Govinda Dasi:
When we first met Srila Prabhupada and we told him we were artists, he immediately decided to engage us in making some paintings.
The first painting that he engaged us in was a four-foot by four-foot painting of Radha-Krishna that was to be hung in the San Francisco temple.
I had no idea what Radha-Krishna looked like so Prabhupada handed us his book cover to copy.
In the course of painting I couldn’t tell what color Krishna’s eyes were since the picture I was copying from was too small.
In those days it was very common to go and ask Swamiji questions.
We could see him at almost any time of the day except during his nap, and so I went up and asked him, “Swamiji, what color are Krishna’s eyes?”
Prabhupada got this very deep, meditative look on his face, as if he were looking far away, as if he were looking at Krishna.
Then he said, “They are blackish.”
I remembered Jadurani had a similar experience where she also asked Prabhupada a question about a certain feature of Krishna and he looked away as if he were looking at the form of the Lord.
When I traveled with Srila Prabhupada someone would invariably send him a flier, or a brochure or some form of advertising for Krishna consciousness for his approval. If it did not have his title, “Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness”, along with his name on it, he would immediately have us call that devotee to correct the error.
It didn’t matter if it was in the middle of the night because it was a significant matter in his eyes.
I didn’t understand why, but then he explained to me one time that if the spiritual master’s name and title is not put there, along with whatever work we do, then that is the beginning of fall down.
That means that the disciple is not acknowledging that everything is coming from the spiritual master.
And it can be so subtle. It was a very important issue to Srila Prabhupada.
Along that same line, I remember there was a wonderful advertisement done in the early days in the Back to Godhead that read, “This man has changed the world” along with a picture of Srila Prabhupada.Srila Prabhupada was so upset when he saw this. Prabhupada said, “The disciple should never refer to the spiritual master as a ‘man’. This is aparadha and it’s the beginning of falldown.”
So sometimes when I hear someone say he was a great man, I just cringe. I feel sometimes if I hear this and I say anything, they’ll think I’m a fanatic. But the fact is, that is what he said.
And he’s usually right.
—Govinda Dasi
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