22 Service to Krsna is Reality
Service to Krsna is Reality
An interview with Pankajanghri Prabhu
Could you please tell us how you joined ISKCON?
In 1967 Jananivasa and I came to India together, searching for truth . We travelled all around India for 3 years, and I had 2 gurus before meeting the devotees, although they were Mäyävädé gurus. [Pankajanghri Prabhu chuckles] Jananivasa had a couple of paper Bhagavad-gétäs, however they were not Prabhupäda’s Bhagavad-gétä . At that time we knew just a little about the Hare Kåñëas from the record, we had once seen devotees in a night club performing, but at that time we didn’t know anything about ISKCON .
Then in the beginning of 1970, Jananivasa went to Jagannätha Puré during the Ratha-yäträ festival . There he met some devotees, so he stopped and asked them what they were doing, “Why are you chanting Kåñëa’s Name, and not Brahmä, Viñëu, Çiva (the Hindi trinity)?”
The devotees said, “Because Kåñëa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead .” Nobody had ever said who God was before, although we had met so many sädhus . The devotees at that time didn’t have any literature, so they said, “If you come to our temple in Kolkata, you can get some .”
So then he went to the Kolkata temple to get some of Prabhupäda’s Gétäs . Every- thing immediately made sense, and Jananivasa never came out of the temple after that . He went in there to buy some books and he never came out .
He has never left India since that time, since 1970 . In those days you didn’t require a visa for India if you had a Commonwealth passport . In the meantime they’ve changed the laws, but they made an exception for him until now, but now they say, “No, no . You need visa” . So this is the first time he’s been out of India since 1970 .
After he went to buy books in the Kolkata temple, I was waiting for him in Benares, and when he came to meet me there, he was already shaved up as a devotee . So, I came to see him here in Mäyäpur again in March ‘72 . I went to Kolkata, but he was already in Mäyäpur . Within a few months he had moved down to Mäyäpur . I guess, it must have been at the end of ‘71, because I came in March ‘72, and he was already here.
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