Then Śrīla Prabhupāda spoke, beginning by explaining how the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is trying to establish daiva-varṇāśrama, or a God-conscious social order, with universal application.

“We should not consider that Kṛṣṇa is Hindu or Indian. Kṛṣṇa is for all. These foreigners are taking to Kṛṣṇa consciousness by understanding that Kṛṣṇa is for all. They are not accepting a form of religious principles, like Hindu or Muslim or Christian. These are designated religions. If I am calling myself a Hindu, this is not my religion – this is my designation. Because I happen to take birth in a Hindu family, therefore I call myself a Hindu. Or because I take birth in a particular land, I call myself Indian or American. But our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is not for such designated personalities. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness is sarvopādhi-vinirmuktam. When one becomes free from all designations, he can take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As long as one is Hindu or Muslim or Christian, there is no question of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

“So these boys and girls, or ladies and gentlemen, who have joined me, they have given up their designations. They are no longer Americans or Canadians or Australians. They are thinking of themselves as eternal servants of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Without this, there is no question of liberation from the material contamination. As long as there is material contamination, we have to devise these social orders and spiritual orders, according to śāstra – as brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha, and sannyāsa. These are all material designations. But this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is for becoming transcendental to these material designations, and these boys, these foreigners, they are being taught in that light.

“When I started my propaganda in New York, 26 Second Avenue, that time only half a dozen boys were coming and hearing. That hearing means I was singing, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, and reading some verses from Bhagavad-gītā, and they were patiently hearing. Because I know if someone patiently hears the holy name of Kṛṣṇa or about His pastimes, then – śṛṇvatāṁ sva-kathāḥ kṛṣṇaḥ – Kṛṣṇa purifies him from within.

“So, actually it so happened with these boys and girls. I say boys and girls, because in the Western countries there is no distinction. They are given equal liberty. In our country there is still discrimination. I mean to say, grown-up boys and girls are not allowed to mix together, although it is going on now. But in European countries there is no such restriction. So there was no possibility of making any distinction between the boys and the girls. So many of them are attending. I was chanting in Tompkins Square Park, and these boys and girls used to surround me and dance and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. Some of them became a little advanced and purified and came forward, ‘Swamiji, please accept me as your disciple.’

“So my condition was that anyone who wants to become my disciple must be free from the four kinds of sinful activities: illicit connection with women, meat-eating, intoxication, gambling. In this way, on this condition, these boys and girls were accepted as my disciples. According to pañcarātrikī viddhi, when they are fairly advanced they are given the sacred thread, upanayana-saṁskāra, following the path and instruction of my Guru Mahārāja, His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Prabhupāda. According to śāstra, they should not be considered as coming from families of mlecchas and yavanas – they should not be considered like that – because they are now purified. That is also mentioned by Śukadeva Gosvāmī in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and you know of it:

kirāta-hūṇāndhra-pulinda-pulkaśā
ābhīra-śumbhā yavanāḥ khasādayaḥ
ye ’nye ca pāpā yad-apāśrayāśrayāḥ
śudhyanti tasmai prabhaviṣṇave namaḥ

How to become purified? By taking shelter of a bona fide spiritual master. So they are all purified according to the pañcarātrikī viddhi, and many of them have got this sacred thread.”

Prabhupāda continued explaining the holy name’s power to elevate anyone, regardless of birth, and he cited Haridāsa Ṭhākura who, despite his Muhammadan birth, was accepted as the ācārya of chanting the holy name. Prabhupāda also discussed the dynamics of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, telling how, according to Rūpa Gosvāmī’s principle of yukta-vairāgya, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness was using material things in the service of Kṛṣṇa.

“In the Western countries they are very luxuriously situated. My disciples are giving me residential quarters even a governor could not imagine. I remember one night some time back I was a guest in a Lucknow government house. At that time the governor was Biswanath Das, and he was personally known to me. So I remember the kind of luxurious apartment where I had the opportunity to lie down one night. But they, my disciples, are giving me all this. So we cannot reject that, because that is the standard of living in America. You cannot say, ‘No, I shall not lie down in this nice apartment. I shall lie down in the street. I am a sannyāsī.’ Then nobody will respect me. There in America the standard of living is like that. Therefore, Rūpa Gosvāmī says that you should not be attached to that, but for the service of Kṛṣṇa if you have to use such things, you should receive it.

