Jul 05, 2022 — CANADA (SUN) — A critical analysis of the Srila Prabhupada-Lilamrta by Satsvarupa das Goswami.
The remainder of Chapter Nine of Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta, "Stay High Forever", is primarily made up of transcripts of remembrances by ISKCON notorieties such as Jadurani, Rupanuga, and someone called Dan. I've yet to identify who Dan is, because Satsvarupa's hasn't yet disclosed that piece of information in the storyline. While most disciples of Srila Prabhupada go exclusively by their initiated devotee names, here Satsvarupa is putting the focus on Dan's pre-initiated pastimes.
Like all the previous 'remembrance', content, the consistent theme in this section is a somewhat overly-detailed description of the person's life at this point in time: what they were thinking about in terms of not only Srila Prabhupada and Krsna consciousness, but many other topics du jour. As to how these personalities came across Srila Prabhupada and the devotees, whether it be in Thompson Square Park or at the Temple, what is included is, for the most part, irrelevant to the story of Srila Prabhupada.
As we're made to understand by the title of the book, the Lilamrta is supposed to be about Srila Prabhupada, yet this entire section at the end of the chapter offers very little content about Srila Prabhupada. In fact, the descriptions given were not at all philosophical or even flattering. The author apparently wanted to give us an impression of what these individuals initially felt about Srila Prabhupada in terms of how he looked or the cute things he did, like peeling his apple at the end of a class and distributing it as prasadam, disposing very precisely of the skin and the seeds. It's true, of course, that Srila Prabhupada did everything very expertly and often in an unusual manner for most Americans to experience.
Two of the descriptions we find in these pages are very interesting from a storyline point of view, and illustrate to a certain extent the nature of an advanced devotee. But what is missing is the philosophical point that a pure devotee has many advanced, divine qualities and they are described in sastra. Srila Prabhupada's activities illustrated these qualities, but we don't find this philosophical explanation here in Lilamrta.
One incident I found interesting was that Brahmananda had asked Srila Prabhupada for a little money to do something. We get a detailed description of how Srila Prabhupada expertly extracted the money from his coin purse. The gestures indicated that he treated everything in a way that showed how much he appreciated and understood completely that everything belongs to Krsna.
The devotees who are giving their input, namely Jadurani, Rupanuga and Dan, explained how they decided to get initiated and how Srila Prabhupada accepted them as initiates. While this is interesting, as I've mentioned before, it's hard to believe that things happened in just the way they're describing it here. It was the case back then, just as it is now, for devotees who participated in the early lila of Srila Prabhupada to be constantly asked to tell these stories to other devotees who didn't have the opportunity to get direct association with Srila Prabhupada. In other words, you were always encouraged to tell your story. By the time this Lilamrta was composed, the early devotees must have told these stories hundreds and hundreds of times. And as is always the case with such stories, the teller usually polishes them up and embellishes them as time goes on.
In my mind, the most interesting aspect of what's being told here is that the early participants weren't asked to wait for six months before getting initiated. Those who came in the next wave, myself included, did have to wait the pre-requisite period and be authorized as a candidate by the Temple President or local leader. The mystery or the potency of initiation was emphasized.
Here in this pastime, we see that Srila Prabhupada was very generous with his new followers, simply asking whether or not they were ready to follow the four regulative principles. He apparently didn't even emphasize chanting 16 rounds. Upon getting their positive response, he would quickly come to the conclusion that they could be initiated, and it seems that he didn't refuse anyone. Of course, one can understand that Srila Prabhupada was just priming the pump, in a sense, getting his movement off the ground and running in the West.
We also have to keep in mind that as the movement quickly spread, these devotees became quite famous. Participating in Srila Prabhupada's pastimes during the year he began initiating gave one a great deal of notoriety in a very short period of time. In all the temples springing up across North America, stories of the pastimes of these devotees were told amongst the devotees, even though the persons involved in the stories weren't the ones telling them. Consequently, the importance or significance of the individuals became amplified to quite a degree. At the time we thought they were so advanced and so special as to be allowed to participate directly with Srila Prabhupada during his lila - that they were demigods descended from the higher planets and that they were so much more advanced and superior to any of us, who didn't have the same opportunity. This put a great deal of burden on them, really, to live up to everyone's expectations. In hindsight, I don't think it really did them any favours, spiritually. The notoriety didn't really contribute to their advancement, and was probably detrimental because they had to start pretending and trying to live up to the stories.
Of course, the Lilamrta itself put further pressure on those who had survived up to the point of the book's publication. Even though the story was being told in such a way as to suggest that everyone was being treated equally, those who had already left were certainly de-emphasized by the author, if not even subtly disparaged. Many of those who were still involved at the time Lilamrta was written had taken on rather important positions, and they were accordingly given the spotlight, and even more notoriety. But even that didn't ensure their long-term viability as ISKCON persons of distinction.
Consider, for instance, the history of Jadurani devi, who is featured in this chapter. We know that Srila Prabhupada asked her to paint for him, and at the time Lilamrta was written she was still in good standing with ISKCON. Not long after, however, she got involved with a group of protestors and was ostracized and vilified by ISKCON. To this very day she's considered persona non grata on account of her going over to B.V. Narayana's camp.
So now that we have the benefit many more years perspective, we can look at the early pastimes of these personalities and get a truer picture of who they actually are. Reading the Lilamrta today, one can only wonder how it would be written if the author himself had a further 30 years of such perspective.
