How I met Srila Prabhupada in heart and body.
Everytime I am asked to relate my personal experiences of Srila Prabhupada I ask myself two questions:
1) How much should I be allowed to use the pronoun “I” to make sure that it doesn’t become an autobiography instead of a presentation of memories of His Divine Grace?
I’ll try to keep that to the minimum although it’s not possible to avoid it altogether since it’s necessary to put the story in a context. Bear with me.
2) How much should I allow myself to tell my inner feelings and emotions? Personally I don’t like that very much and I’ll try to keep that at the minumum. But it is a fact that Srila Prabhupada generated in most of us very strong emotions of feeling of love and gratitude to have given us such a wonderful life.
As a young kid I became convinced that an Absolute Truth is in India.
I met various so called gurus from India, like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or a guy called Guru Maharaji ji, the 16 years old spiritual master, but my heart and intelligence told me that they were fake. Nothing better than the religion of my native country I had come to reject.
1972: I was 17 and I hear the Hare Krishna Mantra on the radio, I liked a lot and I started to chant. Then I read an article on newspaper saying that there were “Hare Krishnas” getting up at 2 AM and taking freezing cold shower. I figured that these Hare Krishnas had something to do with the Hare Krishna mantra I liked to chant.
1974: The devotees opened the temple in Rome. So lucky I was, they opened just a couple of hundred meters from my home. Rome is a huge city, had they opened it in another zone my life story could have been different.
May 1974: Srila Prabhupada arrives in Italy. To advertise his coming the devotees literally paper the city with posters. One day my super crowded bus stop at a traffic light, there was a gigantic traffic jam and it stopped there for about 15 minutes. Nothing else I could do that looking at a black and white poster portraying Srila Prabhupada’s face. This is the part I don’t like to talk about, namely relating a very powerful inner emotional experience from which I came out with the absolute certainty that he was my spiritual master and that he was going to change my life.
In the following days, wherever I went, I found the same poster and every time the same mystical experience.
Unfortunately I could meet Srila Prabhupada during his visit.
The following month I was seeing “the Hare Krishnas” walink around in my neighborhood but I did not feel much actraction for them. I had not understood that “my spiritual master” and the Hare Krishnas were related.
One day a friend of mine brought to the Hare Krishna temple and I saw a painting of Srila Prabhupada on the vyasasana. At that time I decided that the Hare Krishna were good.
In august I joined and in November I was initiated without ever seen Srila Prabhupada in person.
The chance came only two years after. Srila Prabhupada was going to Nouvelle Mayapura in France. I was supposed to remain in Rome to take care of the Deities but I left in charge another devotee and went in a small car.
After two days of traveling I arrived and the temple commander, who was a friend of mine, asked me if I wanted a very nectarean service. I said yes and he brought me in front of Srila Prabhupada apartment. He said: “You are the guardian of Srila Prabhupada apartment. He doesn’t like noises. You have to make sure nobody makes noises, especially slamming doors. And when somebody forgets to close his door, you have to close it.”
I stayed for hours in front of that door with a very strong desire to peek in and see my spiritual master, that he already had changed my life even never meeting him person, but the devotee whowere going in and out were careful to always close the door.
But when a devotee came out with hand full of plates and couldn’t close the door, there was my chance. I could just close it or enter the room. I decided to enter the room.
So I saw my spiritual master for the first time. He was sitting on the floor on a thin mat taking prasadam. Nothing in his physical appearance would suggest grandeur, not his clothing or his general countenance, but for me he was like a Deity. His movements were regal, he was cutting chapatis with his right hand fingers, then taking subji with that and letting them fall in his mouth without touching it with his fingers.
I looked at him for a couple of minutes, then he realized that he wasn’t alone in the room and looked at me and said: “what can I do for you?”. His voice was gentle and I could have ask him a question, but I simply paid obeisances and got out the room backing on four arms.
I could never talk to him, ask him a question. I do not envy my godbrothers who had a personal relationship with him. I like to meditate on him on the vyasasana while reading his books.
One day he was giving a class and I happende to be just under his lotus feet. Then looking me directly in the eyes he said (paraphrasing): “Anyone who says to be a devotee of Krishna has to dedicate his entire life to preaching Krishna conscoiusness”. Although he was giving a public class, since he looked at me while saying that, I took it as the mission of my life. I have to preach.
– Manonatha Dasa (ACBSP)
10 november, 2018
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