Tamāla Kṛṣṇa was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Governing Body Commission secretary for India. Some of the devotees said that actually Prabhupāda was the G.B.C. secretary for India. Although he allowed his secretaries in other parts of the world to manage mostly on their own and to make their own decisions, in India he would scrutinize even small matters and make most of the decisions himself. Still, he counted on Tamāla Kṛṣṇa as his trusted assistant in important dealings. He would send Tamāla Kṛṣṇa from one Indian center to another to help the local devotees with governmental, legal, organizational, or preaching problems.

In Bombay, just prior to coming to Jaipur, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had asked Prabhupāda’s permission to take sannyāsa, the renounced order. Śrīla Prabhupāda had awarded sannyāsa to only a few men, and he had specified their duties as “traveling and preaching.” Taking sannyāsa, therefore, not only meant giving up wife and family but also renouncing managerial posts. At the same time as Prabhupāda had set up his Governing Body Commission, he had also initiated several sannyāsīs, purposefully not appointing any of them, even though they were some of his most able men, as G.B.C. secretaries. The gṛhasthas were to manage the temples as presidents and G.B.C. secretaries, and the sannyāsīs were to travel and preach. Śrīla Prabhupāda, therefore, had to carefully consider whether or not to give Tamāla Kṛṣṇa sannyāsa and thus lose his G.B.C. secretary for India.

On principle, Śrīla Prabhupāda liked the idea of giving Tamāla Kṛṣṇa sannyāsa. If a young man was actually qualified to give up family life and to use his intelligence and energy in preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then Prabhupāda was always ready to encourage it. The world was in dire need of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and even hundreds of sannyāsīs would still not be enough. On these grounds, how could he not appreciate the request of one of his leading disciples to take sannyāsa?But first he would test Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s determination.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa was insistent. Seeing that Prabhupāda would not make a commitment, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had adopted the tactic of presenting himself before Prabhupāda early in the morning without saying a word. In Bombay he had entered Prabhupāda’s room, led the maṅgala-ārati before the Deities, and then sat silently before Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Knowing the mind of his disciple, Prabhupāda could understand that Tamāla Kṛṣṇa was not only determined but obstinate. After several days of tolerating Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s silent insistent presence every morning, Prabhupāda had finally agreed to consider seriously the request.

Prabhupāda was also concerned with Mādrī-devī dāsī, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s wife. She was an attractive, intelligent girl who had given her life to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, by his own choice, had married her only a year ago. Spiritually, Mādrī was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s daughter, and Prabhupāda wanted to protect her from undue disturbance. Even as householders, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa and his wife had been renounced, traveling with Prabhupāda throughout India, with little time or facility for private life as husband and wife.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had been in Bombay when Śyāmasundara had informed him that Prabhupāda had mentioned in a letter to Brahmānanda Swami in Africa that Tamāla Kṛṣṇa might take sannyāsa. Spurred on, he had left his wife in Bombay and joined Prabhupāda in Jaipur. On leaving, however, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had asked Mādrī for his personal copies of the first three volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, signed by Śrīla Prabhupāda. Mādrī had become suspicious. She had asked why he wanted them. “I just want to read them,” Tamāla Kṛṣṇa had answered. But she had suspected the worst: “No, you’re not coming back.” But assuring her that he would definitely be returning, he had left for Jaipur.

Once with Śrīla Prabhupāda, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa again resumed his silent insistence. Whenever there would be an open meeting in Prabhupāda’s room, the G.B.C. leaders would usually sit in a privileged position near Prabhupāda, so as to best receive direct instruction. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, however, would simply sit outside the door. The first time he did this, Prabhupāda looked up and said, “Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, you are sitting outside? That is very nice,” and the other devotees took it that Prabhupāda was praising his disciple’s humility.

When on one occasion Prabhupāda addressed Tamāla Kṛṣṇa as “Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja,” the devotees were startled. The women devotees in Jaipur, being close friends with Mādrī, became angry at what they took to be Tamāla Kṛṣṇa’s duplicity.

Although Prabhupāda had not given permission, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa went ahead with his plans, even to the point of preparing his sannyāsa-daṇḍa and dying his clothes. The women were outraged; Mādrī was not even there to represent herself. All together the women went to see Śrīla Prabhupāda, who patiently and sympathetically heard their presentation.

Then Prabhupāda called for Tamāla Kṛṣṇa and said, “Your wife is my daughter, my disciple, and I have to think for her also. So I do not know how I can do this, because she will be in great difficulty.” Tamāla Kṛṣṇa argued, but Prabhupāda pacified him and asked him to be patient. The sannyāsa issue had become a topic of controversy among the devotees in Jaipur. The men were rooting for sannyāsa, and the women were opposed. Prabhupāda, however, remained grave.

