September 21, 1968

THE IMMEDIATE REASON Śrīla Prabhupāda went to Seattle was that two of his disciples, Upendra and Gargamuni, had just begun an ISKCON center there and had invited him. For several years, this had been Prabhupāda’s method of spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness in America: he went to a city, stayed, preached, and directed his disciples. He had done so in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Montreal, Los Angeles – all with good success. As he had written in a letter of March 1968, “We want to open hundreds of centers so that people may take up Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And we need many enthusiastic boys and girls for carrying on this great mission of Caitanya Mahāprabhu.”

Prabhupāda’s Guru Mahārāja, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, had not mentioned Seattle or even the United States when he ordered Prabhupāda to preach in the Western countries. But Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu had said the chanting of the Lord’s holy names, Hare Kṛṣṇa, would go to every town and village of the world. The street chanters and Back to Godhead magazine distributors in Los Angeles and San Francisco wanted to try Seattle to test the chanting in the streets of a conservative city. Seattle, the home of Boeing Aircraft Manufacturers, had a population of 560,000, a university, and several good colleges. On Prabhupāda’s order, the devotees went ahead to join the Seattle temple in time for Prabhupāda’s arrival.

While Gargamuni was still desperately trying to find an apartment he could afford, the devotees received Prabhupāda in a hotel room. From Prabhupāda’s room, the window looked out at the six-hundred-foot-tall Space Needle and the monorail – leftovers from the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. The devotees squeezed into the small room as Prabhupāda sat behind a low desk and pulled his harmonium to him. “Should I play?” he asked, smiling. They pleaded, “Yes!” and he began playing, the fingers of his right hand moving deftly across the keyboard, while his left hand pumped the harmonium’s bellows. He sang, gaurāṅga balite habe pulaka-śarīra / hari hari balite nayane babe nīra. Their meeting with him in the room was happy, but the song was not a light thing. The sound poured forth, both from him and from the little harmonium. They were bhajanas, he had explained to them, songs of devotion, this one by Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura: “When will the time come when, while chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, there will be tears in the eyes?” He played, and the expression of his face in singing seemed like crying. The song, he said, meant, “When the mind is completely purified, freed from material anxieties and desires, then I shall be able to understand Vṛndāvana and the love of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa; and then my spiritual life will be successful.”

The first night in town, Prabhupāda was to drive from the hotel to the ISKCON temple, a house rented by the devotees in a quiet suburban neighborhood. A devotee-carpenter, Nara-Nārāyaṇa, had done excellent work with $50 converting the living room into a temple room. Enclosed behind long red satin curtains was an impressive three-tiered altar. The altar was paneled with the same cedar as the walls. The altar’s bottom shelf had a brass incense holder, brass flower vases, two silver double candle holders, a conchshell, and a picture of Lord Viṣṇu. On the middle shelf were a black-and-white close-up of Prabhupāda, a large color poster of Lord Caitanya, and a simple ink drawing of the Pañca-tattva by Prabhupāda’s disciples Gaurasundara and Govinda dāsī. The top shelf held the twelve-inch deities of Lord Jagannātha, Subhadrā and Lord Baladeva, who were clothed in simple golden satin, without jewels or garlands.

Around the room were nicely framed pictures. To the left of the altar was an Indian print of Gopāla with His arm around a calf. Forming a border near the ceiling were several of Gurudāsa’s captivating black-and-white close-ups of Śrīla Prabhupāda on morning walks in San Francisco. On the left wall was a painting of Kṛṣṇa driving Arjuna’s chariot. To the right of the altar was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s vyāsāsana.

The room was small. The devotees had designed a vyāsāsana, three feet high, wedged into the corner so that the room could accommodate many people. The back of the seat was cushioned with deep blue velvet inset with large and decorative golden upholstery buttons. The seat itself was gold velvet, with a gold bolster pillow. A small gold velvet canopy with a fringe hung above the vyāsāsana.

Śrīla Prabhupāda arrived at the temple accompanied by his servant, Kartikeya, and his secretary, Govinda dāsī. Coming up the steps onto the porch, they were greeted at the front door by the welcoming kīrtana of the devotees in the small temple room. As Śrīla Prabhupāda made his way from the door toward his vyāsāsana, all the devotees in the room except for one bowed down. The exception, standing midway between the front door and the vyāsāsana, was a newcomer, a girl named Joy Fulcher, who had only met the devotees that very day. And as Śrīla Prabhupāda passed by her, she also bowed down.