“People are engaged in the service of māyā, but we want to engage everything in the service of the Lord. That is the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. So we are using airplanes, we are using dictaphones, we are using teletype machine. Even for cleansing our floor, we are using a machine. This is the system. In each and every center we have got new cars. We cannot do without them. In Europe and America practically no gentleman walks in the street. It is the system there. So we have to use it, but we should not be attached to it. Our attachment should be only for Kṛṣṇa, and for Kṛṣṇa’s service we can accept anything. That is the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.”

Prabhupāda concluded his address by asking for land. He wanted to establish a temple for his society in Vṛndāvana.

Afterward, a Mr. S., a motor parts salesman and resident of Vṛndāvana, offered Prabhupāda a plot of land his family had been saving for some worthy religious purpose. Prabhupāda smiled. Although he had only just arrived in Vṛndāvana, already Kṛṣṇa was providing an opportunity for establishing his ISKCON center. Prabhupāda thanked Mr. S. for offering this service to Lord Kṛṣṇa. By his donating land, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement would increase, and the donor, Mr. S., would benefit.

Prabhupāda was aware that behind the formal reception and ceremonial words of Vṛndāvana’s prominent citizens dwelt a deeper feeling of reserve and even suspicion, especially among the caste gosvāmīs, the proprietors of Vṛndāvana’s major temples. While accepting Śrīla Prabhupāda’s foreign disciples as devotees (of a sort), many Vṛndāvana residents nevertheless felt reluctant to accept the foreign Vaiṣṇavas as brāhmaṇas, sannyāsīs, and pūjārīs. This misunderstanding was due to a traditional Hindu concept: only those born in caste brāhmaṇa families could become brāhmaṇas.

Prabhupāda, however, followed exactly in the footsteps of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, who had freely accepted anyone, regardless of sex or social position. When in 1932 Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī had led more than one thousand followers in a Vṛndāvana pilgrimage, certain prideful caste brāhmaṇas had denied the pilgrims entry into the temples. The pilgrims had been harassed by rock throwers and boycotted by shopkeepers. Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī had then met with brāhmaṇas of Vṛndāvana and had scripturally proved to them that the soul, being transcendental, was free from designation and that anyone who became a Vaiṣṇava automatically qualified as a brāhmaṇa. The prejudices, however, had remained.

Prabhupāda also followed Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta in denying that the gosvāmī title could be inherited. Gosvāmī meant one who controlled the senses, and the title could not be adopted simply because one was born in a family of so-called gosvāmīs.

The original gosvāmīs were the six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana: Śrī Sanātana, Śrī Rūpa, Śrī Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa, Śrī Jīva, Śrī Gopāla Bhaṭṭa, and Śrī Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmīs, all of whom were in the renounced order and were, therefore, without issue. Almost five hundred years ago, these six Gosvāmīs had discovered the places of Kṛṣṇa’s Vṛndāvana pastimes and had built the first big temples in Vṛndāvana. They had appointed married disciples to carry on the Deity worship in their temples, and now the descendants of those original priests were claiming exclusive rights as temple gosvāmīs in Vṛndāvana. Prabhupāda had written in The Nectar of Devotion about his spiritual master’s struggle in this matter:

… after the disappearance of Lord Caitanya’s great associate Lord Nityānanda, a class of priestly persons claimed to be the descendants of Nityānanda, calling themselves the gosvāmī caste. They further claimed that the practice and spreading of devotional service belonged only to their particular class, which was known as Nityānanda-vaṁśa. In this way, they exercised their artificial power for some time, until Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, the powerful ācārya of the Gaudiya Vaiṣṇava sampradāya, completely smashed their idea. There was a great hard struggle for some time, but it has turned out successfully, and it is now correctly and practically established that devotional service is not restricted to a particular class of men.

