Who Are You?

We didn’t know where Swamiji came from.  He was asked, “Where did you come from?  Who sent you?”  Bit by bit, he told of his Guru Maharaj and the tradition he represented.  Nowadays we speak with confidence about Prabhupada’s background and his intentions to spread Lord Caitanya’s sankirtana movement.  But in the earliest days, no one knew anything about these things.  We only knew Swamiji.  First came Swamiji; everything else came later. 

He just started singing; he explained later.  You walked into the park and saw the Indian swami singing, then you waited because he would explain everything later.  That was his preaching spirit, his greatness.

Vaisnavas who live in India may take their enormous cultural facility for granted.  Their culture accepts Hinduism, being Indian, following the Vedas, the Gods, sadhus.  To be a Vaisnava in India is similar to being a Catholic priest in the West.  Of course, even in India sadhus have difficulties – people are materialistic and confused – but still, the facility is there.  No one finds it strange to see someone in saffron singing mantras.  Prabhupada had a different experience in New York City.  He endured so much.  He has to be given credit for his preaching spirit. 

Of course, in the early days, we had no way of knowing that Prabhupada had crossed the cultural barrier by coming to America to preach.  We just saw him.  He was inviting us to participate in Krishna consciousness.  Some took him seriously.  It didn’t occur to us that he had come out of hundreds of thousands of Vaisnavas to fulfill the prediction of Lord Caitanya.  We didn’t worry about a philosophy.  We cared about Prabhupada.  Philosophy was something we got from him.  It came from him.  He was our only supply.  He had the book, the "Шримад-Бхагаватам".  It was hard for us to penetrate, impossible actually, without him.  We knew that much even then.