As Śrīla Prabhupāda was taking his seat on the vyāsāsana, while Kartikeya adjusted the microphone and Govinda dāsī adjusted the tape recorder, the devotees sent Joy forward to offer Prabhupāda a garland of red roses and red carnations. Joy had made the garland, stringing the flowers in a symmetrical pattern. But when she placed it around Prabhupāda’s neck, the garland fell asymmetrically. Feeling undone, she turned to go sit down. “Thank you very much,” said Prabhupāda in a soft but deeply resounding voice.

Joy Fulcher: So I sat down and listened to his lecture. But I could not understand his accent. I was struck with the impression that here was a very elderly person who had taken great difficulty to come and speak to us. I could understand there was nothing motivating in it for him. I felt very much that he didn’t want to cheat me. I also had the conception that this person was inconceivably humble, because of his quoting the scriptures, because of his references to his Guru Mahārāja, and because of his general attitude and his soft-spoken voice. I could understand that he was not trying to impress anyone and that he was very humble and dependent on his Guru Mahārāja.

After the lecture, I raised my hand to ask a question. Answering three or four questions first, he finally took my question. I asked him, “Śrī Bhaktivedanta, how is it that this universal presence which is humanly inconceivable, at least to me, at this time …, how can it have the form of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa?” The devotees had preached to me, prior to his arrival, that the Absolute Truth, which I, from my reading in yoga philosophy, impersonally called “universal presence,” was actually Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and His consort, Rādhārāṇī.

Śrīla Prabhupāda very distinctly answered, “By His mercy.” But then he spoke loudly, “You cannot make the sun rise, and similarly you cannot make God appear before you to answer your doubts!”

I was thunderstruck that he chose this particular example, since only four months earlier I had climbed a mountain by myself and sat there all night waiting for dawn, when I would “make the sun rise.” But when dawn came, it was a cloudy day, and so, of course, I did not make the sun rise. The fact that out of all examples Prabhupāda chose that particular thing to answer me hit me like a thunderbolt.

Then His Divine Grace softened his voice, like a rose, and indicating his disciples with a wave of his arm, he said, “But you just associate with these nice boys and girls here, chant this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, eat kṛṣṇa-prasādam, study my books scrutinizingly, and engage yourself in a little service, and then the Lord will reveal Himself to you from within your heart, in His own time, by His own sweet will, with all His name, fame, form, pastimes, paraphernalia, and entourage.”

Within a few days, Gargamuni found an inexpensive two-room apartment for Prabhupāda. Gargamuni, who was accustomed to the Lower East Side of New York City, thought this Seattle apartment a good bargain. By New York slum standards it wasn’t bad, but there were much better places in Seattle.

When Prabhupāda entered with the devotees, it became obvious to everyone that the apartment was a disaster. Prabhupāda went to the windows and looked out – at the brick wall of the building six feet away. Because of this building, no sunlight could enter the room. Prabhupāda looked below at the dark, dingy alley littered with garbage. The curtains in the room reached only half way down the wall, the tiles were peeling in the bathroom, nothing was clean, and there was no bed. Anyone staying with Prabhupāda would have to walk through his room to reach the bathroom. Only when Prabhupāda entered, with his bright, transcendental presence, could his disciples fully understand that the apartment was not at all suitable. Prabhupāda, however, didn’t complain. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. And taking his cādara and placing it on the floor, he sat down.

Although the neighborhood was noisy, Prabhupāda was tolerant. But he admitted, “This place is not nice.” And then, looking up at the devotees in the dingy room, he asked, “Why have you put me in this dungeon?” Struck at heart by these words, the devotees knew they had to find a better place, and several of them went out to search.

Why had they put him in a dungeon? Jayānanda, Nara-Nārāyaṇa, and Govinda dāsī got into the van and drove off, vowing not to return until they found a place Prabhupāda would like. They moved toward the Capitol Hill area and finally found a “For Rent” sign on the lawn of a nice house situated near a lake. Although it was a basement apartment, the many ground-level windows made the rooms bright and sunny. Jayānanda and Govinda dāsī talked to the landlord, and Prabhupāda moved in the next day.

