Bombay
September 15, 1973
The day after his arrival, Śrīla Prabhupāda met with Mrs. N.’s solicitors and heard their offers. The situation had begun to look hopeful, and yet the conclusion eluded them. Mrs. N. had become changed by the public reaction to her attempt to demolish the temple. If Prabhupāda would pay the full balance of twelve lakhs of rupees for the land in one payment, she told her lawyer, she would agree. Prabhupāda was agreeable but did not want to arrange to collect his money until he was certain that Mrs. N. was actually serious.

Mr. Asnani, a Bombay lawyer and ISKCON life member, regularly met with Mrs. N., persuading her to cooperate with Prabhupāda. Her lawyers concurred. Yet after Prabhupāda had been in Bombay for several weeks, no meeting with Mrs. N. had taken place. Once Mr. Asnani went to bring Mrs. N. to meet with Prabhupāda, but she was not feeling well. Day after day Mr. Asnani would tell Prabhupāda, “Mrs. N. will come tomorrow.” Prabhupāda became disappointed at the procrastination, and seeing this, his secretaries told Mr. Asnani that although they knew he meant well, they were inclined to have their other lawyers handle the case. Mr. Asnani asked for another forty-eight hours to close the deal and execute the conveyance.

Mrs. N. was at her other home, where she had just recovered from her illness, when Mr. Asnani visited. “Mātājī,” he begged, “my Guru Mahārāja is leaving tomorrow. If you don’t come tonight, the problem with the land will go on another year.” Mrs. N. agreed, and around nine P.M. she and Mr. Asnani arrived at the home of Mr. Bogilal Patel, where Śrīla Prabhupāda was holding a program of kīrtana and Bhāgavata discourses. Prabhupāda was on the roof preparing to lecture, but hearing that Mrs. N. had arrived, he interrupted the meeting and came down to his room to talk with her. They talked briefly, and Prabhupāda excused himself and returned to the roof to lecture.

Around midnight, he returned to his room again. Mrs. N. was still waiting. She burst into tears and bowed at Prabhupāda’s feet. “I am sorry for everything I’ve done,” she sobbed. “Please forgive me.” She promised to do whatever Prabhupāda wanted.

Prabhupāda looked at her compassionately and understood her heart. “You are just like my daughter,” he said. “Don’t worry. I will take care of you. I will see to all of your needs for the rest of your life.” And Prabhupāda said he still accepted the very terms she had proposed: that he pay the remaining balance of twelve lakhs plus fifty thousand rupees compensation for the delay.

Prabhupāda and Mrs. N. had set November 1 as the tentative deadline for the final signing of the conveyance. Shortly after their meeting, Prabhupāda moved from Bogilal Patel’s to the home of Mr. Sethi, where working intensely he tackled the remaining problems – such as getting C. Company to withdraw their claim.

Next he moved to the home of Mr. C. M. Khatau, just two blocks from Hare Krishna Land, where he lived in a summer cottage, a simple structure with a bamboo frame and chāṭāi walls. Usually, conveyances had to be signed in the presence of the city registrar at his office downtown, but Mr. Asnani had arranged for the registrar to come to Prabhupāda’s place.

At six-thirty in the evening Śrīla Prabhupāda was seated at his low desk between two windows, his back against the wall. Mrs. N. and her lawyers, the registrar, Mr. Asnani, Mr. and Mrs. Sethi, and about eight devotees were present, and the full room grew warm and stuffy. Mrs. N. sat at Prabhupāda’s right as the registrar prepared the papers for signing. Śrīla Prabhupāda sat gravely. The room was silent except for the sound of papers rustling and a pen’s scratching. Preparing and signing the conveyance papers took more than twenty minutes. Prabhupāda paid Mrs. N., who then signed the conveyance. The land was legally ISKCON’s.

Girirāja: The room was hushed during the signing, and everyone felt as if a momentous event was taking place – just as if two great world powers were signing a treaty. After Mrs. N. signed the document, everyone silently watched the papers being passed. She started to cry. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami quietly asked her why she was crying, and Mrs. N. replied that just that day Mr. Matar had come and told her he had found a buyer for the land for many more lakhs than we were paying. Actually, as we were watching Mrs. N., we were thinking that she must be remembering all the events that had taken place, the wrongs that she had done, the death of her husband. It was very intense, like a combination of months of struggling. So for Prabhupāda, the devotees, and Prabhupāda’s well-wishers, their dreams and desires and efforts over the past many years were being fulfilled.

Śrīla Prabhupāda asked that the devotees inform the newspapers, and he invited everyone into the hall outside his room for a feast. Mats were rolled out in two lines, and devotees brought leaf plates and placed them in front of everyone. The devotees began serving the various dishes to the two rows of seated guests.

Prabhupāda was standing. “Now let us start,” he said, as he supervised the serving. The devotees had prepared several courses: rice, dāl, many varieties of pakorās (such as potato, cauliflower, and eggplant), potato sabjī, wet cauliflower sabjī, papars, barfī, laḍḍus, camcam (a milk sweet), vermicelli khīr, halavā, and a lime drink. It was a festive and happy occasion.

