Prabhupāda had begun Back to Godhead magazine in India. Although he had been writing articles since the 1930s, it was in 1944, in Calcutta, that he had singlehandedly begun the magazine, in response to his spiritual master’s request that he preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness in English. It had been with great difficulty that through his pharmaceutical business he had managed to gather the four hundred rupees a month for printing. And he had singlehandedly written, edited, published, financed, and distributed each issue. In those early years, Back to Godhead had been Prabhupāda’s major literary work and preaching mission. He had envisioned widespread distribution of the magazine, and he had thought of plans for spreading the message of Lord Caitanya all over the world. He had drawn up a list of major countries and the number of copies of Back to Godhead he wanted to send to each. He sought donations to finance this project, but help was scarce. Then, in 1959, he had turned his energies toward writing and publishing the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam . But now he wanted to revive Back to Godhead, and this time it would not be done singlehandedly. This time he would give the responsibility to his disciples.

Greg Scharf, now Gargamuni since his recent initiation, found a press. A country club in Queens was trying to sell its small A.B. Dick press. Prabhupāda was interested, and he rode out to Queens in a borrowed van with Gargamuni and Kīrtanānanda to see the machine. It was old, but in good condition. The manager of the country club wanted $250 for it. Prabhupāda looked over the machine carefully and talked with the manager, telling him of his spiritual mission. The manager mentioned a second press he had on hand and explained that neither machine was actually of any use to him. So Prabhupāda said he would pay $250 for both machines; the country club did not really need them, and besides, the manager should help out, since Prabhupāda had an important spiritual message to print for the benefit of all humanity. The man agreed. Prabhupāda had Gargamuni and Kīrtanānanda load both machines into the van, and ISKCON had its printing press.

Śrīla Prabhupāda gave over the editorship of Back to Godhead magazine to Hayagrīva and Rāya Rāma. For so many years he had taken Back to Godhead as his personal service to his spiritual master, but now he would let young men like Hayagrīva, the college English teacher, and Rāya Rāma, the professional writer, take up Back to Godhead magazine as their service to their spiritual master. In a short time, Hayagrīva and Rāya Rāma had compiled the first issue and were ready to print.

It was an off night – no public kīrtana and lecture – and Swamiji was up in his room working on his translation of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam . Downstairs, the printing of the first issue had been going on for hours. Rāya Rāma had typed the stencils, and during the printing he had stood nervously over the machine, examining the printing quality of each page, stroking his beard, and murmuring, “Hmmmmm.” Now it was time to collate and staple each magazine. The stencils had lasted for one hundred copies, and one hundred copies of each of the twenty-eight pages and the front and back covers were now lined up along two of the unvarnished benches Raphael had made that summer. A few devotees collated and stapled the magazine in an assembly line, walking along the stacks of pages, taking one page under another until they reached the end of the bench and gave the assembled stack of pages to Gargamuni, who stood brushing his long hair out of his eyes, stapling each magazine with the stapler and staples Brahmānanda had brought from his Board of Education office. Even Hayagrīva, who usually didn’t volunteer for menial duties, was there, walking down the line, collating.

Suddenly the side door opened, and to their surprise they saw Swamiji looking in at them. Then he opened the door wide and entered the room. He had never come down like this on an off night before. They felt an unexpected flush of emotion and love for him, and they dropped down on their knees, bowing their heads to the floor. “No, no,” he said, raising his hand to stop them as some were still bowing and others already rising to their feet. “Continue what you are doing.” When they stood up and saw him standing with them, they weren’t sure what to do. But obviously he had come down to see them producing his Back to Godhead magazine, so they continued working, silently and efficiently. Prabhupāda walked down the row of pages, his hand and wrist extending gracefully from the folds of his shawl as he touched a stack of pages and then a finished magazine. “ISKCON Press,” he said.

Jagannātha had designed the cover, using a pen-and-ink drawing of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa similar to his painting in the temple. It was a simple drawing set within a pattern of concentric circles. The first page opened with the same motto Prabhupāda had used for years on his Back to Godhead: “Godhead is light, nescience is darkness. Where there is Godhead there is no nescience.” And on the same page, Hayagrīva had not been able to resist giving a quotation from William Blake, approved by Swamiji, which substantiated the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness:

God appears, and God is Light
To those poor souls who dwell in Night,
But does a Human Form display
To those who dwell in realms of Day.