Throughout the week-long festival large crowds continued to come for Prabhupāda’s morning and evening lectures. Prabhupāda would chant prayers from Brahma-saṁhitā and then lecture in Hindi. Not only did the citizens of Jaipur honor Prabhupāda, but they honored his disciples also. Here, more than in most other Indian cities, the devotees were treated not as foreigners or outsiders but as sādhus. “This whole city is made of devotees of Rādhā-Govindajī,” Prabhupāda commented. The police chief, who visited often, was cordial and respectful. As Prabhupāda and his disciples went from place to place in Jaipur during the day, policemen would salute them, halting traffic to let them pass. People invited Śrīla Prabhupāda to their homes, and they treated him like a king.

Prabhupāda had also asked several women devotees to carefully observe the Deity worship in Jaipur. They informed him they had observed that every night the Deities were dressed in night clothes and that Their clothes were also changed at two other times, in the morning and in the afternoon. The women told Prabhupāda how a priest offered the Deities scented oils on cotton-tipped sticks, which the priests would later offer, along with flower garlands from the Deities, to the incoming worshipers in exchange for fresh garlands. These devotional practices were standard, Prabhupāda said, and could be introduced throughout ISKCON.

Each evening Prabhupāda spoke at the paṇḍāl, and often a respectable Jaipur citizen would introduce him. When the queen of Jaipur introduced him one evening, she expressed her devotional sentiments for Prabhupāda and his movement.

After lecturing each evening, Prabhupāda would stay for a slide show of ISKCON’s activities around the world. One night during the slide show, Śrīla Prabhupāda called Tamāla Kṛṣṇa over beside his vyāsāsana. “Taking sannyāsa will be difficult now,” he said softly. “Your wife will suffer too much.” He sat back a moment while Tamāla Kṛṣṇa took in what he had said. Then Tamāla Kṛṣṇa leaned forward and said with determination, “One way or another, Śrīla Prabhupāda, she’s going to suffer. Either she’ll suffer now when I take sannyāsa, or if I take sannyāsa later on, she will be just as unhappy. There will never be a time when she’ll want me to. So since the feeling is going to be the same, it might as well come now. Free me. She’ll get over it.”

Prabhupāda said no more, but he remained thoughtful. Later that night after the paṇḍāl program, he called for his sannyāsī disciples, Subala, Madhudviṣa, Gargamuni, and Devānanda, and for his personal secretary, Śyāmasundara. Gathering them together along with Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, he said, “Tamāla Kṛṣṇa wants to take sannyāsa. So what is your opinion? Should he take or not?”

Everyone agreed he should. Finally, Prabhupāda consented. “You will have to prepare things,” he said.

“Things are prepared already,” Tamāla Kṛṣṇa said.

“Then,” said Prabhupāda, “tomorrow morning we must have the ceremony.”

The next morning Prabhupāda performed a special ceremony in the paṇḍāl, lighting the sacrificial fire and offering Tamāla Kṛṣṇa the sannyāsa-daṇḍa. The women were angry with Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, but it was too late.

After the ceremony Prabhupāda called Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja to his room. “You have given up a very good wife and a high position. Therefore I am giving you the title Gosvāmī. Now you have to be in the same mood as the Gosvāmīs, being able to preach all over the world and accept disciples.” Suddenly Prabhupāda began to laugh. “I have been testing you,” he said, “to see whether or not you were determined. So what will you do?”

“I thought I would go with my daṇḍa,” said Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī, “and, without anybody else, simply wander from city to city in India and preach about Kṛṣṇa, without any vehicle or anything, just like Lord Caitanya did.”

“Very good,” Prabhupāda said. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja offered obeisances and walked out.

Scarcely an hour later, however, Prabhupāda called him back. “This is not a very good proposal,” he said. “If you want to do something, you should have some assistants and facilities at your disposal.” Prabhupāda then assigned a couple of brahmacārīs to go with Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja for preaching. He also gave his new sannyāsī his first assignment. Immediately after Jaipur, Prabhupāda was planning to go to a festival in Nairobi, Africa, yet in Ahmedabad another program awaited him. “You go on my behalf to Ahmedabad,” said Prabhupāda.

At Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī’s sannyāsa initiation, Śrīla Prabhupāda had given him the sannyāsa-mantra, a verse that describes the surrendered, devotional attitude of the Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī. Vaiṣṇava sannyāsa emphasizes engaging one’s body, mind, and words in ecstatic service to Kṛṣṇa, as distinguished from the sannyāsa of the impersonalists, who speculate on Brahman or sit alone in silent meditation. The Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī, by taking shelter of the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, crosses the ocean of nescience and brings others across with him.

