Retelling of Prabhupada’s Arrival in America 

Sometimes I speak about Prabhupada to new devotees who have not yet read Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta.  I start by telling how Prabhupada took the Jaladuta to America and narrate the story of the beginning of 26 Second Avenue.  On these occasions I have a free field.  It is an unusually good opportunity to speak without worrying whether they have heard the stories of Prabhupada in Butler, Pennsylvania, or Prabhupada staying with Dr. Mishra.  I linger over those incidents with relish.  I sense that Prabhupada is present and is pleased by my talking about him, especially at certain times when I say something humorous, or while talking about his difficulties …  For example, he went regularly to the Scindia Steamship office in New York and asked, “When is the boat going back?”  The Scindia agent finally said, “You ask so many times when is the boat going back, but you never go back, Swamiji.”

I speak whatever comes to mind from the Prabhupada-lilamrta, with added commentary.  I want to impress upon my audience that Prabhupada carried all of us within him like seeds.  It was especially precarious during that first year.  It is fun to talk about him, and my memories come out a bit differently than they did in the Lilamrta.  For example, I tell how the Agarwal family in Butler first received a photo of Prabhupada and knew that he was coming to stay with them.  I might say, “They saw the picture of him and they were frightened,” but in the book, I emphasize that the Agarwals were uneasy, thinking that their middle-class values and their place in America might be compromised by the Swami’s coming.  “Uneasy” is not the same as “frightened”.