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Shortly after Prabhupada's arrival he continued the process of initiating disciples. Kim and his younger sister were initiated at the same time. A few days before, Kim had suggested his sister should go to Prabhupada's apartment and ask to be his disciple.

"Are you following the four rules?" Prabhupada asked.

"Yes," she replied. And then he said it was all right.

"I just wanted to say something else," she continued, "that is, I heard that you had taken birth because in your last life you had been a physician and had killed a snake for some medical purpose."

Prabhupada laughed. "Oh, your brother has told you that?"

"Yeah," she replied. No more was said about it. Kim was given the name Krsnadasa, and Prabhupada also initiated a few disciples who had written from New York. He performed the initiation ceremony in the temple and chanted on everyone's beads, including the New York disciples'. That night he also spoke for a few moments on the telephone with Brahmananda in New York and told him, "I have returned by the grace of Krsna, and I am now fit to serve you."

Prabhupada said he was fit to serve the devotees, and he certainly looked and acted wonderfully. But he was still feeling the effects of his stroke of half a year ago. There was a persistent ringing sound, like a bell, in his head, and he couldn't sleep more than three hours at night and one in the day. But he pushed on as always. He even wrote a letter to a disciple pointing out that although he had disturbance in his head, he was continuing to work on the transcendental plane; and he advised his disciples to do likewise.

Prabhupada again took up his translating of the Third Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam, which he had put aside for half a year. Living in the same house with the brahmacaris, he would wake before any of them and work at his translating. Then after they rose around five, they would hear him ringing a bell in his room, and they would smell incense. Because of their proximity, the boys would often drop by his room. They would watch Prabhupada sitting at his desk, fresh from his morning shower. He would meticulously place several tiny spoonfuls of water in his left palm and then rub a ball of Vrndavana clay into his palm, making the mixture for Vaisnava tilaka. Using a hand mirror, he would artistically make the markings of tilaka-first on his forehead and then on eleven other parts of the body-as directed by the Vaisnava smrti. Prabhupada would then hold his brahmana thread and silently say the Gayatri mantras, while facing the pictures of Krsna he had on a little altar.

One day, while sitting with Prabhupada in the morning, Upendra mentioned that the brahmacaris put their tilaka on while in the bathroom.

"No," said Prabhupada, "tilaka should be put on in front of Krsna, like this."

"Well," Upendra said, "here I've seen them putting it on in the bathroom."

"Do not worry too much about the rules and regulations. Just get everyone to chant Hare Krsna."


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