As Śrīla Prabhupāda was demonstrating, a Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī should travel all over the world, working with all his might to reclaim the fallen souls on behalf of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Vaiṣṇava sannyāsa meant coming to places like Jaipur and preaching. It meant worshiping Govindajī in the temple, and it meant sending Rādhā-Govinda to be worshiped by the devotees in New York City. It meant allowing women an equal opportunity to become pure devotees in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And it meant separating a man from his wife for the higher purpose of sannyāsa.

Śrīla Prabhupāda, although beyond the varṇāśrama designation of sannyāsa, was nevertheless the best sannyāsī and the creator of many other sannyāsīs, whom he instructed to follow in his footsteps. He said his sannyāsīs should do even more than he – make more followers, publish more books, and establish more ISKCON centers.

Bombay
January 24, 1972
On returning to Bombay, Prabhupāda was disappointed to find that the devotees had neither paid Mr. N. nor moved to Juhu. Madhudviṣa Swami, whom Prabhupāda had put in charge, frankly admitted his inability to accept the responsibility for such a difficult project. The disciple Prabhupāda had originally deputed to handle such affairs was Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja. But now that he had taken sannyāsa, he had renounced his G.B.C. duties for traveling and preaching, and Prabhupāda was without a manager for Bombay. Already Prabhupāda was doing most of the managing, but he couldn’t do everything – he couldn’t stay constantly in Bombay.

Searching for a veteran disciple to manage Juhu, Prabhupāda thought of Brahmānanda Swami, who was still preaching in Nairobi. Prabhupāda decided to fly to Africa and invite Brahmānanda Swami to come and manage Bombay. He wanted to act swiftly, so that ISKCON could take possession of the land. Even if Mr. N. changed his mind later, once the devotees were living on the land, getting them to leave would be very difficult for him.

Śrīla Prabhupāda planned to fly to Nairobi immediately, and he wanted to carry large Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities with him. The Deities he had previously sent to Nairobi had been broken in shipping, so this time Prabhupāda brought with him strong-bodied Madhudviṣa Swami to carry the thirty-six-inch marble Deities. With special permission from the airlines, Prabhupāda boarded, followed by Madhudviṣa Swami, who held in his arms the one-hundred-pound Deity of Kṛṣṇa. After setting Kṛṣṇa in place beside Prabhupāda’s seat, Madhudviṣa Swami left the plane and came back carrying Rādhārāṇī.

Prabhupāda passed most of the flight debating with Madhudviṣa Swami, who took the position of the impersonalist. Prabhupāda would always defeat him. “This is how you become a preacher,” Prabhupāda said. “You must be able to take both sides of the argument and defeat your adversary. This is what Lord Caitanya would do.”

Since Prabhupāda’s first visit to Nairobi four months ago, Brahmānanda Swami and a few American devotees had rented a house near the city. They had recruited some African devotees but had not yet developed the temple and āśrama. Barely able to maintain their own simple program, they were unprepared to receive Śrīla Prabhupāda properly.

Typical of Prabhupāda’s stay in Nairobi was his arrival: no one was at the airport to meet him. The devotees were not even sure if Prabhupāda was coming. Prabhupāda’s secretary had phoned Brahmānanda Swami that Prabhupāda was willing to come to Kenya but that Brahmānanda Swami should try to arrange a meeting with the president and schedule a big paṇḍāl festival. Brahmānanda Swami, however, had never received a clear message of when Prabhupāda was coming.

At the airport Prabhupāda and Madhudviṣa Swami carefully put the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities into a taxicab and rode with Them to the address of the ISKCON center. Prabhupāda rang the doorbell, and when Brahmānanda Swami opened the door and saw his spiritual master, he cried out, “Prabhupāda!” and bowed down.

“What happened?” Prabhupāda asked, standing beside Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. “Why no one came to pick us up at the airport?” Brahmānanda Swami was unable to reply.

No sooner did Prabhupāda arrive than his assistant, Madhudviṣa Swami, became bedridden with hepatitis. Prabhupāda had left his regular secretary, Śyāmasundara, in India to work on a legal case concerning the Māyāpur land, so he was now without a personal assistant.

In Nairobi Prabhupāda followed his usual schedule of bathing in the afternoon and then putting on fresh clothes, but one day after his bath he found that no clothes were ready. When he asked for them, Brahmānanda Swami explained that the African servant had washed them and put them on the line to dry. But when Brahmānanda Swami had gone to get them, they hadn’t been there; apparently someone had stolen them from the clothesline. Prabhupāda tolerated the inconvenience without any display of emotion.

