Prabhupada life-story 11 – On the bowery – A follower turns attacker

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
a series on Prabhupada’s life story. We are at the point where we discussed how Shila Prabhupada recognized that he was not going to get any help from India and he focused his entire energy on Americans.
And we discussed about how Prabhupada had arranged for America to be especially receptive for Shila Prabhupada. So, we discussed about socio-culturally, the hippies who emerged were very materially disillusioned and spiritually receptive. And Prabhupada purpose perceptively shifted his focus to this young generation, seeing their spiritual inquisitiveness.
And also, religiously, the Catholic Church had opened up to other religions, giving up its earlier attitude of condemnation of other religions as coming from the devil. And also, they had, the American immigration had opened up in around the same time. So, all these were the stage which Krishna had arranged for his exalted devotee Prabhupada to dance.
Now, Prabhupada had been living in New York at the ashram of Mishra, Mishra’s yoga studio. And there he had not been allowed to preach. So, that was room 307.
He shifted to another room in the vicinity, it was room 501, where he decided to have his own place for speaking. Now, room 501 was actually never meant for either staying or lecturing. It was just one room, small and utterly barren.
But that was the only thing that Prabhupada could afford at that time. When he was living in the Mishra’s studio, Dr. Mishra had been financing his needs, but now Prabhupada was on his own. And he had to arrange for things based on, for everything based on the sale of his books primarily.
Because most of the people who came to him were also not so well-to-do, and they’re not so eager to give donations. So, money was an anxiety. But at least Prabhupada had a place where he could speak freely.
And Prabhupada had not been interested in just a comfortable place for living. If that had been his interest, for him he could have lived in his room in Vrindavan. Prabhupada’s interest was in having an audience to hear about Krishna.
For him speaking about Krishna and helping people to come to Krishna, that was a spiritual comfort that his heart longed for. And he had that over here. So, it was almost like being freed from the constriction of not being able to speak freely about Krishna, to now being able to freely speak to his heart’s content.
And whoever would come, most of the people were either acquaintances from the yoga studio who had come, or in that yoga studio also some young people would come. And those young people, they invited other people to come. And by word of mouth some people started coming.
And Prabhupada would speak about the fundamentals of spirituality, about how we are not the body with the soul, how it is only through spiritual growth through devotional advancement that we can find fulfillment. It is that we need authentic spiritual guide for making such advancement. Now these were all serious philosophical concepts and the audience had difficulty understanding and accepting them.
But Prabhupada also had kirtans. And often Prabhupada would give short classes. He would have long kirtans before, long kirtans after.
And people started liking the kirtans. Prabhupada in the meanwhile was trying to cultivate whoever seemed interested. There was a person Harvey Cohen.
He had come, met Prabhupada when he was in, when he was at the yoga studio. And from that time they had formed an acquaintance. And there were other people who were not really very smart or very resourceful, but just wanted to do some service to Prabhupada.
And Prabhupada was eager to reciprocate with them. Even if they were not very competent, just if somebody was there who was interested to talk about Krishna, Prabhupada would speak about Krishna. Because Prabhupada, that was the purpose of his life.
That was the purpose why he had come to the West. And as he was living there, one day Prabhupada came from outside. He would often go out for walks.
Now for Prabhupada at that time, he had no money to even advertise his presence, to inform people. He did not even have enough money to make placards or distribute pamphlets about his program. So the only advertisement that he could do, practically speaking, was by his own presence.
So he would go for walks on streets. He had a habit of walking. And he would walk and people would see him and they would notice, this is an unusual looking person.
Those people who were interested, they would come and talk. And that way Prabhupada would create awareness of his own presence and attract people also to come for his program. So once Prabhupada had gone out and when he came back, the janitor over there, the watchman, he told that, Swamiji, in your absence, somebody had broken into your room and they have stolen your typewriter and they have stolen your tape recorder.
Now Prabhupada used to use his typewriter for writing his books, which he was continuing. And nobody would be there to talk with him. He would speak about Krishna’s message by typing it, knowing that people would hear it in the future.
