It was a big thing for a brahmana boy to be initiated by Prabhupada
Tripurari Swami : It was a wonderful victory for Prabhupada, the opening of the Krishna Balarama temple, a great triumph over many obstacles. In all of the temples in India, the principal temples that Prabhupada opened - Mayapur, Vrindavan and Bombay, he struggled. In Mayapur, he struggled with his own godbrothers. In Bombay, of course, he struggled with the tenants and the municipality. And in Vrindavan, he struggled with the Goswamis. So all of them were a great victory. But I think Vrindavan was the greatest victory, and it was the homeland of Prabhupada. As he said, "My place of worship is Mayapur, my office is Bombay and my home is Vrindavan."
So it was a great triumph, and we all felt it. From there he build a bridge across the whole ocean to the whole rest of the world, that people could easily walk over that and enter into Vrindavan. He gave life to the whole of Vrindavan actually, enthusiasm for Krishna-bhakti, even those who had opposed him in some way recognizing, "Yes, you are a hometown boy and you've made us famous all over the world and you've brought Caitanya Mahaprabhu's mission everywhere."
It was formally really recognized by the town of Vrindavan. I remember at that time there were six brahmana boys that were initiated from brahmana families in the Braj. It was a big thing for a brahmana boy to be initiated by Prabhupada and be in a movement where they would eat chapattis cooked by persons born in the West and so forth. It was a huge triumph for Vaisnavism over religion, experiential spiritual life over religion, Vaisnavism over brahmanism, one of the causes that Prabhupada championed his whole life.
Reference: Following Srila Prabhupada-A Chronological Series by Tripurari Swami
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