He liked the tulips lining his windows and the view down the sloping green lawn to the shore of the lake. He liked walking in the backyard, from where he could see boats passing. “That other place,” he chuckled, “was like being in the womb of the mother, and this place is like coming out into the world and seeing the light.” The apartment was well furnished, and Prabhupāda put his Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa Deities on a dresser before the mirror, which made a nice backdrop.

Early every morning Prabhupāda would go on a walk, usually to Volunteer Park, where he walked by the reservoir. The path around the reservoir’s perimeter was several miles long, and although some of the young men would become exhausted from the walk, Prabhupāda enjoyed it. One morning, while Jayānanda was walking with Prabhupāda, they approached a man who had just pulled a fish out of the water. The fisherman held up his catch, dangling it as if offering it to Prabhupāda. “Anyone for a fish dinner?” the man asked cheerily. Prabhupāda smiled, “No, you enjoy.” Prabhupāda kept walking until he was past the man and then added, “And suffer.”

They also walked in an area filled with many rose bushes and many birds. Peacocks roamed freely. It is written in the śāstras that wherever a saintly person goes becomes a tīrtha, or a place of pilgrimage. In India are many tīrthas, most of which are places where the Supreme Personality of Godhead or His great devotees enacted some līlā. There are no such tīrthas, however, in America. But after Prabhupāda’s preaching – beginning in New York City in places like 26 Second Avenue and Tompkins Square Park, and later in Golden Gate Park, at Stowe Lake, Venice Beach, or Volunteer Park – then even these American places became, for Prabhupāda’s followers, significant, never-to-be-forgotten sites.

Prabhupāda took advantage of the presence of the traveling saṅkīrtana party in Seattle. He told Tamāla Kṛṣṇa he wanted to organize a world saṅkīrtana party, with twelve men, twelve women, and himself going all over the world. But for the present, the devotees went out daily in the downtown city. In Seattle, citizens were astounded to see young Americans with shaven heads, saffron robes, women in sārīs, playing cymbals and singing “Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare.” The devotees would chant Hare Kṛṣṇa for hours, give out cards with the mahā-mantra printed on them, and sometimes bring people back to the temple. As a result, attendance was good at Prabhupāda’s evening lectures. With the devotees chanting on the streets during the day and Prabhupāda speaking at night, the city was quickly becoming spiritualized. Therefore, each evening the small cedarwood-paneled temple room of Lord Jagannātha was filled with considerable transcendental excitement. For Prabhupāda, it was very encouraging to lecture to a hall crowded with both disciples and guests.

After the evening kīrtana, everyone would sit down on the floor, and some people would even stand outside the house, looking in and listening at the windows. Prabhupāda invariably began by chanting, in a strong, simple melody, the refrain govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi. And everyone would repeat in chorus, govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi. He would chant it half a dozen times and then begin his lecture.

Prabhupāda’s Teachings of Lord Caitanya had recently been published, and he often lectured by having a devotee read out loud. Prabhupāda would listen, and whenever he felt moved to, he would interrupt and begin speaking. “This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement,” Prabhupāda explained, “has to be understood through the teachings of Lord Caitanya. He appeared in Bengal, a province in India, five hundred years ago. And He specifically preached the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. To execute that order we have come to your country. My request is that you try to understand this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement with all your knowledge, scrutinizingly. Don’t accept it blindly. We have this book Teachings of Lord Caitanya, and other books also, many books. So try to read them. And we have our magazine Back to Godhead. We are not sentimentalists that we are simply dancing. Dancing has got great value. That, if you dance with us, you will feel. It is not that some crazy fellows are dancing. The most intelligent persons are dancing, and yet it is so nicely made that even a boy like here, he is a boy, he can take part.”

Prabhupāda emphasized that Kṛṣṇa consciousness was universal. It was full of sound philosophy, and yet it was very simple. The simple message was, “God is great, and we are His part and parcel.” And to prove it, he gave simple examples: The hand is part of the body and has great value when working as part of the whole. A small screw in the typewriting machine is very valuable as long as it is working as part of the machine; otherwise it is useless. Similarly, unless the individual spirit soul engages in devotional service to Kṛṣṇa, he is incomplete.

