The building at 5364 West Pico Boulevard was a small storefront in a middle-class black neighborhood of Los Angeles. With his key, Aniruddha opened the rear door, and Srila Prabhupada entered, followed by a few disciples.
The room was stark. A Brijabasi print of Lord Krsna sat atop the altar, which was no more than two orange crates covered with an old madras. A tamboura and a mrdanga on end stood in one corner, and a curtain hung over the front window. Prabhupada's seat, a simple raised platform, was the only furniture.
Prabhupada, dressed in saffron robes and walking with a cane, crossed the room, opened the front door, and stepped outside. Glancing up and down the street, he saw small, run-down houses. It was a quiet, out-of-the-way neighborhood, unlike the more vital locations his disciples had found in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury and Manhattan's Lower East Side. But it was a place in Los Angeles, a start.
Prabhupada stepped back inside and shut the door. Aniruddha, Dayananda, his wife Nandarani, and their three-week-old daughter Candramukhi were there-the members of the Los Angeles temple. Several other devotees who had driven down a few days earlier from San Francisco were also there and stood anxiously around Prabhupada, waiting to hear what he would say.
Prabhupada looked around carefully. "All right," Srila Prabhupada said, "let us have kirtana. And picking up the mrdanga, he sat down on the small platform while his disciples sat down before him on the floor.
No sooner had he begun to play, however, when Janaki rushed over to him, carrying the tamboura. "Swamiji," she said, "you can't play the drum! You're not well enough! Play this." Her reprimand was motherly. Prabhupada was seventy-two and only six months ago had been hospitalized after a heart attack and stroke. He had only recently returned from India, where he had gone to recuperate. Naturally his disciples were concerned about his health.
"All right." Prabhupada smiled, trading instruments with Janaki. "Then I will play tamboura."
As Srila Prabhupada softly plucked the metal strings, his disciples clapped the one-two-three rhythm. Prabhupada chanted: "Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare." With his traditional Bengali melody he led the singing, joining with his disciples on the chorus.
As Prabhupada's disciples sat earnestly chanting before him-some of them looking up to him, others singing with eyes closed-he looked at each disciple. Nervous, timid Aniruddha was there; he blushed easily, and his bespectacled eyes squinted when he smiled. Tall, lean Dayananda was there; he had a good job as a computer technician for RCA, and he was giving two hundred dollars monthly to support the temple he and his wife had started.
Srila Prabhupada had been in India when Dayananda and Nandarani had moved to Los Angeles and found this little storefront. Immediately, they had written to him about the new "temple" and the warm, sunny Los Angeles climate, which they said would be good for his health. He had expressed his eagerness to join them.
I am pleased that our desire is fulfilled by the Grace of Lord Krishna. Your specific duty is to chant and hear the transcendental Name of the Lord, read some passages from my English version of the Srimad-Bhagavatam and Srimad Bhagavad Gita (Gitopanisad) and explain them as far as possible as you have heard from me. Any devotee who has developed genuine love for Krishna can also explain the truth about Krishna because Krishna helps such sincere devotee seated in his heart.
Dayananda and Nandarani had written to Prabhupada that people in Los Angeles weren't as receptive as in San Francisco and New York, but Prabhupada had assured them that if they chanted with devotion, success would come. Krsna would help them.
In his room at the Radha-Damodara temple in Vrndavana, Prabhupada had meditated on sending young men and women like Dayananda and Nandarani all over the world to open Krsna conscious centers. Despite old age and ill health, this was his life's ambition, his single dominating desire. And in whatever time he had left, he wanted to establish the Krsna consciousness movement worldwide. His success in America over the past two years had given him hope. Mukunda had begun a temple in San Francisco, Kirtanananda had begun one in Montreal, Satsvarupa in Boston, Subala in Santa Fe, and Brahmananda had stayed in New York. These temples were storefronts only, and the leaders’ young, inexperienced men. But the Western youth were showing interest. There was great potential.
After the kirtana, Dayananda drove Prabhupada to his apartment two miles away. It was small-a front room, a kitchenette, a back room with a tiny bathroom-and noisy. Aniruddha had arranged for Gaurasundara and his wife, Govinda dasi, who were acting as Prabhupada's servant and secretary, to stay in the front room.
Biographies and Glorifications of Srila Prabhupada Gita-nagari Press- Prabhupada-lila-Satsvarupa dasa Goswami-Opening a Temple in Los Angeles, 1968
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