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Meditating under an Oak Tree in LA

 Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami: One day on a walk, Prabhupada discovered a special place across the street from his apartment. There, on a neighbor's front lawn, stood a broad, tall tree. Taking a few disciples with him, Prabhupada went over and sat down beneath the tree. On a warm Los Angeles afternoon, this was a great but simple luxury, sitting in the pleasant sunny atmosphere beneath the shade tree. Raya Rama considered the occasion something to write to the devotees in New York about.

This afternoon I took a stroll to the temple which is some distance away, and when I returned I found Swamiji crossing the street from his house accompanied by Gaurasundara. So I trailed them up close. Swamiji took his seat under a big oak tree that grows close to our house across the street. "Meditation under a tree is very nice," he said after a few minutes. As we sat there, other devotees came and joined us, all sitting around Swamiji on some unknown person's lawn under their tree. "Therefore in former times, sages used to seat themselves under trees and teach."

I know that I am a worthless fool. Here I sit at Swamiji's feet, and my tears aren't flowing or my heart breaking with joy but even for a fool, Swamiji's presence is intoxicating in the extreme. Swamiji said that saintly persons in India often sat under trees and even lived there with no other shelter, and that the Six Gosvamis who wrote books under the order of Lord Caitanya, lived this way in Vrindavana, staying each night under a different tree and compiling sublime Sanskrit literatures.

Hearing Swamiji speak on such transcendental subjects in this setting, fit perfectly the devotees' ideal notions of the guru beneath an ancient towering banyan tree in India. It didn't seem to them that they were sitting in an ordinary neighborhood of Los Angeles. Often Aniruddha would return to the apartment after shopping or errands, and he would see from afar and think, 'This gorgeous-looking, saffron-robed person sitting there on the grassy lawn.' 



Reference: Prabhupada Lila by Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami