Finding Krishna in Detroit 1969 --Part 2

ALACHUA, FLORIDA, USA — After being in Detroit for several months, Bhagavan das sent my wife and I to Chicago for a while to help open the first temple there on Halstead and Fullerton streets. Rudra das and his good wife Radhika where already there and they had rented an apartment to convert into a temple. Life there was so austere.

We had no heat or gas, and it was winter in Chicago when we arrived, and that "hawk," as locals called the wind off the lake, had no mercy on us. There was a big hole in the wall halfway up the stairs where a window should have been and it wasn't even covered with plastic. The only heat that we had was a little fireplace. We also cooked on this fireplace, having no money for gas for the stove.

                                                                                                                     
My wife was the cook and pujari in Chicago and every day she was cooking and caring for the Lord Jagannatha Deities. For those of you who don't know Them, they are forms of Krsna and His transcendental siblings that have been worshipped in Jagannatha Puri in India for centuries.

                                                                                         
Since we had Deities on the alter, Hladini would prepare very opulent 6 or 7 course feasts for them, I mean..... every day! Three meals a day!!! There were only 5 or 6 of us there during those first months and we sat down three times a day and had to eat opulent rich food every meal. I mean, they only cooked for the Deities and there was enough for the devotees to just eat Maha. This might sound to some like the spiritual kingdom, but after a while we started getting intoxicated from all the sugar and ghee. Everything was so opulent and rich.

We were all getting so attached to the taste sensations after a while and sometimes we even felt giddy and would roll on the floor laughing and goofing off. Between meals, we started to experience difficulties in our regulative, devotional lives, which one might expect from such young, inexperienced bhaktas eating so opulently. After some time I started feeling quite silly after meals and started to worry about my spiritual well being.

So I wrote a letter to Srila Prabhupada and explained the whole situation to him. I told him that if he would just tell me how to eat, then I would just follow his orders and everything would be fine again. I thought it would be just that easy.

Well, it wasn't. Srila Prabhupada wrote me back and said, "first decide how much you can eat. Then eat only half of that. then fill your belly one quarter full of water and leave the rest for air. This will make for good digestion. This will please me very much." When I have told devotees about this letter over the years many would say, "So you're the one who got that letter."

So here I had it--Prabhupada's instructions in black and white. All I had to do was follow them just like all the other instructions. Or so I thought. Actually, I had the worst time following those instructions. I was accustomed to just following his instructions and chanted my rounds, avoided carefully the forbidden activities, etc., and all was fine. But I just couldn't control my eating. Everything I was feeling, all the passion I brought with me from my crazy life, was dovetailed into the prasadam yajna.

Now I had a big dilemma. I couldn't just hold back my wild horses because prasadam was saving me. But also I couldn't ignore the fact that Srila Prabhupada had told me to eat half. What was I going to do? I was really stuck in duality! Soon I got news that Rupanuga was heading to New York to see Srila Prabhupada and had stopped in Detroit to take a break in his journey. When I found this out I took off immediately for Detroit. When I got there, Rupanuga allowed me to stow away in the back of the van that was taking him. I needed to see Srila Prabhupada real bad. I needed to get off the mental platform.

So off I went to New York to see Srila Prabhupada. But after all the trouble getting to New York City, they would not let me in to see him because I was a nobody (then too). Not to be outdone, I came up with a great plan. I would write Srila Prabhupada a letter, seal it, and slip it under his door. What could his over protective servants do about that? Then I would just depend on Krsna's mercy!

Feeling dejected I walked back into the temple room to lick my wounds and feel sorry for myself for my misfortune. All of a sudden, I thought I began to hear my name being called... "Where is Mahananda. Srila Prabhupada wants to see him right away in his room."

These words were still ringing in my ears as they marched me up the stairs and down to the end on the hallway in the Henry Street temple in Brooklyn where Srila Prabhupada had his quarters. Had he called me here because of what I had done in the hallway outside of the temple room that morning? Suddenly I was fearful that I was really in trouble!

This is what I had done. Right after he gave class in the main temple room, all of the devotees lined up on both sides of the hallway leading out, pressing their backs to the wall tightly so that Prabhupada could pass by on his way back to his room. Just as he got up to where I was standing, I saw a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something we only dream of or read about in the scriptures....I threw myself on the floor in front of him, blocking the narrow hallway and wrapped my arms entirely around those lotus feet and rested my head on top of his toes.

It seemed like I stayed there forever. Home at last, I must have felt. While staying there for several moments while everything and everyone was perfectly quiet and still (and maybe in a little shock), the one thing that I remember that occupied my mind was my surprise that he so kindly just stood there for the longest time and let me do what I considered the perfection of my life.

He and Krsna must have planned this, both knowing that it would take something extraordinary to purify someone such as myself. I had stayed there for as long as I needed to and no one said a word.....

As I stood there in his room remembering the incident in the hallway and wondering if I had done something terrible, my mind was quickly brought back to the present as they closed the door behind me, leaving me there in the room with Prabhupada...alone. After I offered my obeisances to him I stood there frozen, unable to speak. Srila Prabhupada asked my "What is the matter?" Still stuck on the mental plane I began to stutter and explain to him my dilemma about the food. I don't think I was making much sense.

He kept saying things back to me but all I could remember him saying was "You cannot commit sin by eating Prasadam." He said that twice, but I kept trying to get him to help me mentally figure out how to solve my conflict. I must have been there for a long time asking questions when finally he looked at me and said "Aroti is going on?" "Yes, Prabhupada" I stuttered. "Aroti is going on." "Just go to aroti", he said.

I guess I thought that he would help me more with all my mental stuff and he surprised me with his reply. I thanked him and left the room, not really understanding the significance of his simple instructions fully until years later when I would repeatedly get on the mental plane and each time would be able to get back on track and off the mental platform simply by engaging myself in some simple devotional activities, or would "just go to aroti."

Having seen my spiritual master, I rode back to Chicago in the back of the van chanting softly...

(To be continued)