Шриман Шрутакирти Дас о Шриле Прабхупаде
Srutakirti das:
“I felt very fortunate because I got to see Prabhupada when he wasn’t with his disciples, when he wasn’t busy training them in management in so many different ways or chastising them for the mistakes they had made and being involved in seeing that the books were being produced and all of these different services he was doing for his spiritual master. Then at various times in the day when the doors closed, Prabhupada was just there by himself; and they were the times that I liked the most because he was a devotee of Krishna, and Prabhupada loved Krishna. You would find him in his room reading; and sometimes from the servant quarters, all of a sudden you would hear the harmonium.
It wasn’t Krishna Kanti coming in and recording bhajans, Prabhupada was just doing bhajan. Whenever I heard that, I would run into the room and I would offer obeisances; and as soon as I would sit up, Prabhupada would give me the nod, “Get the kartals,” and I would play kartals and Prabhupada would play the harmonium and he would just chant. It’s one reason I stayed with Prabhupada as long as I did, because I found being with Prabhupada was very peaceful for most of the time. And it was amazing because, as we know, Prabhupada was doing everything, he was running everything, the entire society, the BBT, taking care of so much mail every day, doing the classes, the morning walk, instructing devotees.
But somehow or other it seemed like there were hours where Prabhupada was just alone, and he was a devotee of Krishna and he was very sweet. He was doing everything he was asking us to do, just develop our love of Krishna by chanting and hearing and so many times reading his books. He would walk around and chant in his room; and he would just chant on his beads, walk around, and sometimes he would jiggle his bead bag, you could hear the beads in his bead bag. But there was just this peacefulness that was amazing because of everything that he was doing. But as soon as the door closed, that was all gone. It was just Krishna there with him, and Prabhupada was always happy. Even someone like me could pick up on some of that and just feel so peaceful to be with Prabhupada. It’s like you didn’t want to be anywhere else at those times.”
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