Blog

It was only four days after Prabhupada's arrival. He had just risen from an afternoon's rest, walked into the front room... and there was Subala. Prabhupada was surprised. Subala was supposed to be in Santa Fe.

"My wife has left me," Subala burst out. And a sad tale followed. Subala told how he had left his wife, Krsna-devi dasi, alone at the Santa Fe temple for a few days and gone to New York to visit his parents. Meanwhile, Krsna-devi had run away with a boy who had been visiting the temple; and she had decided to stay with him and give up her husband.

"Don't worry," Prabhupada told Subala, "everything will be all right. I will write a letter to Krsna-devi and tell her to come back to you. You can go back to Santa Fe tomorrow, and everything will be all right."

Subala left the next morning for Santa Fe, and Prabhupada, although calm in Subala's presence, began to show deep disturbance over the sordid affair. Krsna-devi was his disciple, and he had performed the sacred marriage ceremony for her and Subala. He had asked them to be an ideal couple, cooperating together in Krsna consciousness. Together they had gone to start the center in New Mexico. "Don't be discouraged," he told them. "Even though no one may come to hear you, still you chant and hear." But now Krsna-devi had simply left the temple and her husband.

When Subala arrived in Santa Fe, he found that Krsnadevi and her boyfriend, Randy, had left town. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles Prabhupada received a letter from Krsna-devi. She said she wanted to stay in Krsna consciousness-but with her new boyfriend. "This is all nonsense," Prabhupada exclaimed. "I will simply go back to Vrndavana and sit and chant Hare Krsna. Why should I do this? Why should I deal with this quarrel between husband and wife? This is not the business of a sannyasi."

Prabhupada wrote a letter to Krsna-devi in care of the Santa Fe temple.

Your recent activities have been very much upsetting to each and every member of our society. I never expected that you shall act in this way. If you love me at all and Krishna at all, you should immediately return back, either to me or to your husband without delay. In your letter it is understood that you are repenting. You have done a great mistake. Come back and everything will be all right.

To Subala, Prabhupada wrote,

I am very sorry to learn about your present plight; you must be feeling a great shock for the separation, but there is a great lesson also. Anyway, if you are feeling too heavy-hearted, you may come here and live with me for some time. I hope I shall be able to ease your heaviness.

But before Prabhupada's letter arrived, Subala had already left Santa Fe for Los Angeles, thinking, "I can't take this anymore. I'm going back to Swamiji."

Sitting on his porch taking his noontime massage, Prabhupada suddenly saw Subala, looking more miserable than ever, coming up the sidewalk. "Subala," Prabhupada called out, remaining seated. Subala approached and offered obeisances before Srila Prabhupada, who sat in the California sunshine and dressed only in an Indian gamcha, while Gaurasundara massaged him with mustard oil. "You did not get my letter?" Prabhupada asked.

"No," Subala replied.

"Yes." Prabhupada nodded. "You have got my letter. I have written you and told you that if you are feeling too heavyhearted, you may come here and live with me for some time."

Subala: So I moved into the crowded front room of Swamiji's apartment. I slept in the living room, right outside of Swamiji's room, and there was only a curtain separating us. At night I could hear him dictating Srimad-Bhagavatam.

He asked me to carve some Radha-Krsna Deities for him. I had already carved some Jagannatha deities, and now Swamiji said he wanted Radha-Krsna Deities carved. So I bought a block of mahogany and began carving Radha-Krsna.


- From "Prabhupada-lila" by HH Satsvarupa dasa Goswami