That evening, when the devotees of ISKCON Nairobi gathered in the temple to hear Prabhupāda speak from Bhagavad-gītā, Prabhupāda saw the different items of stolen clothing on the African boys; one boy wore the kurtā, another the top piece, and another the dhotī. Prabhupāda pointed this out to Brahmānanda Swami, who immediately took the boys out and retrieved the clothing from them. When Brahmānanda Swami returned the clothes, Prabhupāda didn’t seem to take the offense seriously, but only laughed.

Prabhupāda did not laugh, however, at the Nairobi devotees’ bad cooking. When they served him white maize mush, he called it pig food, and the hard, white chickpeas, he said, were suitable only for horses. Then Harikṛpā, a black devotee from America, went to the kitchen, boiled some vegetables, and served them to Prabhupāda without any spicing. Prabhupāda called it dog food. “You are still an uneducated African,” he told Harikṛpā. And he went into the kitchen to cook for himself. Almost a dozen devotees joined him, watching him cook a complete meal of dāl, rice, capātīs, and sabjī. He cooked enough for all the devotees, and everyone was satisfied. Bad cooking and stolen clothing, however, continued to be problems during Prabhupāda’s week-long stay in Nairobi.

Brahmānanda Swami found that Prabhupāda was mostly absorbed in his Bombay project. “The only reason I’ve come,” Śrīla Prabhupāda told Brahmānanda Swami, “is to get you for this.” Once he asked Brahmānanda Swami, “Which is the most important city in India?”

“Calcutta?” Brahmānanda replied.

“Calcutta?” Prabhupāda looked at him oddly. “Don’t you know Bombay is number one? Delhi is number two, and Calcutta is number three.”

Prabhupāda encouraged Brahmānanda Swami to return with him and take charge of the Bombay project. This Bombay project, he said, would be unique within ISKCON, incorporating the religious with the cultural in a gorgeous temple, international hotel, theater, and diorama exhibition. Seeing Prabhupāda’s strong desire, Brahmānanda Mahārāja agreed to somehow relinquish his Nairobi responsibilities to others and help in Bombay.

In yet another way Prabhupāda’s visit to Nairobi connected with his Bombay project. When Brahmānanda Swami and Cyavana showed Prabhupāda the Nairobi Hilton, a modern building with twin round towers, Prabhupāda liked the design and wanted to give it to his architect for the Bombay hotel and temple.

Prabhupāda, Brahmānanda Swami, Bhāgavata, and an African devotee were walking in Nairobi’s public gardens. On being introduced to Prabhupāda, the African had inquired, “If I want to, can I get married?”

“Oh, yes,” said Prabhupāda.

“But Prabhupāda,” the boy continued, “if you want to get married in our community, the boy has to pay money to the father of the bride.”

This was exactly opposite the Vedic system, Prabhupāda replied, wherein the father of the bride presents a dowry to his son-in-law. Hearing this, Prabhupāda’s new disciple looked worried. He asked, “Then, will you give me money when I want to get my wife? Because I’m not working now, I’m just working for you. When I want to get my wife, will you give me money?”

Prabhupāda shook his head. “You don’t worry about all of this,” he said “ – whether you’ll get a wife, or whether you will get money, or this or that. Later on, when it is time for you to get married, I will bring one American girl, and you will marry her.”

Wherever Prabhupāda turned in his fledgling Nairobi temple, he found neophyte disciples and discrepancies. Walking into the brahmacārī āśrama, he found books, boards, and paint cans scattered about the room. When he said things should be kept more neatly and orderly, the temple commander, Harikṛpā, replied, “Prabhupāda, I try to tell them, but these boys don’t listen to me.”

Prabhupāda bent down and picked up some pieces of wood. “If they don’t do it,” he said, “then you should do it! Put these over here.” And Prabhupāda began engaging all the men present. Within five minutes the room was neat.

The World Hare Kṛṣṇa Movement Festival at Nairobi’s City Stadium was a combination success and failure. Although Brahmānanda Swami had managed to see many highly posted government officials and diplomats, many of whom had promised to attend the festival, none of them actually appeared – except for Mr. Y. Komora, Kenya’s director of education. But an audience of several hundred attended kīrtana, heard Prabhupāda’s speech, and took prasādam.

