemma, I too recall how I felt wounded and cheated when I first spied a pirated version, of my own book Vraja Mandala Darshanam: Touring the Land of Krishna. Indeed, Touring the Land of Krishna was a unique effort since it was the first-ever substantial English guide book to Vrindavana. Its research was haled by scholars far and wide throughout the sub-continent. In writing the book, I had come across an original version of Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati’s own diary of his parikrama of Mathura Mandala back in 1936.

Believe me, it takes a great deal of effort to write and publish a book of genuine factual research. Inspiration for Touring the Land of Krishna came when I first arrived in Vrindavana from London around 1972. Gurudas Prabhuwas there performing yeoman tapasya, he was among the first devotees to accept Shrila Prabhupada‚s call to serve the Suoreme Lord in His Own Abode. As devotees like me began to trickle in from the West, Gurudas Prabhu would lead us on Vraja parikrama and show us the wonderful world that Prabhupada had been revealing to us. I recall the words of Gurudas spoken at the well of Shrila Shri Santana Goswamipada “to take Prabhupada’s Krishna trilogy all over Vrindavana and at each spot read the lila of the Lord that took place there” that provided the germinating seed of inspiration for my future Vrindavana guide.

About three years after my first parikarama with Gurudas Prabhu; Haihaya das Prabhu, then the temple President of Vrindavana, asked me to write a guide to the holy lands of Mathura Mandala for devotees coming for the 1976 Mayapura Festival. I began in earnest visiting hidden and secret spots of Vraja. During one parikrama with Haihaya das, we chanced together upon some of the really rare Deities unto which Mahaprabhu had prostrated Himself. In Mathura we found many ancient Temples including Lord Sweta-Varaha, Lord Dirgh-Vishnu, the greatest devotee Lord Shiva in his form as Bhuteshwara and his Vaishnavi godddess Mother Pataleshwari. Together we climbed the hilly site called Ambarish Til and the ancient tapo-bhumi of Durvasa Muni. The next day our Godbrother Haihaya went alone to Jaipur, six hours by bus to the south in Rahasthan, to have darshan of Lord Govinda Ji. I remained in Vrindavana to organize my notes as I was reluctant to leave the holy dham. A few days later I heard the bad news: Haihaya’s bus had overturned, leaving this stalwart Vaishnava paralyzed from the waist down. I would not be blessed with company of Haihaya das for many more years to come.

The next year, in Bombay, Giriraja Swami asked me to look after the temple library, which provided a wonderful opportunity to organize my Vrindavana notes. I had had many texts translated in Vraja-bhumi, but I had chanced upon one rare Bengali find: a volume of Shrila Shri Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati’s 1936 Vraja-yatra. In the library at Hare Krishna Land, I spent many pleasurable hours in the company of our Gujarati Godbrother Shriman Vamandev das Adhikary. Vamandevaji Prabhu translated for me from Bengali, Sanskrit, Hindi and Vrajabahasi texts while I scribbled notes copiously. The book was rewritten manually (by ball point and fountain pen). The manuscript, which had grown into a major scholastic work was still in manuscript form when Shrila Prabhupada entered into mahasamadhi, the saddest day in the life of any true disciple, in Vrindavana.

Later, I was told that as Shrila Prabhupada lay in Vrindavana listening to the call of the flute of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Tamal would read into his lotus ears the book reviews for his massive Shrimad Bhagavatam that I was gathering from scholars in every part of the sub-continent. One of the scholars, the highly-decorated Dr. D. Arkasomayaji of Tirupati, who called Shrila Prabhupada “the Greatest Spiritual Force of the Twentieth Century,” had even deduced that Shrila Prabhupada was none other than the empowered representative of Lord Narayana based upon the stars of his birth (which he had fixed at Dhanush lagna). Tamal Krishna Goswami would also tell me later how much Prabhupada appreciated his detailed analysis of his janma-kundali.