Prabhupāda therefore opposed the caste gosvāmīs’ ideas of birthright. And the caste gosvāmīs feared Prabhupāda’s movement, since it threatened their hereditary social preeminence. Yet on this occasion of Prabhupāda’s triumphant return after preaching Vṛndāvana’s glories to the Western world, no one protested his attempts to establish a temple. Those who disagreed remained silent or even offered flowery praise.

The land was in Ramaṇa-reti. Prabhupāda noted that the property on the outskirts of Vṛndāvana was located on busy Chhatikara Road, a main thoroughfare into Vṛndāvana and a traffic route to Agra and the Taj Mahal. The land was also adjacent to the Vṛndāvana parikrama path, where millions of pilgrims passed annually, circumambulating Vṛndāvana and visiting its temples and holy places.

Ramaṇa-reti (literally “charming sand”) was mostly forest, with a few āśramas and abandoned fields. Celebrated as a favorite spot of Kṛṣṇa’s, where He and His brother Balarāma and Their cowherd boyfriends had played five thousand years ago, Ramaṇa-reti abounded in transcendental love of God, which is the special atmosphere of Vṛndāvana.

Although various city officials had casually mentioned that the city might donate land, Prabhupāda took more seriously Mr. S.’s offer. Mr. S. explained that although other sādhus had been asking for the land, he and his wife had not yet decided; they wanted to give it to a group who would build a Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temple there as soon as possible. When Prabhupāda assured Mr. S. he would do so, Mr. S. vowed that the land was now Prabhupāda’s.

Prabhupāda had heard such promises before, and they had often proved false. But considering this offer serious, he appointed disciples to remain in Vṛndāvana to draw up a deed with Mr. S.

Meanwhile, Prabhupāda took his disciples on a pilgrimage to many of the important holy places of Vṛndāvana: Varṣāṇā (the birthplace of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī), Gokula (the place of Kṛṣṇa’s earliest pastimes), Rādhā-kuṇḍa, Govardhana, and Vṛndāvana’s major temples. At Govardhana Prabhupāda told the devotees not to step on Govardhana Hill or pick up any of the rocks: Govardhana Hill was nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa. Also at Govardhana Prabhupāda took the devotees to a little temple, where he showed them Kṛṣṇa’s footprint. The footprint was very large. If Kṛṣṇa’s foot had been that big, the devotees marveled, then He must have been eight feet tall. “Yes,” Prabhupāda said. “They were much bigger then.”

Near Govardhana, at Bindu-sarovara, a lake commemorating the place where Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa first met, the devotees swam while Prabhupāda bathed from buckets of water in the nearby field. Later, while Prabhupāda took prasādam, the devotees tried to chase away a few stray dogs by throwing stones and yelling, but Prabhupāda stopped them. “Leave them alone,” he said, and he began throwing the dogs prasādam from his plate.

At Varṣāṇā, the birthplace of Rādhārāṇī, the devotees carried Prabhupāda on a palanquin up the many steep steps to the temple. On the top of the hill, he looked toward a distant hill. “Just over there,” he said, pointing, “Kṛṣṇa used to come down that hill. Rādhā would come down this hill, and They would meet in the middle. There was a forest there. So this is a very special place, because it is the meeting place of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.”

In each holy place Prabhupāda would sit down, hold a kīrtana, and come before the Deity and offer obeisances. Then he would briefly describe the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa related with the particular place.

Dīnadayādri: The Indians at the holy places were always hounding Prabhupāda for money. They assumed that his disciples, being Americans, were rich, so they wanted money. Prabhupāda would give something, but there were so many that as soon as he would give to one, half a dozen others would crowd around him, preventing him from walking by. In some of the temples they wouldn’t let us enter.

Prabhupāda then took his group to the place beside the Yamunā where Kṛṣṇa had shown His mother all the universes within His mouth. Touching the water, Prabhupāda said, “It is too cold for an old man like me. But you take a bath. I’ll put a few drops on my head.” He directed the women to a separate place to swim, where the Indian women bathed, and the men plunged in and began swimming. They sported in the water as Prabhupāda stood on the bank, watching. Suddenly Prabhupāda put on a gamchā, walked to the river’s edge, sprinkled some water on his head, and then waded in up to his knees. The devotees were delighted to see him duck beneath the water and begin bathing and splashing with them in the Yamunā.

