Srila Prabhupada’s disciple Tejiyas das sent me this remembrance, and I thought to share it with you.
During Srila Prabhupada’s visit to the Hyderabad farm, there was a lot of tension created by one devotee, as he was so politically minded that he could see me and Hamsaduta only as enemies (his mindset was “enemy or friend”).
Srila Prabhupada tried to mediate, sometimes roughing me up with words such as “Do not be bureaucratic,” and even instructing me to “go out in back and fight it out with the devotee and finish this.”
Hamsaduta was unhelpful—unknown to me, drunk on a liter a day of 45 percent Ayurvedic Sarivadi Salsa.
Somehow, one day we all went to Srila Prabhupada’s room at the same moment, and despite our differences, we just sat in front of him, as we were all astounded by what we were witnessing: The sun was shining through the window, painting Srila Prabhupada with golden-white rays. His eyes were firmly closed but without strain or tightness. He sat upright on his cushion behind his desk, between the side cushions and the backrest. He had his right hand in his bead bag, and we could see how he was attentively fingering his beads and they were clacking as he rubbed them between his fingers. You could see the movement of the beads under the cloth of the bag. His face was serene, but by every indication he was fixed on hearing the holy names. As he chanted Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, his tongue rolled in his mouth, and his lips were almost rolling in a circle, too. It appeared that he was tasting something, chewing it gently. His chanting was distinctly audible, his words articulate and clear, and he stressed them as he spoke each syllable. His head was swinging slightly left and right with a subtle up-and-down motion. Simultaneously, all three of us dove our hands into our bead bags and joined His Divine Grace in japa. You could sense that we were momentarily united and transcendent to our differences. We watched him with open eyes, delighting in this rare vision. After some time, Srila Prabhupada opened his eyes for a moment and without moving looked at all of us at the same time and said, “Go on chanting and all your problems will be solved.”
Source: https://girirajswami.com/blog/?p=17498
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