Exploring His Western Audience 

Sometimes his mood is light, and he commiserates with his fellow New Yorkers, chuckling about the difficulties they share: “Suppose there is a heavy snowfall, the whole New York City is flooded with snow, and you are all put into inconvenience.  That is a sort of suffering, but you have no control over it.”  Sometimes he praises Dr. Mishra’s students for having learned so nicely from their teacher: “Now, what Dr. Mishra is teaching is very nice.  He is teaching that first of all you must know, ‘Who am I?’  That is very good, but that ‘Who am I?’ can be known from Bhagavad-gita also – ‘I am not this body.’”  And sometimes a guest suddenly speaks out with an irrelevant question, and the Swami patiently tries to consider it. 

Yet behind his tolerance, Prabhupada’s mood is always one of urgency.  Sometimes he talks quickly, and one senses his desire to establish Krishna consciousness in the West as soon as possible.  He has no followers, only a few books, no temples, and he openly states that he is racing against time: “I am an old man.  I could leave at any time.”  So, behind the full delivery of Krishna conscious philosophy is an anxiety, an almost desperate desire to convince at least one soul to take up Krishna consciousness immediately. 

Now the constrained situations of Butler and the Ananda Ashram and Dr. Mishra are behind him, he is free to speak about the Absolute Truth in full.  Throughout his life he has prepared for this, yet he is still discovering the best ways to present Krishna, exploring his Western audience, testing their reactions.