Sincerity Attracts Krishna

Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami: The building at 5364, West Pico Boulevard, was a small storefront in a middle-class black neighborhood of Los Angeles. With his key Aniruddha opened the rear door, and Srila Prabhupada entered followed by a few disciples. The room was stark. A Brijabasi print of Lord Krishna sat atop the altar, which was no more than two orange crates covered with an old madras. A tamboura and a mridanga on end stood in one corner, and a curtain hung over the front window. Prabhupada's seat, a simple raised platform, was the only furniture. Prabhupada, dressed in saffron robes and walking with a cane, crossed the room, opened the front door, and stepped outside. Glancing up and down the street, he saw small, run-down houses.

It was a quiet, out-of-the-way neighborhood, unlike the more vital locations his disciples had found in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury and Manhattan's Lower East Side, but it was a place in Los Angeles, a start. Prabhupada stepped back inside, and shut the door. Aniruddha, Dayananda, his wife Nandarani, and their three-week-old daughter Candramukhi, were there as members of the Los Angeles temple. Several other devotees who had driven down a few days earlier from San Francisco were also there, and stood anxiously around Prabhupada waiting to hear what he would say.

Prabhupada looked around carefully. "Alright," he said, "Let us have a kirtana ." Picking up the mridanga, he sat down on the small platform while his disciples sat down before him on the floor. No sooner had he begun to play, however, when Janaki rushed over to him carrying the tamboura. 'Swamiji,' she said, 'you can't play the drum! you are not well enough to play this.' Her reprimand was motherly. Prabhupada was seventy-two, and only six months ago he had been hospitalized after a heart attack and stroke. He had only recently returned from India, where he had gone to recuperate. Naturally, his disciples were concerned about his health. "All right." Prabhupada smiled trading instruments with Janaki. "Then I will play tamboura." 

As Srila Prabhupada softly plucked the metal strings, his disciples clapped the one-two-three rhythm. Prabhupada chanted, "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Hare Hare." With his traditional Bengali melody he led the singing, joining with his disciples on the chorus. As Prabhupada's disciples sat earnestly chanting before him, some of them looking up to him and others singing with eyes closed, he looked at each disciple.

Nervous, timid, Aniruddha was there. He blushed easily, and his bespectacled eyes squinted when he smiled. Tall, lean, Dayananda was there. He had a good job as a computer technician for RCA, and he was giving two hundred dollars monthly to support the temple that he and his wife had started. Srila Prabhupada had been in India when Dayananda and Nandarani had moved to Los Angeles, and found this little storefront. Immediately they had written to him about the new temple and the warm, sunny, Los Angeles climate which they said would be good for his health. Prabhupada had expressed his eagerness to join them. "I am pleased that our desire is fulfilled by the Grace of Lord Krishna. Your specific duty is to chant and hear the transcendental name of the Lord. Read some passages from my English version of the Srimad Bhagavatam, Srimad Bhagavad-gita (Gitopanishad), and explain them as far as possible as you have heard from me. Any devotee who has developed a genuine love for Krishna can also explain the truth about Krishna, because Krishna helps such a sincere devotee seated in his heart."