In any case, the Vrindavan book received a good dozen re-writes, taking care to frequently confer the opinions of respected scholars along the way and to follow the guidelines of Shrila Prabhupada—keep to the essential topic: We are all parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna. His eternal servants reside in Vrindavana, which has manifested its divine presence here on earth for the deliverance of mankind. We should all visit Vrindavana to become purified, never forgetting to glorify Their Supreme Lordships Radha and Krishna every step of the way through chanting Their holy names:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

I must confess that locating the Davanala Kund, which subsequently became the favorite bathing spot for the gurukula kids, was a high point of the research. As was finding out that the tree wherein the gopi-vastra-harana lila had been conveniently placed in the wrong spot by lewd persons seeking to enrich themselves off the innocent pilgrims. Another rewarding experience was to use the book to present to scholars our conclusion that since the Puranas describe these places in ancient texts, then should they not be willing with open minds to examine the other great truths of the Puranas, especially the Bhagavata with regards to creation, purush, prakriti, para-prakriti, the eternal atma, etc. And tracing the footsteps of Lord Buddha in Mathura District was another joy, when seen from the correct angle. That angle being that even Lord Buddha finds journeying to the lotus feet of Lord Krishna in His very Own Land is irresistible. Another revelation: one of the holiest spots of Devi worship is in Vrindavana.

The bottom line of this rambling bit of reminiscence is that devotees should be careful in their judgement of other Vaishnavas. Certainly the material personalities and bodily types created by the whirlpool of samsara come into conflict here in this cruel world wherein the basis of life is jiva jiva sa jivanam. “One living entity lives off another.” But, like bubbles in the Ganges or dark spots on the Moon, we should be careful of letting a supposed flaw support our emntire judgment. As Brahmananda often told me back at our domiciles at 26 and 63 Second Ave., “We are transcendentalists, and we must not view our Godbrothers with material vision. Each one of Prabhupada’s devotees is struggling very hard to try to serve the spiritual master, each in his own unique and individual way. The workings of the Lord are wonderful and inconceivable to us. The Will of the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna must be completely accepted because we can never understand the mind of God. We can only try to serve Shrila Prabhupada.”

Sorry to go on and on about all of this. Narasimhananda das Prabhuji, you are also my Godbrother, and I can never express my appreciation for the farsightedness you displayed in recording Shrila Prabhupada on film for the benefit of generations to come. But we must remember that criticism of Vrajavasis who are immersed in vipralambha (separation) at the very punya-samadhi-stan of their own beloved Guru Maharaja can lead us to aparadha, a very dangerous situation that leaves no one benefited. Except for the dubious “benefit” of more material births. For devotees who have taken a vow of poverty, scraping the big bucks together to watch a video of the One Who Lives In Our Hearts (Shrila Prabhupada) is nearly impossible. That’s why Brahmananda’s market is one that you have priced yourself out of, anyway.

As a side observation, Narasimha Prabhuji, with the new trends in hundreds of channels of television, including Reality TV, I can’t figure out why some film maker like yourself doesn’t have his own Vedic Network. Put a camera anywhere in Vrindavana or at the communities of Hare Krishna Land or Shridham Mayapur Chandrodaya, and you could have a show people all over the world would love to see. Has this service of making films stalled? Brahmananda and Gargamuni are continuing to preach Shrila Prabhupada’s message, as we all must to our last dying breath. We have no other duty.

As Prabhupada taught us, Krishna can tolerate an insult to Himself, but He will never brook an offense directed against one of His Own dear bates. It is just like a man at the beach who can tolerate the Sun bearing down on his head, but is burnt terribly by the hot sands on his feet. As Prabhupada used to say, “Even if you saw Brahmananda doing “whatever” you must know for certain that he is a great saint.” Since Brahmananda and Gargamuni serve Shrila Pabhupada at the very site where he departed this Earth and from our limited mortal vision, these brothers of Vrindavana must be accepted as residents of Vaikuntha. Hence these extraordinary souls who serve Shrila Prabhupada life after life should be honored as the Vaishnavas that they are. Forgive me, Narasimha Prabhu, for rambling on for fifteen pages. You are also a great Vaishnava servant of Shrila Prabhupada, and therefore you can tolerate the “pirating” of your videos for the larger good of a world that needs Krishna consciousness now more than ever.

Written: On the holy day of the rare adhik mas ekadashi, honored as the great nirjala-vrat of Bhimsen Pandava, occurring on the bright half or shukla paksha of the lunar cycle, corresponding to 25 June 2007 at San Francisco.

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