After graduating from high school in 1966, my friend and I went to the Village in New York City to check out the scene. While there, we heard a, ‘ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching’ and turned around. Looking through the intense heat waves we saw, in double file, a group of somebodies or somethings in saffron orange clothes, singing, playing instruments, and floating down the hot sidewalk. I turned to my friend and said, “New York sure is a weird place. Let’s get out of here!” She and I crossed the road. To this day, we clearly remember the incident.
My parents wanted me to go to college. I went, hated it, and quit before the first trimester was finished. I became a secretary in a huge corporation, which soon went against the grain of my wild desires that were brewing inside me. So I decided the best way to really become happy was not by earning a lot of money, but was to become a hippy and during that time, I again came in contact with devotees at some of the ‘pop festivals.’ I ended up settling in Madison, Wisconsin, where my brother was in college, but gradually came to the realization that my hippy lifestyle wasn’t satisfying, so gave that up. (And I was one of those abnormal hippies because I liked to be clean.) I kept thinking that there must be a deeper meaning to life; everything was so temporary and frustrating and I was still feeling unfulfilled.
After my consciousness started to clear a bit, I came in contact with the process of meditation that Maharishi advocated (around 1970) but quickly saw the futility in that. Around the same time, the devotees started coming to Madison and held feasts at the YWCA. I happened to be in the room organizing the “free school” when they came to do their program one Sunday afternoon. I became intrigued by the kirtan, discourse, and skit, although I declined prasadam because I was fasting. Later my German boyfriend and I decided to go to a Sunday feast at their newly acquired house. That’s what really did it.
During the lecture, every question I ever had was answered to my full satisfaction! And as I got to know the devotees a little, I thought I’d like to be nice like them someday. When I looked at pictures of Srila Prabhupada, I felt he was my father. I could completely trust him. And I immediately began following the principles and chanting 16 rounds and never looked back. In those days, we bought a bag of beads, strung them, and then stained them individually. Sankirtan (the actor and story-teller) and his wife, Ruci, (a long-time gurukula teacher), who were also practicing Krsna consciousness there, gave me much encouragement and to them I owe so much.
But my Madison days didn’t last long because the center was closed down by the GBC. Those few of us newcomers who were practicing Krsna consciousness decided to hold Bhagavad-gita classes 3 nights a week and we cooked for the Sunday feast we held down by the lake. It was successful, although I’m not so sure our cooking was. But in those days it didn’t take much to satisfy an empty belly!
My boyfriend’s visa was up so he had to go back to Germany. I decided I would go and visit him, come back to New Vrindaban, where Srila Prabhupada was supposed to be, and then travel to different temples and join the temple of my choice. After arriving in Germany, I saw my boyfriend for only one day – his interest was not really in Krsna consciousness and consequently, my interest was no longer in him. I left him to go to the Hamburg temple. Once there, I walked up several flights into an old warehouse-turned- temple. I was wearing my blue jean overalls, carrying a backpack with my sleeping bag, a few changes of clothes, tambourine, Krsna book, the first edition of Bhagavad-gita As It Is, and around my neck hung my orange beadbag on which I had embroidered Hare Krsna and some flowers.
The devotees in Hamburg thought I’d never stay, but I never left. A few weeks after my arrival in the temple, we went to Paris where I was personally initiated by Srila Prabhupada, who explained my name to me. That was July 23, 1972. From there we went to Amsterdam for the installation of Jagannath, Baladeva, and Subhadra. A year later I received my second initiation. We also went to Paris for the installation of Sri Sri Radha-Paris Isvara and in ’74 went to Stockholm, Sweden to see Srila Prabhupada. He also came to Germany, to Schloss Rettershoff. Listening to and watching Srila Prabhupada during those two Deity installations trained me up in the mentality one needs to have while engaging in Deity worship.
In the beginning of 1974, my marriage was arranged to Sivananda prabhu, the first devotee to go to Europe in 1968, one month before the devotees went to London. (And we are still married.) He single-handedly opened up the first temple in Germany. While there, I engaged in book distribution and the beginnings of my Deity worship. My husband and I would also go to east Berlin to preach. Of course, we had to be very careful. So one devotee was made at that time and my husband performed the fire yajna on behalf of Srila Prabhupada, who named that devotee Eka dasa. Many things were smuggled into east Berlin and I successfully smuggled in the large MacMillian Bhagavad-gita. Sometimes, when I take pride in this, I remember how scared I was – and not depending on Krsna – and I am embarrassed, so that keeps me with “my tail between my legs.” We also tried to smuggle Eka across the border, but that is a story in and of itself.
We had to leave Germany at the very end of 1974. My husband had originally dodged the draft before practicing Krsna consciousness and after our fire sacrifice, when we went to get legally married, his passport was taken away and without a passport, one could not stay in Germany, which was a police state. Uncle Sam, they said, wanted him back: there had been a federal warrant for his arrest all this time. And that is another story. Our son, Syama- Kunda, was born in 1975 in Boston.
After Germany we lived in various temples, where I have engaged in Deity worship, preaching, gurukula (both ashram and academics and I love to teach reading and writing down the funny things the kids say), and have done a lot of dramas with both children and adults. I also grow beautiful and fragrant flowers, do editing and writing. The last time I saw Srila Prabhupada was in 1976, at the first New York Rathyatra. One morning, after gurupuja, Srila Prabhupada was handing out cookies. I went up and got mine, but my son, not yet a year old and who I was holding, kept staring at Srila Prabhupada and didn’t take the cookie Prabhupada tried handing him. I backed away but he motioned for me to come back. He then so mercifully and completely satisfied my heart as he shoved a cookie into my son’s little hand. I floated away. To Srila Prabhupada I give my life. I owe him everything. Hare Krsna.
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