Boys Stealing coins from Rupa Goswami's Samadhi.

Subal Goswami is my given name, my house name, but my school name is Alok Goswami. I was a young boy in the early 1960's. We were three cousin brothers at Sringara Vata: Madhu, Dhruva and myself, and we were attending class eight at the Vidyalaya Institute. As small boys, we had difficulty getting spending money, so we thought of a plan. Taking a small stick with a nail on the end, we would go to the samadhi of Rupa Goswami at the Radha Damodara Temple. There we would put the stick inside and push the paisa coins to the grate. In this way we collected them. We didn't enter the courtyard from the front gate, but rather, when everyone was resting in the afternoon, we snuck in secretly from behind by the open area. The courtyard did not have a boundary wall then. Madhu would watch from behind to see if anyone was coming, Dhruva would stand by Srila Prabhupada's window to check if he was looking, and I would steal the money. We were a three-man team.

One day, Srila Prabhupada noticed us doing this from his kitchen window. He yelled out, '"Oh Gosai! No! No thief! No cori!" He told the old mataji, Sarojini, 'See, these young boys are doing like this.' Then he called to us, saying, 'You boys are from the Goswami family in the Nityananda vamsa (dynasty). Why are you doing like this? I will have to tell your fathers. I will have to inform Navinananda Goswami and Gorachand Goswami [the mahanta of the Radha Damodara Temple].' Prabhupada came out to catch us, but when we saw him we jumped outside and escaped. "In the evening we came to his room and asked him, 'Please don't tell on us. We won't be allowed to come here for bhajana anymore.' We were surprised he was not angry with us. Srila Prabhupada said, "Oh, you boys are good boys. You please come and sit down here with me. I will give you some sweets. I know you are from Sringara Vata and are in the Nityananda vamsa (dynasty), and that is why I am giving you prasada." He gave us the white sugar candies called chironji, big and small ones. He kept them in a container. Sitting us next to his lap, he said, 'Please don't steal like this. What do you do with this money?' I told him, "With this money I will go and see the movie films. I have no money to go, so I had to take.' Prabhupada said, "Don't do like this. If Krishna wants you to have anything, He will give you the money.' Then he told us how he wanted us to do bhajana. He said if you chant Krishna's names you will become completely satisfied and desires for unfavorable things will go away. But if you continue to steal, there will be a reaction. However, we wouldn't listen. We were naughty boys and weren't interested in obeying him. Then, as he saw we weren't listening, he didn't preach to us anymore.

The next time we did our stealing, I was trying to escape from behind. There was a bael tree there and a wall. Behind the wall was the home of a dudh-walla (milkman) who kept some dogs. After stealing the paisa, as I was running away, one of the dudh-walla's dogs bit me in the leg. It was a bad bite and I had to go to the hospital and get fourteen injections in my stomach to prevent rabies. "Later when we next saw Prabhupada, he was very kind and told us that he was sorry. He reminded us, 'If you do like this, then you must get a reaction.' This time we believed him. So from that day on we stopped stealing money forever. " A thief knows when he is stealing; he knows the Lord can observe. So when we were stealing we always knew that Srila Prabhupada was observing. Just like the Lord, Prabhupada was watching whatever we did. He would sit with Gorachand Goswami and tell him all the things he saw.