Bill Epstein

Bill Epstein took pride in his relationship with the Swami – it was honest.  Although he helped the Swami by telling people about him and sending them up to see him in his apartment, he felt the Swami knew he’d never become a serious follower.  Nor did Bill ever mislead himself into thinking he would ever be serious.  But Prabhupada wasn’t content with Bill’s take-it-or-leave-it attitude.  When Bill would finally show up at the storefront again after spending some days at a friend’s place, only to fall asleep with a blanket wrapped over his head during the lecture, Prabhupada would just start shouting so loud that Bill couldn’t sleep.  Sometimes Bill would ask a challenging question, and Prabhupada would answer and then say, “Are you satisfied?” and Bill would look up dreamily and answer, “No!”  Then Prabhupada would answer it again more fully and say louder, “Are you satisfied?” and again Bill would say no.  This would go on until Bill would have to give in: “Yes, yes, I am satisfied.”

But Bill was the first person to get up and dance during a kirtana in the storefront.  Some of the other boys thought he looked like he was dancing in an egotistical, narcissistic way, even though his arms were outstretched in a facsimile of the picture of Lord Caitanya.  But when Swamiji saw Bill dancing like that, he looked at Bill with wide-open eyes and feelingly expressed appreciation: “Bill is dancing just like Lord Caitanya.”

Bill sometimes returned from his wanderings with money, and although it was not very much, he would give it to Swamiji.  He liked to sleep in the storefront and spend the day on the street, returning for lunch or kirtanas, or a place to sleep.  He used to leave in the morning and go looking for cigarettes on the ground.  To Bill, the Swami was part of the hip movement and thus earned a place of respect in his eyes as a genuine person.  Bill objected when the boys introduced signs of reverential worship toward the Swami (starting with them giving him an elevated seat in the temple), and as the boys who lived with the Swami gradually began to show enthusiasm, competition, and even rivalry among themselves, Bill turned from it in disgust.  He allowed that he would go on just helping the Swami in his own way, and he knew that the Swami appreciated whatever he did.  So he wanted to leave it at that.