Śruta Kīrti Prabhu shares memories of Srila Prabhupada and Jai Pataka Swami from meetings in Mayapur and Vrindavan starting in 1972. He recalls Prabhupada's humble, childlike nature and Jai Pataka's care for refugees, reflecting on how brief time with pure devotees shapes a spiritual life.
Hare Krishna. It is Kartik of 1972. Prabhupada is in Vrindaban for the entire month of Kartik. One young Brahmachari. He went into Srila Prabhupada's room and offered obeisances. He said, rla Prabhupada, I just want to sit at your lotus feet. Rla Prabhupada laughed. He said, that will be very difficult because I'm always moving. Always moving. I was in Mayapur last month. My wife and I were there. We made arrangements to see him for some time. He said, yes, I want to see you right after the GBC meetings. We'll make a plan. But it didn't happen. So then just a few weeks ago, of course, he was coming to Vrindavan for a big program. In Vrindavan, you saw, they had footprints. Lord Caitanya's lotus feet. A dozen sets of footprints. He had arranged for Lord Chaitanya's lotus feet to be put in all the 12 forests. Of course, Janani Vas Prabhu was also there. But then, by Krishna's divine arrangement, neither did I get to see him there. So like many of you, we're chasing Chai Pataka, Maharaja's lotus feet. I'm here again to try to get just a few minutes to see him. I first met Maharaj 1973 in Mayapur, of course. And at that time I got to see his nature. The two of them were there. Bhavananda and Jai Pataka at that time. Bhavananda very flashy. He was up front all the time. He was always busy doing service. Prabhupada asked him at that time what was being done on the land. A year later, when Rla Prabhupada came, we went into Prabhupada's room. Lotus building. He would always offer so many prayers to Rla Prabhupda, glorifying Srila Prabhupada. Everyone was saying what Prabhupada done in Mayapur. The devotees were saying, his lotus building is so beautiful. Rla Prabhupada, Jai Battakumaraj was saying, is so beautiful what you have done. Of course, Prabhupada he would deflect the appreciation, the praise. Prabhupada would always deflect the praise. He said, I had an idea. He said, but Krishna has arranged everything. And Prabhupada asked everyone. He said, all the devotees, they're comfortable. They have nice place to stay, nice prasadam. And then Prabhupada said, It was the desire of Rla Bhakti Vinod Thakur, the desire of Rla Prabhupda, my Guru Maharaj, that everyone from all over the world come to Mayapur. And then he said, Prabhupada said it was predicted to this person would come and that person, he would travel around the world, bring everyone to Mayapur. And then Prabhupada said something he never said in public. He said, I may be that person. I may be that. Five words he said. And then immediately after saying that, he looked at Jai Pataka Maharaj and he asked him, you're growing one certain type of banana that was very famous in Bengal. And Sai Pataka said, yes, Prabhupada. So Prabhupada did not even give us the opportunity to glorify him any further. And then again he said the Jaipataka. So you have this banana, but not now is not the time for planting it. But we're going to plant that banana. He's brought all of us here. He's brought everyone, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to Mayapur, fulfilling RLA Prabhupda's desire. I had the opportunity in 2004, I believe 20 years ago when the Ganga safari, they went to Rishikesh. So I got to see him there and he asked me, he said, we're going to Devapriag. I said, oh. I said, that's one of my favorite places. So he said, well, you can lead us there. You can lead the buses to Deva Prayag. Those of you, most all of you will know Deva Priyag is the place where the Alaknanda and the Bhagarathi, they come together. And there she becomes the Ganga from that point. So I happily accepted that opportunity to do a little service for Maharaj. So and we all went there. There were avalanches on the way that tried to stop us. But we made it to Deva Prayag. One of my favorite times with Maharaj. We got to go into the Ganga together, take bath there. Sekayatri mantra. He's done so much for so many in our ISKCON society. You'll see my, my wife there, her mother, her brother, Chai Patakamara. She practically raised them from 1990. He is the ultimate personalist. He saw they came from of course, Armenia, which was a war torn country, and went to Moscow. They had nothing. They had nothing. No. When the war happened in Armenia, 1988, 1989, they had to flee. So they were refugees in Russia. Her family so he literally took personal care of them when he saw the situation. And just recently, it was always in Delhi, I would get to see Maharaj and he would invite me for lunch. At that time, of course, they had very special prasadam for Maharaj and then we had our prasadam. So his assistants, they were helping serve Maharaj's prasadam and where they're eating nice South Indian prashadam. And Maharaj is looking at us and he's looking at our plate of prashad and what we're eating. He said to his servants, I want that, I want that, I want that. Why are you feeding me this? He said, I want to eat what they're eating anyway. It's one of the sweetest people I have known for a very long time, I would say about being with rla Prabhupada for a very long time. Prabhupada had of course, many different features. But myself, personally, what I love so much about Srila Prabhupada was he was childlike, not childish. Childlike. Yeah. I'm not correcting you, just being specific. He had this nature which was so innocent, so wonderful. He's very wonderful. He carries on Prabhupada's activities as an acharya. He. He is teaching everyone. But when you get to spend time with him personally, he has this very childlike, very childlike behavior. Very sweet, very innocent. So like all of you, I'm just waiting to get just a moment of his association. What is it called? 1/11 of a second. The Sanskrit 1/11 of a second Lava mantra. Yes. That's all it requires association with the pure devotee. Just one eleventh of a second. Second. So love Matra One eleventh of a second. So whatever is going to happen today, we're going to have thousands of seconds. So we're going to have so much association with Maharaj. Thank you for watching our videos. Be sure to subscribe to our channel. We publish new videos every day. And don't forget to like and share our channel.
