Prabhupada's undying spirit

Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami: Shortly after Prabhupada's arrival, he continued the process of initiating disciples. He initiated Kim and his younger sister at the same time. A few days earlier, Kim had suggested to his sister that she go to Prabhupada's apartment and ask to be his disciple. "Are you following the four rules?" Prabhupada asked. 'Yes,' she replied, and then he said it was all right. 'I just wanted to say something else,' she continued, 'that is, I heard that you had taken birth because in your last life you had been a physician and had killed a snake for some medical purpose.'

Prabhupada laughed. "Oh, your brother has told you that?" 

'Yeah,' she replied. 

No more was said about it. Kim got his name as Krishnadasa. Prabhupada also initiated a few disciples who had written from New York. He performed the initiation ceremony in the temple and chanted on everyone's beads, including the New York disciples. That night he also spoke for a few moments on the telephone with Brahmananda in New York and told him, "I have returned by the grace of Krishna, and I am now fit to serve you."

Prabhupada said he was fit to serve the devotees, and he certainly looked and acted wonderfully, but he was still feeling the effects of his stroke of half a year ago. There was a persistent ringing sound, like a bell, in his head, and he couldn't sleep more than three hours at night and one hour in the day, but he pushed on as always. He sent a letter to a disciple explaining how despite disturbance in his head he continues to work on the transcendental plane, and he advises his disciples to do likewise.

Prabhupada again took up his translating of the third canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam, which he had put aside for half a year. Living in the same house with the brahmacaris, he would wake before them and begin translating. Then after they rose around five, they would hear him ringing a bell in his room, and they would smell the incense. Because of their proximity, the boys would often drop by his room. They would watch Prabhupada sitting at his desk, fresh from his morning shower. He would meticulously place several tiny spoonfuls of water in his left palm, and then rub a ball of Vrindavana clay into his palm making the mixture for Vaishnava tilaka. Using a hand mirror, he would artistically make the markings of tilaka, first on his forehead and then on eleven other parts of the body, as directed by the Vaishnava smriti. Prabhupada would then hold his brahmana thread and silently say the Gayatri mantras while facing the pictures of Krishna he had on the small altar.