Although the editorial spoke of Blake, Whitman, and Jesus Christ, it stressed:

… it is to teach this science [of devotion to God] that Swami Bhaktivedanta has come to America. His message is simple: the chanting of the Holy Name of God: “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare …”

Following the orders of his spiritual master, His Divine Grace Sri Srimad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupad, Swami Bhaktivedanta began the initial publication of Back to Godhead in 1944. This bi-monthly, published from 1944 to 1956 in Vrindaban, India, … established Swami Bhaktivedanta as the leading Personalist in India. This issue marks the first publication of Back to Godhead in the West.

The main article, a summary of a lecture given by Prabhupāda, was based on notes taken by Umāpati.

It has been said that when we wake up and when we go to sleep, we should beat our mind a thousand times with a shoe. When the mind says things like, “Why sing ‘Hare Krishna’? Why not take LSD?” we should beat it with the same shoe. However, if we always think of Krishna, no beating will be necessary. The mind will be our best friend.

And there was an article by Hayagrīva: “Flip Out and Stay.” Hayagrīva had quoted liberally from Hart Crane and Walt Whitman.

No wonder so many young collegiates are trying to flip out permanently on superdrugs … Perhaps this is their way of saying, “We don’t want any part of this hell you’ve made for yourselves.” So they use psychedelics as a springboard to propel themselves into different realms … But the drug “flip” is only temporary. It is temporary because it is artificial … One really begins to wonder where all these “trips” are leading.

Hayagrīva concluded that kṛṣṇa-kīrtana is the quickest way to flip out without coming down.

Your associates will think you mad. That is the first sign of progress. Just let others be mad for māyā, the old ephemeral lures of women and gold … But [you] be mad instead for the Reality.

In the back of the magazine was an ad for Swamiji’s essays, Krishna, the Reservoir of Pleasure and Who is Crazy? and a notice:

Soon to be printed:
Geetopanishad, or Bhagavad-gītā As It Is ,
Translated and with commentaries by Swami Bhaktivedanta.

Prabhupāda’s first and main instruction to his editors had been that they should produce the magazine regularly – every month. Even if they didn’t know how to sell the copies or even if they only turned out two pages, they had to continue bearing the standard.

He called Hayagrīva to his room and presented him a complete three- volume set of his Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam . On the front page of each volume he had written, “To Sriman Hayagriva das Brahmacari with my blessings, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami.” Hayagrīva was grateful and mentioned that he had not been able to afford them. “That’s all right,” Prabhupāda said. “Now you compile this Back to Godhead. Work sincerely, and make it as big as Time magazine.”

Prabhupāda wanted all his disciples to take part in it. “Don’t be dull,” he said. “Write something.” He wanted to give his disciples Back to Godhead for their own preaching. Brahmānanda and Gargamuni took the first issues out that same night on bicycles, riding to every head shop on the Lower East Side, all the way to Fourteenth Street and as far west as the West Village, until they had distributed all one hundred issues. This was an increase in the preaching. Now all his students could take part in the work – typing, editing, writing, assembling, selling. It was his preaching, of course, but he wasn’t alone anymore.

“Over a short four months, the society has expanded sufficiently to warrant larger quarters than the small Second Avenue storefront temple,” stated the editorial in the second issue of Back to Godhead. Prabhupāda had not abandoned his idea for a big building in New York City. Greenwich Village real estate was too expensive, and midtown was out of the question, but Prabhupāda still said he wanted to buy a building. It was difficult for his followers to think of Kṛṣṇa consciousness as anything more than a Lower East Side movement, because who but the people of the Lower East Side would be interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness? And anyway, who had money to buy a building in Manhattan?

But one day, Ravīndra-svarūpa had happened to meet someone – a wealthy Jewish heir who was sympathetic toward youth movements – who agreed to loan Swamiji five thousand dollars. Ravīndra-svarūpa had arranged the loan, and Swamiji had designated the money as his building fund, to which he had gradually added another five thousand dollars that he had collected through incidental donations. But with suitable buildings starting at one hundred thousand dollars, even this sum seemed petty.

Swamiji went with Brahmānanda to look at a building on Sixth Street that had previously been the Jewish Providential Bank. It had a large lobby with a mezzanine, marble floors, and the atmosphere of a temple. Brahmānanda suggested that the vault area could be remodeled for use as a dormitory, and Swamiji considered the mezzanine for his own apartment. The large lobby, he said, could be used for kīrtanas and lectures. On leaving the building, however, Prabhupāda noted that it was located on the corner, by a bus stop. It would not be a good location. The Gaudiya Math branch at Bhag Bazaar in Calcutta, he said, was also located at a bus stop, and the noisy engines of the buses as they started up created a disturbance.

