Krishna-lila dance in the Manipuri style

Gargamuni Dasa: In Mayapur 1975, I had arranged with some life members from Bombay, they were professional Krishna-lila dancers in the Manipuri style, they were called the Jhaveri sisters, and they were willing to come to Mayapur if we pay for their air fare, they wouldn't charge anything, they were gonna do it out of bhakti, so I always go for shooting the rhino as Shyamasundara says in his book, I always do things that other people don't do. 
Throughout my history with Srila Prabhupada, I always did things extraordinary, so I thought, “Yeah, I'll bring them for the festival, because there's gonna be at least almost a thousand devotees there.” So I thought I'll bring these Jhaveri sisters, and they can dance Manipuri style of Krishna’s Lila in the Kishori age of when he's stealing the butter and all those different pastimes.

And so Prabhupada didn’t know that I invited them until after I did it and it was held in the evening. 
So as usual, some of the other sannyasis said that quoted from shastra that one shouldn’t watch a woman dancing or singing and Prabhupada agreed with that. Of course nowadays it's different, we see a lot of videos of all the woman dancing in front of the sannyasis, so we've compromised that.
First of all I was watching Prabhupada’s face throughout the whole performance because I want to see if he was pleased, and he was very, he was smiling, he was clapping, you know, because they did it so gracefully the pastimes and all the devotees, of course, enjoyed it because it was a cultural aspect of Krishna conscious and most of the devotees had never seen this style of Krishna-lila in the Manipuri style. 
Later on, Svarupa Damodara brought a whole troupe, I think it was in the 80s or 90s, to tour all the temples in the Western countries from Manipur, he brought dancers, he did the Mrdanga dancing and all kinds of cultural programs. So, he continued the program, but I started it in 1975. So Prabhupada - after the performance - which he was very pleased and of course I was pleased that he was pleased, he gave a big lecture about the performance in about Rasa-lila and Krishna-lila, and he said that, “These kind of performances, this kind of dancing,” this is a quote from a lecture on March 29th, “is very welcome all over the world, if we do not misunderstand Krishna, that should be the precaution, otherwise it is very very good.” 
 

So of course we know from Prabhupada 's book and Krishna book, he explains the Rasa-lila, and so therefore, this performance did not break the principle Prabhupada said of watching women dancing, because we understand from Krishna book, the philosophy behind Krishna-lila and the gopis dancing. And Prabhupada says, “It is very very good, and our purpose is to introduce these Krishna's pastimes all over the world so that they may take lesson that they are seeking after happiness, and the happiness is with Krishna, not in the material world, then you'll be successful, thank you very much.” 
So Prabhupada greatly appreciated this dancing, he did say, “Actually it is forbidden that sannyasis should not see any dancing by woman or singing by women.” But at that time we follow that, now they don't, but Prabhupada then says, “But we are not violating these rules.” You see. So some of the sannyasis refused to go, on the basis that they wouldn't want to see a woman dancing, but Prabhupada says we're not violating the rules, because we understand the philosophy behind these dances that it's not lusty, it's not material, it's spiritual. 
So although they left the program, they misunderstood, because Prabhupada said, “We're not in violation, if you were sannyasi watching this.” So Prabhupada had a transcendental vision to everything, even though we were big sannyasis, we had no transcendental vision. So this was very much approved. I did it to satisfy him, I always try to satisfy Prabhupada in every respect of my service because that's the aspect of Krishna conscious(ness) - once the spiritual master is satisfied, then Krishna is satisfied. So I tried to do that.