Although the devotees had invited the leading Kenyan citizens to enhance the glorification of Kṛṣṇa, their honored guest, Mr. Komora, used the opportunity to speak in praise of Kenya. Nevertheless, he spoke highly of Prabhupāda and the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Regarding Bhagavad-gītā, he said, “Your learned founder has made this great book available in the English tradition with an erudite commentary.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda also attended other engagements in and around Nairobi. He told his Nairobi disciples that in preaching to the Africans they should stress the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa by holding public kīrtanas. Lord Caitanya, he said, spoke philosophy only with learned scholars like Sanātana and Rūpa Gosvāmī, never with ordinary men. “Just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa,” he said. “This should be appreciated.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda installed the Deities of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and named the Nairobi temple Kirāta-śuddhi, “a place for purifying the aborigines.” One day shortly after the Deity installation, however, Prabhupāda walked into the temple room and was shocked to find the Deities out of Their proper place in the center of the altar. Kṛṣṇa was standing to the far left beside the bottom step leading up to the altar, and Rādhārāṇī stood to the far right.

“Who has done this?” Prabhupāda called out loudly. Bhāgavata came running into the temple room. He also was astonished.

“Who has put Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa ten miles apart?” Prabhupāda demanded. “Don’t you know these things? How many times do I have to teach you?”

Bhūta-bhāvana suddenly appeared, admitting that he was the culprit. “Why are They so far apart?” Prabhupāda asked.

“I don’t know, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” said Bhūta-bhāvana. “I guess I just forgot. I was being rushed to go to the festival.”

“So,” Prabhupāda demanded, “does that mean They should be put out in the street?” Bhūta-bhāvana froze, unable to reply. Prabhupāda relented. “Take Them and put Them together,” he said. “They should not be moved more than three inches apart. Now do it nicely.”

After a week Prabhupāda left Nairobi and returned to Bombay. He had gone there to get Brahmānanda Swami. And he had accomplished his mission. “Unless you agreed to take charge,” Prabhupāda said, “I could not go ahead and pay so much money. Now it is decided.” He felt new hope.

Prabhupāda envisioned his Bombay project as extraordinary within ISKCON and even among all the temples of India. Many of the details of the project already existed within his mind, but he needed competent disciples to carry them out. He was still the lone leader of ISKCON, forging ahead to bring into reality new phases of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. His disciples were behind him, but it was always he who led. Even when he wanted his disciples as leaders of various ISKCON projects, they sometimes could not handle the responsibility. Therefore Śrīla Prabhupāda had gone to Nairobi in the mood of the Bengali aphorism he sometimes quoted: “If you want to accomplish a thing, do it by your own hand.” So by his own hand he had brought Brahmānanda Swami from Nairobi to Bombay. And simultaneously he had benefited the devotees and the general populace of Nairobi.

Bombay
February 8, 1972
Prabhupāda met with Mr. N. and reiterated that he wanted to move onto the land as soon as Mr. N. received the second fifty thousand rupees. Mr. N. stood firm on their agreement, and Prabhupāda put the matter into the hands of his lawyer, Mr. D., for legal processing.

Although Prabhupāda was making all the managerial decisions, he wanted the G.B.C. secretaries to take on the responsibility for these practical affairs. He thought it better to use his energy in writing and translating books. “If you G.B.C. do everything nicely,” he told his secretary Śyāmasundara, “then my brain will not be taxed and I can utilize my time completely to produce further books. I can give you Vedas, Upaniṣads, Purāṇas, Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa – so many. There are so many devotional works in our line by the Gosvāmīs. This administrative work is taking too much time. I could be discussing philosophy. My brain is being taxed day and night. Because of this I’m neglecting my real work.”

Aside from directly managing the Indian projects, Prabhupāda was answering as many as a dozen letters daily from devotees around the world. “Why do they keep writing, asking so many questions?” he asked his secretary.

“The devotees prefer to ask you personally,” Śyāmasundara said, “because their G.B.C. men don’t always know the right answer.”

“They know everything by now,” Prabhupāda replied. “I have given you everything. If they don’t know the answer, they can find it in my books. Now I am an old man. Let me settle down to philosophy. All day reading letters, doing business, all night signing letters – this is not right. I want to be free from these things. The G.B.C. can do everything now.”

But it wasn’t possible. As soon as Prabhupāda would sense that one of his devotees was being cheated, he would immediately become actively involved. And his disciples continued to write him regarding important business and managerial decisions. Nor would he discourage them. His desire for retirement and exclusive literary work remained, but it seemed to be only a wishful thought, a dream. If ISKCON were to develop, then there seemed little scope for his retirement.

After the meeting with Mr. N., Prabhupāda prepared to leave for South India for a five-day paṇḍāl program in Madras; also on his itinerary were visits to Calcutta, Māyāpur, and Vṛndāvana. As he prepared to leave Bombay he felt happy that ISKCON would soon occupy the new Juhu property, and he frequently spoke of his plans.