Raphael

Raphael was not interested in spiritual discipline.  He was a tall young man with long, straight, brown hair, who, like Don, tried to stay aloof and casual toward Swamiji.  When Prabhupada introduced japa and encouraged the boys to chant during the day, Raphael didn’t go for it.  He said he liked a good kirtana, but wouldn’t chant on beads.

One time Swamiji was locked out of his apartment and the boys had to break the lock.  Swamiji asked Raphael to replace it.  Days went by.  Raphael could sit in the storefront reading Rimbaud, he could wander around town, but he couldn’t find time to fix the lock.  One evening he dropped by the Swami’s apartment, opened the lockless door, and made his way to the back room where some boys were sitting listening to Swamiji speak informally about Krishna consciousness.  Suddenly Raphael spoke up, expressing his doubts and revealing his distracted mind.  “As for me,” he said, “I don’t know what’s happening.  I don’t know whether a brass band is playing, or what the heck is going on.”  Some of the devotees tensed; he had interrupted their devotional mood.  “Raphael is very candid,” Swamiji replied, smiling, as if to explain his son’s behaviour to the others.

Raphael finally fixed the lock, but one day after a lecture he approached the Swami, stood beside the dais and spoke up, exasperated, impatient: “I am not meant to sit in a temple and chant on beads!  My father was a boxer.  I am meant to run on the beach and breathe in big breaths of air …”  Raphael went on, gesticulating and voicing his familiar complaints – things he would rather do than take up Krishna consciousness.  Suddenly Prabhupada interrupted him in a loud voice: “Then do it!  Do it!”  Raphael shrank away, but he stayed.