Prabhupada’s Entrance

The summer evening was warm, and in the storefront the back windows and front door were opened wide.  Young men, several of them dressed in black denims and button-down sport shirts with broad, dull stripes, had left their worn sneakers by the front door and were now sitting on the floor.  Most of them were from the Lower East Side; no one had to go to great trouble to come here.  The little room was barren.  No pictures, no furniture, no rug, not even a chair.  Only a few plain straw mats.  A single bulb hung from the ceiling in the center of the room.  It was seven o’clock, and about a dozen people had gathered when the Swami suddenly opened the side door and entered the room.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the saffron cloth that draped his torso left his arms and some of his chest bare.  His complexion was smooth golden brown, and as they watched him, his head shaven, his ears long-lobed, and his aspect grave, he seemed like pictures they’d seen of the Buddha in meditation.  He was old, yet erect in his posture, fresh and radiant.  His forehead was decorated with the yellowish clay markings of the Vaisnavas.  Prabhupada recognized big, bearded Howard and smiled.  “You have brought your friends?”

“Yes,” Howard answered in his loud, resonant voice.

“Ah, very good.”