Swamiji Moves 

Now it was time to move the Swami into his new place.  A few friends who were on hand accompanied the Swami over to the Bowery loft.  Maybe they weren’t prepared to become his surrendered disciples, but contributing toward the first month’s rent and volunteering a few hours of work to help set up his place were exactly the kinds of things they could do very willingly. 

At the loft, they all gathered up portions of the Swami’s belongings, and then they started out on foot up Bowery.  It was like a safari, a caravan of half a dozen men loaded with Prabhupada’s things.  Michael carried the heavy Roberts reel-to-reel, and even the swami carried two suitcases.  They did everything so quickly that it wasn’t until they were well on their way and Mike’s arm began to ache that he realized, “Why didn’t we bring a car?”

It was the end of June, and a hazy summer sun poured its heat down into the Bowery jungle.  Starting and stopping, the strange safari, stretching for over a block, slowly trekked along.  Prabhupada struggled with his suitcases, past the seemingly unending row of restaurant supply shops and lamp stores between Grand, Broome, and Spring streets.  Sometimes he paused and rested, setting his suitcases down.  He was finally moving from the Bowery.  His electrician friend on Seventy-second Street would have been relieved, although perhaps he would have disapproved of the Second Avenue address also.  At least he was finished residing on Skid Row.  He walked on, past the homeless men outside the Salvation Army shelter, past the open-door taverns, stopping at streetlights, standing alongside total strangers, keeping an eye on the progress of his procession of friends who struggled along behind him.

The Bowery artists and musicians saw him as “highly evolved.”  They felt that the spirit was moving him and were eager to help him set up his own place so that he could do his valuable spiritual thing and spread it to others.  He was depending on them for help, yet they knew he was “on a higher level”; he was his own protector, or as he said, God protected him.