Prabhupāda next looked at the Temple Emanu-El, also on Sixth Street on the Lower East Side. It was even larger than the bank building, and when some of Swamiji’s disciples walked through the cavernous, empty rooms, they became bewildered to think how, even if they could get such a place, they would be able to manage or use it.

He visited other places: one so neglected and in such poor repair that it looked as though it had been vandalized, and another, in similar condition, filled with lumber stacked almost to the ceiling. He asked Rūpānuga, who had accompanied him, what he thought, and Rūpānuga said, “Too much time and money to fix it up.” So they left. Swamiji returned to his room and went into the bathroom, where he washed his feet in the tub. He said that it was an Indian custom that after walking outside you wash your feet.

Then the devotees met Mr. Price, an elegantly dressed real estate agent. “You have a handful of stars,” Mr. Price told Brahmānanda. “You’re incorporated as a tax-free religious organization. You have no idea how much money this will save. So many people have to vacate just because they can’t pay their taxes. But ‘someone up there’ is looking after you people, and I have just the place for you and your Swami.”

Mr. Price showed Brahmānanda a handsome three-story building near St. Mark’s Place. It was a good downtown location, near the young people, yet in an area where the uptown people would feel safe. The floors were polished hardwood, all the doors were ornately hand-carved, and it had a large hall, suitable for a temple. The Marquis de Lafayette had stayed here during his visit in 1824, a fact that added to the building’s charm and prestige.

One evening, Mr. Price visited Prabhupāda up in his room, Prabhupāda sitting on the floor behind his desk and Mr. Price sitting on a metal folding chair. Mr. Price wore an elegant suit and a white dress shirt with cuff links and starched cuffs. His expensive dress, meticulously tanned face, and blond hair (which some devotees thought was a wig) contrasted strangely with the Swami’s simplicity. Mr. Price kept referring to Swamiji as “Your Excellency,” and he expressed much appreciation of Swamiji’s work. He spoke optimistically about how, through his connections, he hoped to save Prabhupāda a lot of money and trouble and get him just the place he wanted.

Accompanied by a few disciples, Prabhupāda went with Mr. Price to see the building. While Mr. Price, the devotees, and the custodian of the house were all talking together in a group, Prabhupāda wandered off unnoticed to a corner of the room, where there was an old-fashioned sewing machine. He began pressing the treadle and examining the workings of the machine. As Prabhupāda rejoined the group, Mr. Price said, “If you can just get five thousand dollars down, I can get the owners to draw up a contract. Five thousand dollars down, and another five thousand within two months – that shouldn’t be so difficult.” Prabhupāda liked the building and told Brahmānanda they should purchase it.

Brahmānanda was inclined to turn the money over right away, but Prabhupāda said that first a suitable contract had to be drawn up. Mr. Price talked to the devotees in private, speaking in the Swami’s interest and in the interest of the spiritual movement, and he seemed to be promising them something even more than a contract. Perhaps he would give them the building. It didn’t make sense that he could give the building, but he told them something like that. He wanted the devotees to think of him as their friend, and he invited them over to his house one evening.

When the devotees gathered in his house, sitting stiffly on chairs in his living room, which was lined with bookcases filled not with books, but with two-dimensional designs depicting rows of books, he continued to flatter them. He praised Hayagrīva’s writings, and Hayagrīva was obviously embarrassed and flattered. He praised everything about the devotees. He also spoke of how his dog had recently died, and said, “The house seems empty without the little fellow.” He was an unusual man, effeminate, and full of flattery and praises. Prabhupāda remained reserved after his first meeting with Mr. Price, though he was interested in getting the building if the proper arrangement could be made.

Brahmānanda continued to negotiate with Mr. Price, and soon, according to Mr. Price, the owners of the building would be expecting the devotees to give proof of their ability to meet the payments. On Prabhupāda’s direction, the devotees hired a lawyer to go over the contract. “This Mr. Price is causing us so much pain,” Prabhupāda said. “What is the difficulty?” He didn’t see the necessity for Mr. Price at all. “Why don’t we purchase directly from the owners? Why all these agents?”

“It’s just the way it’s done here,” Brahmānanda said.

