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The Bhaktivedanta Archives

Prabhupada said, “You know, throughout my entire life I have never forgotten Krishna.”

Yogesvara: One particular day at the City Hall, which in French is translated as the Hotel de Ville, Srila Prabhupada was to meet the Deputy Mayor of Paris.
To be received by the mayor of Paris or his representative is something of an historic consequence because they only see heads of state.
The way it happened was that we were in the airport when the Chief of Protocol for the City Hall was also there greeting the mayor of Bombay or some official from India, and we happened to have been in the airport to receive this person as well.
So we struck up a conversation with the woman who was the Head of Protocol, and we said,
“Well, you know, the spiritual equivalent of the man you’re receiving in City Hall today is our teacher. It would be altogether fitting and proper if he were received as well,” and this woman took it seriously.
A few weeks later we got a letter from City Hall, saying,
“We would like to receive your spiritual master when he comes to Paris. Can you provide us with some background?”
We sent an elaborate biography of Srila Prabhupada and all of his accomplishments, and the sacrifices he’d made for re-spiritualizing humanity.
Then we were told to please come to City Hall where we would be told the rules for such a reception.
When we arrived the woman told us,
“When the mayor comes into the room, the protocol has been throughout French history that the guest will stand. Then the mayor or his representative will give an opening speech and then your teacher will be invited to respond.”
I sat in a chair next to Prabhupada translating the protocol and I thought to myself, “I know there is going to be trouble.”
I said, “They want when the mayor walks in, you’re supposed to stand up, and then he will…” I didn’t get to finish the sentence.
Prabhupada looked at me and said, “I’m supposed to stand up for who?”
I thought to myself, “Uh, oh. There goes our relationship with the Paris government.”
And sure enough, the vice mayor, on that day, walked in and he stood there looking at us and he was waiting, and waiting, and then he looked over at the Chief of Protocol, as though to say,
“You didn’t tell them?”
Prabhupada had his hands on his cane and he just looked at the man intently.
The mayor literally started to sweat.
I could see it drip down his face, as there was a large contingent of press with cameras and lights.
The vice mayor gave up waiting for Prabhupada to stand first and he began speaking about how France was such a spiritual country and that over the generations France had received so many people and now France was honored to receive A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami to the hallowed halls.
Then Prabhupada stood up.
He said, “Mr. Mayor, you have spoken very nicely about how France is such a spiritual country. That’s important.”
Prabhupada said, “Because if any government fails to teach the citizens that they are eternal spirit souls and that there is a Supreme Godhead in control of creation, and that the government’s job is to make a situation that is comfortable for the spiritual progress of its citizens, that government is a rascal government!”
The press filled up their notebooks writing like crazy as they did not take it well at all.
The next day in the newspaper they showed an unflattering photo of Prabhupada eating a watermelon in the reception room with the headline,
“Guru says this or that about France,” I think I consciously blocked it out.
The point, however, is that Srila Prabhupada was fearless under all circumstances.
He had a real sense of who he was.
This was not someone in any doubt.
I think the word “doubt” probably had no room in the lexicon of words that described Srila Prabhupada.
He was there on behalf of his spiritual master.
He knew what he had to do and he did not compromise.
I’ve been living with this memory since it first happened some forty years ago.
I had been initiated for a year before I first met Prabhupada when he came to Paris after his meeting with Professor Chakofsky in Moscow.
Prabhupada was going to do a press talk at the offices of Air India on the Boulevard de Madeleine.
Somehow or other devotees were delayed getting there so I was the first one to arrive.
Prabhupada was in one room resting after his flight along with his secretary and I’m in the next room where there was a plate of Prabhupada’s prasadam.
I took some mango skin from the plate and began sucking and weeping like an idiot.
I was sobbing when all of a sudden the door opened and Prabhupada’s servant said,
“Should I let them in Srila Prabhupada?”
I peeked around the door and saw Prabhupada sitting casually on a bench where he had obviously been resting.
With one hand he motioned with a sweeping gesture for me to come in.
I was flabbergasted.
That was the first perfect thing I had ever seen in my life.
There was no wasted effort, no fidgeting and no uncertainty about it.
This was obviously the intentional gesture of someone in complete control of his faculties.
It was a beautiful gesture like something out of a classical ballet.
I came in and I just plopped down on my face in front of him.
I was looking up at him and he was looking down at me.
Tears were streaming down my face.
Getting back to the temple after the press conference I again was the first one back and I heard Prabhupada call from his room, “Yogesvara?”
I came running in and this was the first time I actually talked to Prabhupada.
He sat on a cushion with his right leg up and his elbow resting on his knee.
With his hand in his bead bag, he traced circles on his forehead with his forefinger.
His eyes were closed and Prabhupada said, “You know, throughout my entire life I have never forgotten Krishna.”
Then he opened his eyes and said, “Even when I was a boy I had my dolls.”
Prabhupada called them “his dolls”, and he told me about how tall they were by measuring with his hand two to three feet off the floor.
I thought to myself, “Why was he telling me this? Was he concerned that maybe I had doubts about him and that he needed to reassure me that it was okay for me to give my life to him, and that he was not going to harm me?”
Later when I reflect about Srila Prabhupada, the overwhelming sensation is that he is a person in authority who will never hurt you.
He will never hurt you.
That this person has only my well-being at heart.
He would never do anything to hurt me.
And that was the sensation at that moment when he was bothering to tell me this.
It was because Prabhupada was confirming for me, “It’s okay. It’s all right. We’ll continue on together as spiritual master and disciple. You have nothing to fear. You have nothing to fear.”
It has taken forty years for me to actually come to a point of understanding some of these memories.
—Yogesvara dasa Prabhu
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MEMORIES-ANECDOTES OF A MODERN-DAY SAINT" BY SIDDHANTA
www.prabhupadamemories.com
Ref. iOS VedaBase, Section 22. Biographies and Glorification of Śrīla Prabhupāda / Śrīla Prabhupāda - Remembrances [Siddhānta dāsa, ITV]
Bhaktivedanta iOS Vedabase programmed by Gopala Priyadāsa.*https://appsto.re/us/mKGfL.i*In corporations with the Bhaktivedanta Archives. Contents based on the original 2014.1 Windows and Mac VedaBase produced and published by the Bhaktivedanta Archives.
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