More On Lunch With Swamiji

One boy, Stanley, was quite young, and Prabhupada, almost like a doting father, watched over him as he ate.  Stanley’s mother had personally met Prabhupada and said that only if he took personal care of her son would she allow him to live in the monastery.  Prabhupada complied.  He diligently encouraged the boy until Stanley gradually took on a voracious appetite and began consuming ten capatis at a sitting (and would have taken more had Swamiji not told him to stop).  But aside from Swamiji’s limiting Stanley to ten capatis, the word was always, “More . . . take more.”  When Prabhupada was finished, he would rise and leave the room, Keith would catch a couple of volunteers to help him clean, and the others would leave.

Occasionally, on a Sunday, Prabhupada himself would cook a feast with special Indian dishes.

Steve:  Swamiji personally cooked the prasadam and then served it upstairs in his front room.  We all sat in rows, and I remember him walking up and down in between the rows of boys, passing before us with his bare feet and serving us with a spoon from different pots.  He would ask what did we want – did we want more of this?  And he would serve us with pleasure.  These dishes were not ordinary, but sweets and savories – like sweet rice and kachoris – with special tastes.  Even after we had all taken a full plate, he would come back and ask us to take more.

Once he came up to me and asked what I would like more of – would I like some more sweet rice?  In my early misconception of spiritual life, I thought I should deny myself what I liked best, so I asked for some more plain rice.  But even that “plain” rice was fancy yellow rice with fried cheese balls.