Alan Kallman was a record producer. He had read the article in The East Village Other about the swami from India and the mantra he had brought with him. When he had read the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra on the front page, he had become attracted. The article gave the idea that one could get a tremendous high or ecstasy from chanting. The Swami’s Second Avenue address was given in the article, so one night in November, Alan and his wife visited the storefront.

Alan: There were about thirty pairs of shoes in the back of the room – people in the front and shoes in the back. We took off our shoes and sat down. Everyone was seated and very quiet. Front and center was a chair, and everyone was staring at this chair. Even then we felt a certain energy in the room. No one was saying anything, and everyone was staring at the chair. The next thing was our first sight of the Swami. He came in and sat down on the chair, and there was a tremendous surge of energy. The Swami began chanting, and it was a very beautiful sound. Swamiji had this little drum he was hitting – very penetrating and exciting. One of the devotees was holding up a sign with the chant written on it so everyone could follow. Then the devotees got up and danced in a circle, a special dance with steps to it. The Swami was looking around the room, and he seemed to smile as he looked at you, as if to encourage you to join.

The next day, Alan phoned Prabhupāda to propose that he make a record of the chanting. But it was Brahmānanda who answered the phone, and he gave Alan an appointment with the Swami that evening. So again Alan and his wife went down to the East Village, which to them was the neighborhood where things were happening. If you wanted to have some excitement, you went down to the East Village.

When they entered the Swami’s room, he was seated at his typewriter, working. As soon as Alan mentioned his idea about making a record, Prabhupāda was interested. “Yes,” he said, “we must record. If it will help us distribute the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, then it is our duty.” They scheduled the recording for two weeks later, in December, at the Adelphi Recording Studio near Times Square. Alan’s wife was impressed by how enthusiastically the Swami had gotten to the point of making the record: “He had so much energy and ambition in his plans.”

It was the night before the recording date. A boy walked into the storefront for the evening kīrtana carrying a large, two-headed Indian drum. This was not unusual, as guests often brought drums, flutes, and other instruments, yet this time Swamiji seemed particularly interested. The boy sat down and was preparing to play when Prabhupāda motioned for the boy to bring him the drum. The boy didn’t move – he wanted to play it himself – but Brahmānanda went over and said, “Swamiji wants to play the drum,” so the boy gave in.

Brahmānanda: Swamiji began to play, and his hands were just dancing on the drum. Everyone was stunned that Swamiji knew how to do this. All we had seen was the bongo drum, so I thought it was the proper Indian drum. But when this two-headed drum came out of nowhere and Swamiji started playing it like a master musician, it created an ecstasy a hundred times more than the bongo drum had.

After the kīrtana, Prabhupāda asked the boy if he could borrow the drum for the recording session the next night. The boy at first was reluctant, but the devotees promised to return his drum the next day, so he agreed and said he would bring the drum the next evening. When he left the storefront that night with his drum under his arm, the devotees thought they would never see the boy or his drum again, but the next day, a few hours before Swamiji was to leave for the studio, the boy returned with his drum.

It was a cold December night. The Swami, dressed in his usual saffron dhotī, a tweed overcoat, and a pair of gray shoes (which had long since replaced his original white, pointy rubber ones), got into Rūpānuga’s VW van with about fifteen of his followers and their instruments and started for the recording studio.

Brahmānanda: We didn’t start recording right away, because there was a group ahead of us. So we went out for a walk in Times Square. We were just standing there with Swamiji, seeing all the flashing lights and all the sense gratification, when a woman came up to Swamiji and said, “Oh, hello. Where do you come from?” in a very loud, matronly way. And Swamiji said, “I am a monk from India.” And she said, “Oh, that’s wonderful. Glad to meet you.” And then she shook Swamiji’s hand and left.

At the studio, everyone accepted the devotees as a regular music group. One of the rock musicians asked them what the name of their group was, and Hayagrīva laughed and replied, “The Hare Kṛṣṇa Chanters.” Of course most of the devotees weren’t actually musicians, and yet the instruments they brought with them – a tamboura, a large harmonium (loaned by Allen Ginsberg), and rhythm instruments – were ones they had played during kīrtanas for months. So as they entered the studio they felt confident that they could produce their own sound. They just followed their Swami. He knew how to play, and they knew how to follow him. They weren’t just another music group. It was music, but it was also chanting, meditation, worship.