And he would record his classes and sometimes he would record his own bhajans, which he would sing all alone. Now these two were practically his most prized possessions and they had been stolen. As the janitor was describing these things, by his mannerisms and by his speech, Prabhupada became convinced that actually no thief had come in.
This guard itself had stolen those things. Now of course, Prabhupada had no way of proving that. And he had become, he felt demoralized, he felt disheartened.
Now he had been staying there in that room and he had been sharing Krishna’s message as much as he could. But as he started thinking, some of his, some of the people were coming for his programs, he talked with them and they told him that, you know, we can give a new typewriter for you, we’ll get a new tape recorder for you. But Prabhupada had lost his heart to live over there.
What could stop, even if he got something new, what would stop the janitor from getting, from stealing again? And he went and met Mr. Forster, who was the travel agent of the Sindhya shipping company, who had received him when he had landed. And Prabhupada had told him that his visa for three was for three months and the most likely he would go back after three months. Now it was seven months and Prabhupada had managed to get the extension of visa and his desire to stay there was very much there.
But now he started thinking, what could he achieve over here? So he went there and told about the theft of Forster and Forster just gave a wry smile and he said, welcome, welcome to the company. And he told that his own automobile had been stolen recently. And he said that such kind of stealing is very common in America, in New York especially.
And he told him, he gave him some guidelines about how to avoid muggings. Muggings means you’re walking along the road and somebody suddenly attacks you and steals the money from your pocket or things like that. How to avoid thievery and muggings.
As Prabhupada heard all this, he shook his head. He said that America has so much prosperity. Even a simple room cleaner gets so much money.
And he said, in spite of having so much prosperity, so much easy way of earning honest money, still people are stealing because they’re spiritually lost. So Prabhupada did not see this simply as a personal loss. Oh, why I have a loss? Why has this been stolen from me? Prabhupada did not see it simply as a condemnation of America.
Oh, there are so many things here. Prabhupada saw it as a lack of spiritual wisdom, as a lack of spiritual guidance. This was his vision that he could see from the specific to the universal.
And whatever happened that actually reinforced his conviction that the world needed spiritual wisdom. Without that, even material prosperity would not lead to peace, would not lead to happiness, would not lead to moral character. So Prabhupada’s mission was his conviction to carry on his mission was undaunted.
But his inclination to stay in that particular place was no longer there. Some of the people who would come for his program, say Harvey Cohen and others, they said that there was a nearby area in New York, it’s called the Bowery. And most young people would stay there.
And they said, Swamiji, if you come and stay there, that is a place where thousands of young people are living. And they will be eager to hear from you. So Prabhupada started considering that.
And when he started speaking this to his acquaintances, they were shocked. Even a person who came used to come and clean the area where the building where Prabhupada was staying, he said, this Bowery is such a place, even I don’t go there. Yes, you have been robbed over here, but the solution is not to go over there.
That is an extremely dangerous and degraded place. The Bowery, if you want to understand what it is, you know, it is something like a slum. You know, slum is a place which is crowded, congested with very little facilities, and a lot of lack of hygiene and other such things.
But the Bowery was different. It is that those things are there, but the Bowery was something like that, but it’s also different. Now, it had earlier, it had a long history, but it had been lived, populated by immigrants earlier.
But even among the immigrants, it had become a place for licentiousness. So there had been saloons, saloons in America means places where beer, alcohol is sold. And naturally, alcoholics would assemble over there, and there would be gambling that would happen.
And gradually, that place had become equivalent to, it had become a synonym for degradation. In fact, one of the celebrated songs in the 19th century, before that in America had been, I will never go to the Bowery, the Bowery, Bowery, I will never go to the Bowery. So it had become synonymous in the American mind, the Bowery had become synonymous with a place of unspeakable degradation and corruption.
And yet, Prabhupada considered going there. Why? Because he saw the degradation, but he saw also the spiritual inclination of the people over there. So at that time, there had been a lot of young Americans who had become interested in art, in sculpting, in drawing, in painting.
