Prabhupada’s Risks

Neither was Prabhupada able to conduct a full initiation ceremony with all the details for yajna.  For bricks we found some discarded ones at a construction site, and for dirt we dug it up (when Mr. Chudy was not looking) from the garden in the courtyard.  Prabhupada conducted the initiation with faith in the holy names and a desire to carry out his spiritual master’s order.  He improvised and accepted the broken souls who came to him, provided he saw them as sincere.  Everything he did was bona fide according to Vaisnava smṛti, but some things had to be done according to time, place, and persons.  If he did not have ghee, he’d do a ceremony with butter, even margarine.

“Prabhupada, you asked for coconuts, but we can’t find any.  We’ve got bananas but no banana leaves.”

“All right,” Prabhupada said.  He was not going to stop an initiation for lack of banana leaves.