Prabhupāda sat on a mat in the center of the studio, while the engineers arranged the microphones and assigned each devotee a place to sit according to his particular instrument. They asked for only two pairs of karatālas and they approved of the pairs of rhythm sticks, but they wanted several devotees clapping their hands. Rūpānuga’s usual instrument was a pair of brass Indian bells with the tongues removed, and when the engineer saw them, he came over and said, “Let me hear that.” Rūpānuga played them, and they passed. Since Ravīndra-svarūpa would be playing the drone on the harmonium, he sat apart with his own microphone, and Kīrtanānanda also had a microphone for the tamboura.

When the engineers were satisfied, they cued the devotees, and Swamiji began chanting and playing his drum. The cymbals and sticks and clapping hands joined him, and the chanting went on steadily for about ten minutes, until an engineer came out of the glass studio and stopped them: Brahmānanda was clapping too loudly, creating an imbalance. The engineer went back into his studio, put on his headphones, balanced everyone, and cued them for a second take. This time it was better.

The first sound was the tamboura, with its plucked, reverberating twang. An instant later Swamiji began beating the drum and singing, Vande ’haṁ śrī-guroḥ … Then the whole ensemble put out to sea – the tamboura, the harmonium, the clackers, the cymbals, Rūpānuga’s bells, Swamiji’s solo singing – pushing off from their moorings, out into a fairweather sea of chanting … lalitā-śrī-viśākhānvitāṁś ca …

Swamiji’s voice in the studio was very sweet. His boys were feeling love, not just making a record. There was a feeling of success and union, a crowning evening to all their months together.

… Śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya, prabhu-nityānanda …

After a few minutes of singing prayers alone, Swamiji paused briefly while the instruments continued pulsing, and then began the mantra: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare. It was pure Bhaktivedanta Swami – expert, just like his cooking in the kitchen, like his lectures. The engineers liked what they heard – it would be a good take if nothing went wrong. The instruments were all right, the drum, the singing. The harmony was rough. But this was a special record – a happening. The Hare Kṛṣṇa Chanters were doing their thing, and they were doing it all right. Alan Kallman was excited. Here was an authentic sound. Maybe it would sell.

After a few rounds of the mantra, the devotees began to feel relaxed, as though they were back in the temple, and they were able to forget about making mistakes on the record. They just chanted, and the beat steadied into a slightly faster pace. The word hare would come sometimes with a little shout in it, but there were no emotional theatrics in the chorus, just the straight response to the Swami’s melody. Ten minutes went by. The chanting went faster, louder and faster – Swamiji doing more fancy things on the drum, until suddenly … everything stopped, with the droning note of the harmonium lingering.

Alan came out of the studio: “It was great, Swami. Great. Would you like to just go right ahead and read the address now? Or are you too tired?” With polite concern, pale, befreckled Alan Kallman peered through his thick glasses at the Swami. Swamiji appeared tired, but he replied, “No, I am not tired.” Then the devotees sat back in the studio to watch and listen as Prabhupāda read his prepared statement.

“As explained on the cover of the record album …” The sympathetic devotees thought that Swamiji, despite his accent, sounded perfectly clear, reading from his script like an elocutionist. “… this transcendental vibration by chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare is the sublime method for reviving our Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” The language was philosophic, and the kind of people who usually walked out of the temple as soon as the kīrtanas ended, before the Swami could even speak a word, would also not appreciate this speech on their record album. “As living spiritual souls,” Swamiji preached, “we are all originally Kṛṣṇa conscious entities. But due to our association with matter from time immemorial, our consciousness is now polluted by material atmosphere.” The devotees listened submissively to the words of their spiritual master, while at the same time trying to comprehend the effect this would have on the audience. Certainly some people would turn it off at the very mention of a spiritual nature. Swamiji continued reading, explaining that the chanting would deliver one from the sensual, the mental, and the intellectual planes and bring one to the spiritual realm.

“We have seen it practically,” he continued. “Even a child can take part in the chanting, or even a dog can take part in it. … The chanting should be heard, however, from the lips of a pure devotee of the Lord.” And he continued reading on to the end. “… No other means, therefore, of spiritual realization is as effective in this age as chanting the mahā-mantra: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.”

Alan again came rushing out of the studio. It was fine, he said. He explained that they had recorded a little echo into the speech, to make it special for the listener. “Now,” he pushed back his glasses with his finger. “We’ve got about ten minutes left on the side with the speech. Would you like to chant again? Or is it too late, Swamiji?” Prabhupāda smiled. No, it was not too late. He would chant the prayers to his spiritual master.