Prabhupāda spoke some basic Kṛṣṇa consciousness for about a half-hour and then asked for questions. Always at least a few hands raised. He recognized the outsiders first. It was not unusual in those days to find young people, college students and hippies, asking cosmic questions, dabbling in yoga and Eastern philosophy. Often, however, they had many different things on their minds, including drugs, and were frequently confused. But Prabhupāda, experienced with over three years of constant preaching to young Americans, had already heard almost anything they could possibly ask.

Young man: “Is there a communication that is not the word itself but beyond words, perhaps a vibration reaching for the oṁ? I mean, does one attain a communication, something understood between you and myself and my brother, an experience like the sound dong or aung? Is there something else beyond the verbal?”

“Yes,” Prabhupāda replied, “this Hare Kṛṣṇa.”

Man: “Hare Kṛṣṇa?”

Prabhupāda: “Yes.”

Man: “But can you tell me how this can be? How to talk that language all the time rather than English or other languages?”

Prabhupāda: “It doesn’t matter that Hare Kṛṣṇa can be sounded in Sanskrit only. You can sound it in English tone also, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Is there any difficulty? These boys are also sounding Hare Kṛṣṇa. Just like the piano. If you touch, there is dung. It doesn’t matter whether an American is striking or an Indian striking or a Hindu striking or a Muslim striking, the sound is sound. Similarly, this piano, Hare Kṛṣṇa, you just touch it and it will sound. That’s all.”

Someone asked about meditation.

Prabhupāda asked, “What do you mean by meditation?”

“Sitting alone quietly.”

“How is it possible?” Prabhupāda asked. “Is there any experience that the mind is not acting when you sit silently? You have to engage your mind in something.”

“What do you engage it in?”

“Yes,” Prabhupāda replied. “That is Kṛṣṇa. We engage our mind in Kṛṣṇa, the beautiful Supreme Personality of Godhead. Not only simply engaging the mind, but engaging the mind in action with the senses. Because mind is acting with our senses. Your mind said, ‘Let us go to that newly started ISKCON society.’ So your legs carried you here. So mind – thinking, feeling, willing – these are the functions of the mind. You have to fix up your mind not only thinking of Kṛṣṇa, but also working for Kṛṣṇa, feeling for Kṛṣṇa. That is complete meditation.”

Someone asked if a Christian, by reading the Bible and following Jesus’s words, required a spiritual master. As soon as you read the Bible, Prabhupāda replied, that means you are following the instructions of Lord Jesus Christ, so where is the opportunity of being without a spiritual master?

“I was referring to a living spiritual master.”

Prabhupāda: “You may accept this spiritual master or that spiritual master. That is a different thing. But you have to accept. When you read the Bible, that means you are following the spiritual master represented by some priest or clergyman in the line of Lord Jesus Christ. So, in any case, you have to follow a spiritual master. There is no question of being without a spiritual master. Is that clear?”

“Many different sects of Christianity interpret the Bible in different ways.”

Prabhupāda: “There cannot be any interpretation in the Bible; then there is no authority. Just like this is a watch. Everyone has called it a watch, and if I call it a spectacle, then what is the value of my being spiritual master? I’m misleading. It is a watch, and that I must say. This intelligence you must have – who is a pseudo spiritual master and a real spiritual master. Otherwise, you’ll be cheated, and that is being done. Everyone is interpreting in his own way.

“There are thousands of editions of the Bhagavad-gītā, and they have tried to interpret it in their own way – all nonsense. They should all be thrown away. Simply you have to read the Bhagavad-gītā as it is, then you’ll understand. If anyone can understand the clear passage, just like the Bible, ‘God said, “Let there be creation,” and there was creation.’ What is the question of interpretation? Yes, God created. You cannot create. Where is opportunity of interpretation?

“Am I right, in the beginning of the Bible it is said like that: ‘God said, “Let there be creation,” and there was creation.’ So what is your interpretation? Tell me what is your interpretation. Can any one of you suggest? One can explain; that is a different thing. But the fact that God created, that will remain; that we cannot change.