Mrs. Warrier (a tenant on Hare Krishna Land): The devotees were all saying “Jaya!” after the signing, and all of them were very happy. Then Prabhupāda gave a lecture about the Bombay project. He gave an idea to all the people of how it would be all marble. There wouldn’t be a single thing that wasn’t built from marble. Some were asking how it would be possible for everything to be marble, and Prabhupāda explained that it was possible and could be done. He was visualizing the project, and everyone was thrilled to hear the way he was describing it. It would be like one of the seven wonders of the world. People would be attracted from all over to come and see it. It would be a landmark in Bombay. Prabhupāda explained the whole project as if he saw it in his mind’s eye, and he said that after it was constructed it will be more than what we could visualize. It would be fantastic!

After the late feast, when everyone had departed, Prabhupāda returned to his room. Leaning back at his desk, he exclaimed, “It was a good fight!”

Later Prabhupāda would cite the story of the fight for the Bombay land as evidence that a person in Kṛṣṇa consciousness has no problems. “Now we have spent in Bombay eighteen to twenty lakhs of rupees,” he said months later while on tour in Europe. “The property is actually worth fifty lakhs. People are surprised, and some of them are envious. But if you come, you will find that it is a very, very fine place. It is just like a paradise garden, twenty thousand square yards, and we have got six buildings. So actually, when we come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness there are no problems.”

Surely the land was full of potential, but how could he say there had been no problems? “No problems” meant that Śrīla Prabhupāda saw how Kṛṣṇa personally arranged things for His devotees. When he had needed money, it had come, in an amount that ordinarily would have been impossible to collect. And the formidable opposition Kṛṣṇa had removed. Prabhupāda had no organized means of income and little political influence to fight persons like Mr. and Mrs. N., but because he was surrendered to Kṛṣṇa there was no problem. All the problems of the world were created by the nondevotees, who defied the injunctions of the Supreme. “Anyone who is in bhakti-yoga,” Prabhupāda said, “he can understand that all problems are solved. We can practically see.”

And yet he had had to tolerate the problems created by the nondevotees. For almost two years he had struggled to secure the land for Kṛṣṇa’s service. Whether in Bombay or elsewhere, he had had to worry over how to help his inexperienced disciples, who were ill-equipped to handle the ploys of the opposing party. It had been an ordeal, a test of patience, a challenge of courage. But because he had not been bewildered by māyā, illusion, there had been “no problem.”

Prabhupāda showed by his example that if one strictly follows bhakti-yoga, one is not touched by the modes of nature, by māyā. The same transcendental science he constantly taught in his lectures and informal discussions, he also personally demonstrated. He was faithful in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and all his problems had been adjusted. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that if one surrenders to Him, one easily overcomes all problems. The devotee understands that the problems of māyā can be overcome by surrendering to Kṛṣṇa, by surrendering to the orders of Kṛṣṇa’s representative, the spiritual master.

Now that the land was ISKCON’s, Prabhupāda could proceed to enact his vision. In attempting to construct buildings and propagate Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he would meet more māyā-created problems, no doubt, but the greatest struggle had been won. The gorgeous temple of Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Rāsavihārī would manifest. In the future, devotees and guests could come to India’s gateway and stay in a first-class hotel at Hare Krishna Land and conveniently imbibe the spiritual atmosphere of the temple. And the devotees, as long as they did not forget Prabhupāda’s example and instruction, could successfully utilize the facility in the spirit of service to Kṛṣṇa. The price Prabhupāda had paid in tolerance and dependence on Kṛṣṇa would never go in vain.

What Śrīla Prabhupāda produced by his tolerance was not only the facilities and the ongoing mission at Hare Krishna Land but a monumental living example of the behavior of a sādhu. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Lord Kapiladeva describes the sādhu:

titikṣavaḥ kāruṇikāḥ
suhṛdaḥ sarva-dehinām
ajāta-śatravaḥ śāntā
sādhavaḥ sādhu-bhūṣaṇāḥ

“The symptoms of a sādhu are that he is tolerant, merciful, and friendly to all living entities. He has no enemies, he is peaceful, he abides by the scriptures, and all his characteristics are sublime.”

Because the sādhu is tolerant (titikṣavaḥ), he is undisturbed by the difficulties imposed by material nature. In Prabhupāda’s attempts to secure the Juhu property, he had met with enemies and difficulties, and he had been tolerant. Prabhupāda had sometimes said, “You have to tolerate.”

And a sādhu is not only tolerant but merciful (kāruṇikāḥ). When ISKCON’s provisional temple had been attacked by the police, Prabhupāda could have considered it a signal to leave the place and give up trying to help such ingrates by bringing them Kṛṣṇa consciousness – “Why go to such botheration? What’s the use of trying?” He had already nearly a hundred temples outside of India. If the people of Bombay didn’t like Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then why not go away and leave them to their fate?

But no. As a genuine sādhu, Prabhupāda was merciful. Because he had come to deliver the compassionate message of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he had to tolerantly give that message to everyone. People were misguided and were living like animals, only for sense gratification, and by the laws of karma they would suffer in their next life. Seeing this unhappy predicament, Prabhupāda had felt moved to help these fallen souls, even if they were unappreciative.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also describes a sādhu as suhṛdaḥ sarva-dehinām: the only desire in his heart is the welfare of all others. Being unbounded by nationalism, he thinks of himself not as Indian or American or even as human being, but as eternal spiritual soul, meant to benefit all living entities.