{"id":33641,"date":"2018-07-26T13:32:53","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T11:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dandavats.tumblr.com\/post\/153557297036"},"modified":"2018-07-26T13:32:48","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T11:32:48","slug":"it-was-ford-and-reuther-and-the-ceremony-was-covered-by-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=33641","title":{"rendered":"It was Ford and Reuther, and the ceremony was covered by Time…"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

It was Ford and Reuther, and the ceremony was covered by Time magazine, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press!
\nUdayananda: We had kirtan competitions. Devotees from the Chicago temple would do their thing, the L.A. devotees would do their thing, the Radha-Damodar party would do their thing and the London devotees would do their thing, like that.
\nEveryone was fired up about chanting. But one of our God-brothers didn\u2019t like it.
\nHe was in Prabhupada\u2019s room with the Radha-Damodar boys and he said, \u201cPrabhupada, it\u2019s getting completely crazy out there, all the dancing like wildmen.\u201d
\nPrabhupada stopped him and said, \u201cYes. When you become a lover of Krishna, you dance just like a madman.\u201d All the Radha-Damodar boys went, \u201cHaribol!\u201d
\nBhakti-caru Swami came in early 1977 and Prabhupada immediately gave him first and second initiation and said, \u201cHe is not a new man in this movement.\u201d
\nThen a couple weeks later, Prabhupada was walking on the roof of the Lotus Building with Bhakti-caru Swami when Prabhupada said to him,
\n\u201cYou have had billions of births. All of us have had billions of births, and we have always given those lives simply to sense gratification. If you give one birth to Krishna you will not be the loser. Just give one to Krishna. And if you\u2019re not satisfied, you still get more births.\u201d
\nPrabhupada spoke matter-of-factly, just like saying the sun rises every day. He was considering transmigration, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, you can get billions of more births. But give one to Krishna and see what happens.\u201d
\nA week later Bhakti-caru Swami took sannyas, and he\u2019s maintained his sannyas vows ever since.
\nHe\u2019s given this one birth to Krishna. At any point in time we can also give our life to Krishna and that\u2019s what I\u2019m hoping to do.
\nOnce, not long before Prabhupada left his body, he called Bhakti-caru Swami over.
\nMaharaj went to Prabhupada with a humble service mood and Prabhupada talked to him in Bengali.
\nBhakti-caru Swami smiled sweetly and laughed and Prabhupada smiled and laughed, enjoying this rasa with him. I was completely envious.
\nThey were sharing an intimate Bengali moment and I thought, \u201cHe\u2019s so fortunate, he can talk to Prabhupada in his native tongue. I wonder what that joke was about.\u201d
\nFinally Prabhupada said, \u201cLook at this body, it\u2019s completely useless. I am practically proving that life does not come from a bag of bones.\u201d
\nWe half chuckled and were half stunned in amazement. Srila Prabhupada transcended the whole situation.
\nHe defied the \u201clogic\u201d of science by saying, \u201cI am practically proving that life does not come from a bag of bones.\u201d
\nGovardhan das and I arrived in Vrindavan and checked into a room in the Krishna-Balaram guesthouse.
\nThree minutes later Upendra knocked on the door and said, \u201cPrabhupada wants to see you right away.\u201d
\nPrabhupada had asked for Govardhan because in Detroit, where he was temple president, they\u2019d just had a magnificent wedding for Lekhasravanti, Walter Reuther\u2019s daughter. Ambarish was the best man.
\nSo it was Ford and Reuther, and the ceremony was covered by Time magazine, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press\u2014 there was tremendous publicity throughout the country and it was a magnificent preaching opportunity.
\nWe were on our way to Prabhupada\u2019s room when Tamal Krishna Maharaj stopped us and said,
\n\u201cYou\u2019ve never seen Srila Prabhupada look the way he does now. He\u2019s not robust and healthy and it might be a shocking and painful sight for you. But don\u2019t cry and don\u2019t say anything negative. Just say encouraging things.\u201d
\nMaharaj didn\u2019t want Prabhupada to be anxious. He said, \u201cWe\u2019re trying to encourage Prabhupada, to uplift his spirits, to make him enthused to go on preaching for at least another 10 years. So don\u2019t look shocked, don\u2019t be sad.\u201d
\nWe thought, \u201cOkay, we\u2019re prepared to do this.\u201d
\nPrabhupada was lying in his bed and we offered our obeisances. Then we stood at Prabhupada\u2019s feet and saw him. We were shocked.
\nGovardhan immediately lost it and quietly sobbed, covering his mouth with his chaddar.
\nPrabhupada smiled and said, \u201cWho has come?\u201d Tamal said, \u201cIt\u2019s Govardhan and Udayananda from Detroit, Prabhupada.\u201d
\nPrabhupada said, \u201cAre your accommodations in the Krishna-Balaram guesthouse okay? Did you get prasadam? Are you comfortable? Is everything all right?\u201d
\nGovardhan, who was saddened by Srila Prabhupada\u2019s condition, couldn\u2019t talk, so I said, \u201cYes, Srila Prabhupada, it\u2019s first class. Thank you for taking such good care of us.\u201d
\nPrabhupada said, \u201cAre the devotees in Detroit happy in Krishna consciousness? And how are Lekhasravanti and Ambarish? How is the temple and how is the Deity worship? Are you preaching in the neighborhood?\u201d
\nPrabhupada went on talking about everyone else\u2019s well-being.
\nThe kaviraj who was treating Srila Prabhupada had treated thousands of people with the same condition and he had said,
\n\u201cThis disease is so painful that others have writhed in pain\u2014they can barely tolerate the pain\u2014and they become incoherent, delirious.\u201d
\nBut Prabhupada\u2019s consciousness was crystal clear and he was simply concerned about the well-being of others.
\nNever once did he say, \u201cLook at my condition. Look at how I am suffering.\u201d I was trying to wrap my mind around how a person in such a condition could be so selfless.
\nMy God-brother Praghosa Prabhu went to Washington, D.C. to distribute books at the airport and when he came back from sankirtan one day, Srila Prabhupada saw him and said, \u201cWhere have you been?\u201d
\nPraghosa offered his obeisances and said, \u201cI\u2019ve been distributing books, Srila Prabhupada.\u201d
\nPrabhupada said, \u201cCome with me,\u201d and together they went into Prabhupada\u2019s room.
\nPrabhupada said, \u201cWhere are you doing your service these days?\u201d Praghosa said, \u201cI\u2019m in New York, Prabhupada, in the 55th Street temple.\u201d
\nPrabhupada said, \u201cOh, you\u2019re in New York? I also started in New York\u201d as if every single devotee in the movement did not know everything about Prabhupada, especially where he started.
\nIn his last days, Prabhupada talked about going on parikrama around Govardhan, but he wasn\u2019t focused only on Govardhan.
\nWhen news and letters arrived about the preaching and the book distribution that was going on, Prabhupada became inspired and once he said,
\n\u201cI should give up lying here in Vrindavan and go out and preach. You should take me to the New York temple. And if I die, put my tomb on top of the Radha-Govinda temple on 55th Street. I want to die preaching with my New York preachers.\u201d
\n\u2014Udayananda
\nExcerpt from \u201cMemories-Anecdotes of a Modern-Day Saint\u201d
\nby Siddhanta das<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

It was Ford and Reuther, and the ceremony was covered by Time magazine, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press!
\nUdayananda: We had kirtan competitions. Devotees from the Chicago temple would do their thing, the L.A. devotees would do their thing, the Radha-Damodar party would do their thing and the London devotees would do their thing, like that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recent-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33641"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64759,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33641\/revisions\/64759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}