“Now how the creative process took place, that is explained in the Bhāgavatam. First of all there was sky, then there was sound, then there was this, that. But the primary fact that God created, that will remain in any circumstance. Not the rascal scientist who says, ‘Oh, there was a chunk, and it split up, and there was this planet. Perhaps this and likely this,’ all this nonsense. Why ‘perhaps’? Here is clear statement: God created. That’s all. Finished.”

Another guest said he didn’t feel subordinate to anyone, therefore he didn’t feel he had to bow down to anyone. Indirectly, he was criticizing the devotees’ offering of obeisances to Prabhupāda. It is a material disease, Prabhupāda replied, to think that we don’t have to bow down. He demonstrated logically that nature forces each of us to be subordinate, “to bow down” to old age, disease, death, and many other things.

Guest: “O.K. But who or what should I bow down to?”

Prabhupāda: “Since you are being forced to bow down, now you have to find where you shall be happy even by bowing down. And that is Kṛṣṇa. Your bowing down will not be stopped, because you are meant for that; but if you bow down to Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa’s representative, then you become happy.”

The disciples were submissive, and therefore only to them could the spiritual master impart knowledge of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But some of them were also doubtful, and Prabhupāda had to convince them with the same logical arguments he used with the outsiders.

Devotee: “Prabhupāda? How do you logically explain to impersonalists the existence of the Personality of Godhead?”

Prabhupāda began to explain the three features of the Absolute and compared them to the three features of the sun, namely the sunshine, the sun disk, and the sun-god. Using the well-known example, he thoroughly explained the existence of the Supreme Person as the source of all expansions, including the impersonal Brahman.

“But [the devotee was not yet satisfied] how does one explain to such an impersonalist the Absolute Truth logically. I was told Śrīla Bhaktivinoda had such a proof.”

Prabhupāda: “Apart from Bhaktivinoda, try to understand in your common sense.” Painstakingly, Prabhupāda explained again, this time at greater length. He quoted the Vedānta-sūtra verse janmādy asya yataḥ, explaining how everything in existence comes from the Supreme Absolute. Therefore, as we are persons, there must be a Supreme Person, the reservoir of all personality, from whom everything comes. As we experience that our father is a person, therefore we are persons.

Often Prabhupāda was simply saying there is God and one should love God. But one student protested why love of God should come in the form of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Student: “If our first concern should be to serve God, or Kṛṣṇa, then why should there be a movement? You might get so caught up in the movement that you’re forgetting about serving God.”

Prabhupāda: “Why am I serving God? This movement means I am serving God. What do you mean by ‘serving’? If Kṛṣṇa says, ‘You obey Me,’ and if I say, ‘You obey Kṛṣṇa,’ is this not service?”

Student: “Yes.”

Prabhupāda: “So we are doing the same business. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Surrender to Me and give up all other engagement, and I shall give you protection.’ And we are saying the same thing, that you surrender to Kṛṣṇa and you’ll be happy. So we are voluntarily giving service to Kṛṣṇa. Preaching work is the best service, if you preach rightly. If you preach wrongly, that is disservice. You have to simply say the same thing as Kṛṣṇa.”

Student: “But the movement might get in the way of serving Kṛṣṇa.”

Prabhupāda: “It is service to Kṛṣṇa. Because we have understood what Kṛṣṇa wants, we are preaching the same thing.”

Student: “Was there always a kind of movement?”

Prabhupāda: “Yes, the movement is always there. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, ‘My dear Arjuna, whenever people are misguided and there is too much irreligiosity, at that time I appear Myself.’ The material world is such that, if something is set right, still some time it will be distorted. Therefore a movement is required whenever there is deterioration of the real truth. But it is the same movement, not a new movement. The movement means God is there, He is great, and we are all subordinate. Our duty is to abide by the order of God, then we are happy. The movement is simple. The same movement was preached by Lord Kṛṣṇa. The same movement was preached by Lord Jesus Christ. The same movement we are also preaching. Simply accepting the authority or the greatness of the Supreme Lord and engaging oneself, that’s all. There is nothing new. Don’t try to see something new. It is the oldest because God is the oldest, you are also the oldest, and your relationship is also the oldest. Therefore the movement is also the oldest. But the process adopted is suitable for this time. That is also not new, not manufactured. It is recommended for this age. Just like during the winter season, the process is to protect your body from being affected by cold. Similarly in this age, Kali-yuga, it is recommended that God realization is only possible by this chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa.”