Everyone on this bus is going back to Godhead

Contributed by: Mahavishnu Dasa

Dravanaksha: There was a tall black fellow that the devotees had thrown out of the Detroit temple because he had bothered some of the ladies at the Sunday Feast. But anybody that wanted to, could come on our bus party, no matter how crazy they were. So we asked this guy to come with us and he agreed. He lived in a run-down apartment in a poor part of town, and he went and got some of his belongings, including an old guitar and some clothes.

When he joined us we were following Srila Prabhupada's summer tour, and we drove to Prabhupada's next stop, Toronto. Prabhupada was staying in a house around the corner from the temple, and we parked one driveway up. When I was sitting in the bus driver's seat, sometimes I could see Prabhupada coming from his house. Once I watched as an Indian-bodied devotee dove at Prabhupada's feet and within the blink of an eye, Prabhupada put his cane out. The devotee's head stopped at the cane and his hands missed Prabhupada's feet. Later on, Prabhupada let that devotee touch his feet, but that time he stopped him.

As Prabhupada walked by the bus to go to the temple, he noticed that one of the bus bays had been pushed in. Some drunken driver had smashed into it about a week before, and we hadn't fixed it. Prabhupada admonished us. He said, "You should get it fixed right away. The bus should always look first class." He also told us that we should keep it very clean. From then on, I washed it almost every day.

We had brass Gaura-Nitai Deities, and Lord Nityananda was particularly beautiful. Although all the Deities on the Radha-Damodar party were bought from the same place, They all looked different, and our Lord Nityananda was particularly beautiful. One morning as Prabhupada walked by, he stopped at the bus, stood on his tiptoes and looked in the window. Later he said, "I have seen your Lord Nityananda. He is very beautiful. Everyone on this bus is going back to Godhead." But he didn't say when we were going back to Godhead.

Years later I was visiting the Detroit temple, which is now the Fisher Mansion, and the devotee who had been thrown out of the temple and later thrown off the bus partybecause he was so wild, was there in dhoti and kurta, looking first class. He was a temple guard and was doing a lot of service. The minute I saw him, I rememberedPrabhupada saying that everyone on our bus was going back to Godhead.