Śrīla Prabhupāda decided that he would remain in his quarters at Mr. Saraf’s home, while his old friend Hitsaran Sharma took the devotees to Vṛndāvana’s famous temples. Prabhupāda did, however, make a point of going with his disciples to visit the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple, where he had lived for several years writing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Back to Godhead magazine before going to America in 1965.

At the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple Prabhupāda told the devotees of his plans for an ISKCON temple in Vṛndāvana, and he suggested to the Rādhā-Dāmodara pūjārī that ISKCON use the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple.

“We shall prepare the whole temple nicely,” Prabhupāda said, “and we shall make a silver throne for the Deity. Fifty to a hundred men will take prasādam here. It will be unique. If you want to, we can do it. Otherwise we can start our own temple somewhere. We are prepared to spend money. If you give us a chance, we’ll spend it here. We want to make this a great festival in Vṛndāvana, because it is Jīva Gosvāmī’s place. Rūpa Gosvāmī and Jīva Gosvāmī sat here. We have literature, we have books. Everyone is associating with us all over the world.”

Yamunā-devī dāsī: His Divine Grace was very frequently giving indication of how much he wanted his rooms at Rādhā-Dāmodara maintained nicely. He was extremely fond of his quarters there. One night during his stay in Saraf Bhavan he agreed that he would stay for one twenty-four-hour period within his rooms at the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple. It was a very exciting event for all of us to look forward to. He selected three or four men to accompany him to spend the night there at the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple.

Saraf Bhavan was some distance from Seva-kuñja, where the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple is located. During the very early hours of the morning I walked through the streets of Vṛndāvana and arrived at the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple. Inside of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s sleeping room I could see the light coming through the latticed red stone windows and the wooden shutters. Back and forth he was walking and chanting.

Suddenly, very much to my surprise, the wooden shutters burst open, and a shaft of light filled a small corner of the courtyard. Prabhupāda stood in his room under one bare light bulb. When he saw me, he asked, “How have you gotten here?” I said that I had walked. “Oh, this is not good,” he said. “It is very dangerous in the street. There are so many wild dogs. And there are dacoits. In this quarter a man will kill even for a loṭā [waterpot].”

So there was some chastisement from Prabhupāda on the one hand, but on the other hand he seemed pleased. “So you are chanting japa?” he said. And I said, “Yes, Śrīla Prabhupāda.” He said, “That is very nice. So go to the samādhi of Rūpa Gosvāmī and chant there.”

Then around four o’clock other pilgrims were starting to filter in to attend the morning ārati program. Prabhupāda came out where we were chanting, and he said that this corner at Rādhā-Dāmodara temple was just like the hub of the wheel of the spiritual world – it was the center. He requested that his rooms always be well maintained and that they be cleansed daily.

Rādhānātha: I had only met Śrīla Prabhupāda briefly in Bombay, and then I had gone alone to live in Vṛndāvana. I had lived there about six months with the local people, and it was there that I got real attached to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I used to just live on the bank of the river with all the bābājīs – a very simple life. I know it was just by that initial contact with Prabhupāda that that seed was planted.

One day a big bus full of American devotees having a kīrtana pulled into Vṛndāvana, and I was thinking, “Oh, here they are again.” The first thing I asked was, “Is Prabhupāda coming?” And they said, “Yes, Prabhupāda is here. He will be speaking tomorrow morning.”

I was already attracted to a lot of gurus in Vṛndāvana – Prabhupāda’s Godbrothers and also devotees from other sampradāyas. But on the morning when I came for the Bhāgavatam class and heard Prabhupāda chanting Jaya Rādhā-Mādhava, I just sat there and listened. I had never seen anyone with such a quality of love for Kṛṣṇa. All the great people I had met in India became insignificant when I saw Prabhupāda chanting Jaya Rādhā-Mādhava. He was so serious and grave, and the quality of his devotion was so intense. I just couldn’t believe it.