And they needed usually more space than what was available in a normal apartment, because artists would like to have figurines, they would like to have their own easels for painting. So then, these places in the Bowery area, there had also been factories earlier. And those factories had become deserted.
So there were long like storehouses kind of places were there. And these had been converted into what was called as AIRs. AIRs means Artists in Residence.
So these were mostly lofts, which are largely sparse, largely unfurnished, where just people could stay and do their artwork, maybe do their music, keep their musical equipments over there. And people would live there and Prabhupada decided to shift there. So one of his acquaintances had been staying there.
But that person had got disillusioned by the frequent use of drugs and alcohol by the people living there. And he had decided to shift over to California, to another coast of America. And he had handed over the place to another young man named David Allen.
And they had met three times in one evening when this young man was leaving. And he said that, that is an indication that I should give you this place. But he had also been admirer of, appreciator of Swamiji.
So he had said that, I will give you this place, but on the condition that half of it you should give to Swamiji. Now, the place where Prabhupada got to live in the Bowery, this was actually right between two saloons, two places where people would come for taking alcohol. And often, the people who lived in this place, many of them, they would stay in places, some people would stay, would rent out the place as artist in residence, where they would work during the day.
But some young men, they did not have so much work. They are just homeless. So they were just jobless, homeless.
So they would just stay at night at the place. They had some place which they could stay only at night. And daytime, that place would be vacated for other work.
And they would just loiter on the streets. So the disease rates and the death rates in the Bowery were five times more than the national rates of America at that time. So Prabhupada moved to such a place.
And the place where he stayed, where David Allen was the other person who was staying there, it was just a long, empty place practically. It was largely unfurnished. And it was only 100 feet by 25 feet.
And there was a partition. So on one side of the part, and the partition was also not a complete privacy. There was space on the top.
It didn’t go to the roof, nor did it go to the two sides of the roof. So anybody could peek in or go in anytime. No door, no privacy at all.
So Prabhupada would stay there. There was a small bed where Prabhupada would sleep. And he had his own small desk where he would write.
And on the other side, there was a dais. So Prabhupada would sit there and give classes. And many times, this was on the fourth floor, and there was only one narrow stairs up.
And that narrow stairs led down to a dark area, which finally opened into a place called exit, which was marked as exit. So Prabhupada would climb up these four stories through this dark, darkly lit narrow stairs, and that’s where he would stay. And anyone who would come in, if they came for the lecture, they came in when Prabhupada would be discussing, and everybody would get disturbed who’s coming in.
But that’s how Prabhupada would speak. And that’s how Prabhupada lived, and that’s how Prabhupada spoke. So now people were interested.
People were coming. And especially Prabhupada’s kirtans became loved by the audiences. They would come and they would hear and they would feel something special, something mystical.
Most of the times people could not understand Prabhupada’s accent, but they loved the kirtans. And Prabhupada would have long kirtans, and Prabhupada would personally be available to anyone and everyone who wanted to talk with them. And David himself seemed to be very spiritually interested.
He had come there to explore the scene in the Bowery, and slowly he had got involved in drugs. But when he had met Prabhupada, he had become very inspired, and he wanted to search for Prabhupada, assist him, and Prabhupada considered him to be like an aspiring disciple. And in fact, Prabhupada wrote about him to his acquaintances in India.
He wrote to Somati Muraji that this, he may become the first western Vaishnava disciple, first western bhakta to be initiated. He is considering the path of bhakti seriously. And Prabhupada had his hopes on David, and David seemed to be receptive to instruction, to rectification, to become to living a more pure lifestyle, to giving up drugs and other things.
And he would cooperate when people would come in the loft, and he would help in the, at least in providing the place for Prabhupada to lecture. So, things seemed to be looking up for Prabhupada. There were several other people also who came, and they were interested.
And they would often have serious question answers, and Prabhupada would answer according to their capacity. So, while people were interested still, the danger of the place was there. And sometimes, there would be criminals going around, and Prabhupada would just walk around over there.
