Rita Gupta: Srutakirti dasa became Prabhupada\u2019s personal servant in August 1972. His service was to be by Prabhupada\u2019s side twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He traveled with Prabhupada for 2 \u00bd years, and around the world five times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Srutakirti always felt very cared for by Prabhupada, his eternal father. His biological father died when he was only three years old, so he felt Prabhupada was truly his father in every way. Prabhupada reciprocated with Srutakirti\u2019s love and behaved with the tenderness of a parent. Prabhupada even arranged that in India, Srutakirti had cow\u2019s milk and oats each day for breakfast. \u201cPrabhupada knew I didn\u2019t like going to India because I always got sick, so he made sure I had whatever I thought I needed to be healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loving Prabhupada is something everyone can do, says Srutakirti. Everyone can have a personal relationship with Prabhupada. \u201cPrabhupada made himself very accessible. Prabhupada sat in his room and let his disciples record him singing bhajans, so now everyone can hear the chanting of a pure devotee. Even before he had followers, Prabhupada started recording his lectures, so we can hear the sound vibration of a pure devotee. Prabhupada is available to us, all the time, through all these various media.\u201d<\/p>\n
Srutakirti recalls that Prabhupada was always serving Krishna, whether he was in front of the public or behind closed doors. Prabhupada was always thinking of Krishna, even when no one else was around. Every day at around at 2:00 a.m., while all his disciples were sleeping, Prabhupada was translating his books. Sometimes during the day he would sing bhajans for Krishna. Other times, Prabhupada sat and read his own books \u2013 the books that he himself had translated just months before. Prabhupada always said that he had not written the books; Krishna had written them. <\/p>\n
Srutakirti\u2019s favorite time of the day was during the evening massage, just before Prabhupada took rest. During the massage, Prabhupada often told him wonderful pastimes of Krishna and the cowherd boys. \u201cI was always alone with Prabhupada during the evening massage. Sometimes he would talk to me when I was massaging him. He would talk and I just listened.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the evening massages, Srutakirti heard things from Prabhupada that other devotees never knew. For example, the devotees had always been bewildered regarding Prabhupada\u2019s unbreakable determination to acquire the temple property at Juhu Beach. Many devotees could not understand what was so special about that particular property. Failing to understand Prabhupada\u2019s exalted status as the Founder-Acharya of ISKCON, they even gave him unsolicited advise, telling him that he ought to give up the land and buy a plot elsewhere. After the long battle was over, Prabhupada disclosed his inner motivation to Srutakirti one evening. Prabhupada said he had been determined to win the fight because he had invited Krishna to the Juhu Beach property and promised to build a temple for Him. Krishna had come, and now Prabhupada would not break his promise to Krishna.<\/p>\n
Sometimes Prabhupada would tell him about his own childhood in Calcutta. Srutakirti felt blessed to share these moments alone with Prabhupada, and to hear such intimate pastimes. \u201cI was very fortunate. I was alone with him in so many situations, like when he spoke with George Harrison and when he sat in his room playing harmonium and chanting for Krishna\u2019s pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Srutakirti speaks about Prabhupada, he is back with Prabhupada and experiencing the pastime all over again. And Prabhupada is also there, in the room. \u201cJust like Prabhupada is on the vyasasana, Prabhupada is there when his disciples speak about him. That means that even today, just by hearing Prabhupada\u2019s pastimes, people are in Prabhupada\u2019s personal presence and having their own personal experiences with him.\u201d <\/p>\n
Srutakirti continues, \u201cThe more we develop our love and attachment to Prabhupada, and understand how the pure devotee lives his life, the more we come under his protection. All of us can have a personal relationship with Prabhupada. We must understand Prabhupada is still here with us.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
For many years, Srutakirti has been traveling to temples and festivals all over the world and giving seminars on his favorite subject \u2013 his personal memories of Prabhupada.\u00a0 The longer people hear about Prabhupada, the better, Srutakirti reports. \u201cWith longer seminars, people\u2019s eyes begin to glow. By the third or fourth day, they are in ecstasy before the class even begins.\u201d <\/p>\n
Having spent so much time with Prabhupada, Srutakirti is in a unique position to share intimate details about Prabhupada.\u00a0 These details are important for at least two reasons. First, Prabhupada is the Founder-Acharya of ISKCON.\u00a0 That means that he is our link to the disciplic succession.\u00a0 Second, Prabhupada is a pure devotee of Krishna. Therefore, the more we know about Prabhupada, the better we understand how a devotee should act \u2013 how to talk, how to walk, how to honor prasadam. \u201cWe have to know how Prabhupada talks to people, especially his disciples. Prabhupada always encourages every single person to increase his Krishna consciousness.\u00a0 He is the expert Spiritual Master, so he knows just how to fan the flames of each individual person\u2019s devotion.\u00a0 You can see how Prabhupada walks when he takes darshan of the Deities. He looks like royalty, but he is completely humble at the same time. We should try and understand the details of our Founder-Acharya. He is our Acharya and always sets the example for everyone in ISKCON,\u201d says Srutakirti.
\nIt is crucial that Prabhupada\u2019s disciples travel and speak about him, the person Bhagavat. Devotees never tire of hearing about him. People ask to hear stories they already know, and they can hear the same stories over and over again. It is always fresh and enlivening, just like when we hear pastimes about Krishna, or about the devotees in Srimad Bhgavatam. This is the nature of spiritual pastimes \u2013 they are ever fresh.
\nIf you would like to invite Srutakirti to speak in your community, you can contact him at: Srutakirti.ACBSP@pamho.net You can also contact him to order his book, \u201cWhat is the Difficulty? Intimate moments in the personal service of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rita Gupta: Srutakirti dasa became Prabhupada\u2019s personal servant in August 1972. His service was to be by Prabhupada\u2019s side twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He traveled with Prabhupada for 2 \u00bd years, and around the world five times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7298","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}