He kept looking over at me every now and then, kind of nodding, because I guess he remembered me from Bombay. Then he spoke, and he was glorifying Vṛndāvana so nicely. He was talking about how wonderful Vṛndāvana is, how spiritual the atmosphere is, and he was talking about how careful the devotees must be to take advantage of the atmosphere.

From that day I started thinking, “This is my Guru Mahārāja” – just because of the way he spoke. His lecture had been so precise and inclusive that it had encompassed every other philosophy and every other teacher I had ever heard. I could see also that Prabhupāda’s example was pure, and I could see his disciples were actually giving up sinful life. I used to go to his darśanas every day, although I was still living on the bank of the Yamunā.

All the people of Vṛndāvana were glorifying Prabhupāda. They were so proud of him, because the people of Vṛndāvana are attached to Vṛndāvana. They love Kṛṣṇa, and they love Vṛndāvana, because Vṛndāvana is the place where Kṛṣṇa lives. That’s their mood. They worship the land of Vṛndāvana. But they would tell me they appreciated Prabhupāda. Most of them would call him “Swami Bhaktivedanta.” They would say, “He’s the greatest saint, because he is bringing Vṛndāvana all over the world. He is making the glories of Vṛndāvana known to the whole world.”

Then one day Prabhupāda and his disciples went to an āśrama in Ramaṇa-reti. I got there late, just as Prabhupāda was leaving. He was walking the last twenty yards or so to his taxi, and many Brijabāsīs were offering their full daṇḍavats in the road. I felt very insignificant, another member of the crowd, and as Prabhupāda walked by me I offered my full obeisances also.

When I lifted my head to get up, however, I saw Prabhupāda’s feet were right there in front of me. I thought, “Oh, my God, Prabhupāda is standing right there.” I very slowly looked up, and Prabhupāda was just standing there looking right at me. He looked me in the eyes for a couple of seconds and then said, “So how long have you been here in Vṛndāvana?” I said, “About six months, Śrīla Prabhupāda.” He just looked at me again, and he was in a very serious mood, very compassionate, gazing into my eyes. He nodded his head and said, “Do you like it here?” I said, “This is the most wonderful place I’ve ever been in my life.”

Then all of a sudden his serious expression just blossomed into the most beautiful smile. His eyes were glistening radiantly, and he looked at me for about five or ten seconds. It seemed like a real long time – I couldn’t believe the mercy he was giving me – and then he just replied, “That is very nice. Vṛndāvana is a wonderful place.” And then he walked on.

This was very special for me, because most of the devotees were always telling me I was in māyā for staying in Vṛndāvana and because I was kind of attached to my own program in Vṛndāvana. I was feeling that the devotees didn’t understand, and I was upset with them, thinking that they didn’t appreciate the atmosphere. But Prabhupāda’s words alleviated all my anxieties toward the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. It was the most special personal contact. It wasn’t what Prabhupāda was saying. It was his personal, transcendental concern for me. So then I went to his classes every day and all the darśanas, and there was no doubt in my mind. He very much convinced me on every level of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

When Prabhupāda left, the devotees told me that I should join and go on parikrama with them all around India, and they said that Prabhupāda had personally invited me to come. I was unbelievably appreciative that Prabhupāda was so merciful, but at the same time I was very attached to Vṛndāvana. I told them I just wanted to stay here, and if they ever came back I would serve Prabhupāda here, but that I didn’t want to leave Vṛndāvana.

Soon after that, my visa expired. So I had to leave the country. But before I left, the people of Vṛndāvana, especially the bābājīs, were telling me that Swami Bhaktivedanta had established New Vṛndāvana in the West. They said, “If you have to leave Vṛndāvana, you should go to New Vṛndāvana. So whatever you do, don’t leave Vṛndāvana. New Vṛndāvana and Old Vṛndāvana are the same, because Swami Bhaktivedanta has created Vṛndāvana in the West.” They said it with great pride. So I left for New Vṛndāvana.