Swamiji Gave Us Confidence

There were many potentially awkward moments for Srila Prabhupada as he began conducting his movement in America in 1966.  We rejoice now in recalling how he was so tolerant.  While Prabhupada had some control over events within the storefront, it was more uncontrolled when we went to chant outside in Tompkins Square Park.  When someone joined your kirtana by blowing loudly on a saxophone, it was not easy to tell him to go away.  But Prabhupada always seemed to know best how to get through such situations.

Prabhupada’s chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra was a particularly effective way to smooth over awkward gaps between himself and the younger generation.  He just recommended that people chant Hare Krishna “wherever you go, and whatever you do.”

Although Prabhupada was worlds apart from the young people in America, the younger generation accepted him as “cool”; he was hip in his own way.  He was not a middle-class conformist, and he had not come to give us Boy Scout lessons.  He was not a church minister giving sermons with a piety that we could not relate to.