It was a very dangerous place to be in, but Prabhupada was fixed in his service to Krishna, in his faith in Krishna, in his mission to share Krishna with others, and Krishna protected him even in those dangerous situations. So, although outside it was unsafe, Prabhupada was safe by Krishna’s arrangement. However, danger came unexpectedly, not outside on the dangerous streets, but inside at the very residence where Prabhupada was staying.
Although David had seemed spiritually interested, he was also associating with people who had drug users, and he was relapsing into drugs. Sometimes in his drug-induced states, he would be disrespectful, impudent, and discordant, but Prabhupada would tolerate that. One time, however, when Prabhupada was sitting in his room, suddenly, David barged into his side of the partition, and he was looking wide-eyed, almost like looking wild, mad, intoxicated, gesticulating wildly, and he came to attack Prabhupada.
Prabhupada tried to talk with him, but he was just too maddened by drugs to understand anything intelligibly, and Prabhupada realized that in such a person, a drug-maddened individual can’t do anything. Prabhupada immediately got up, and he slipped out of the partition from the other side, and he ran down the narrow flight of stairs. David was still gesticulating, screaming, doing all kinds of crazy antics.
He could have attacked Prabhupada at any time. Prabhupada ran down those narrow flight. At any moment, David might just come down and charge on him.
Prabhupada ran down the stairs. He came out those four narrow flights of stairs, and he came out, and he came out, and he was in the open air now. He looked around, and he saw there were many young hippies lying on the ground in the state of sleep or drunken stupor or drug-induced stoning, and he looked up and there were crows and pigeons on the lofts.
They were just flitting around. Prabhupada realized that he was now as homeless as those derelicts on the floor, and he was actually in a terrible condition. He was the same person, you know, who had a personal relationship with the President of India, who had a personal relationship with the Prime Minister of India.
The same person who would be warmly welcomed and revered in hundreds of pious households in India. That person who was venerated as a sannyasi in Vrindavan, as a member of the highest social order. That same person who was an author, whose books were available in most and many of the schools of India.
That same person was now in a situation where he was as homeless and helpless as the derelicts populating the streets of the Bowery and lying there in drug-induced stupor. What had reduced him to such a condition? It was simply his desire to share Krishna’s message. It was his desire, compassionate, committed, tireless desire to share Krishna’s message that had brought him from Vrindavan to America, that had brought him from Vrindavan, which is the capital of devotion to the Bowery, which was the capital of degradation.
He had come on such a divine mission, but here he was experiencing such a devastating reversal. It was not just that he was physically homeless, but more than that was the fact that the very person on whom he had pinned his hopes who would become a disciple, that very person had done an activity that was the very antithesis of what a disciple would do. A disciple serves a spiritual master, a disciple is meant to lay down his life for a spiritual master and here the disciple had come to attack, the prospective disciple had come to attack a spiritual master.
So, there are few things, in fact one can hardly conceive anything which could be as morale shattering as this, to be physically dislocated and to see one’s mission being frustrated, not just thwarted, but being turned around. The very people for whom Prabhupada aggressed so much, they had revealed themselves, one of them who was a representative of the others, that person had revealed himself to be so untrustworthy that he could turn around and attack Prabhupada. So, oh this was a time when Prabhupada could have given up.
Prabhupada could have decided, I tried my best, these people are not going to change. Why should I waste my time here? Prabhupada could have gone back to India, but Prabhupada did not. Although he was shaken temporarily, still he was steady internally.
He was determined, he had come so far to share Krishna’s message and he was not going to take no for an answer. He was determined to find some way to keep sharing Krishna’s message. The Bhagavatam describes how just as a Ganga flows towards the ocean, even when a big obstacle comes, the Ganga finds some way above, below, right, left or eventually eroding the obstacle itself.
It just keeps moving towards the ocean. Such was the determination of Srila Prabhupada to keep sharing Krishna’s message. At this particular point, he had faced a huge block, but Prabhupada’s determination was not blocked.
His specific execution of the determination was blocked, but determination was steady and he would find some other way to move on and share Krishna’s message and spiritually enrich people. How he moved on and how this reversal, how this adversity opened a new door for him, we will discuss in our next session. Thank you very