Mayavadi leaves the stage

Gopal Dasa: We had gone to this one pandal program and the normal situation was that we would be a solo act, the devotees and Srila Prabhupada. But on this particular occasion, we arrived at the program and instead of all the devotees going up on stage, I went first onto the stage and then I saw there was a big vyasasana and next to the vyasasana there were these little chowkies, six of them. And sitting on the vyasasana, there was this big, long-haired, bearded Mayavadi guru, and next to him there were five of his sanyasis sitting there. At the very end, was another little chowkie for Srila Prabhupada. 

When I went up on the stage I saw this guy sitting on the vyasasana and I stopped in front of him and I pointed at my finger and said, "Get out of that vyasasana! That’s for Prabhupada." And Srila Prabhupada was behind me and he said, "It’s okay, it’s okay," and very proudly he walks past all of these Mayavadis and he sits on the last little chowkie. Normally all the devotees would be there with Prabhupada, but there was no space; they all sat at the edge of the pandal or the dais or whatever they call it a stage. Only myself and another devotee were able to sit with Prabhupada.

This Mayavadi began speaking in Hindi, so we had no idea what he was saying. All I heard was, "Blah blah blah…Narayana…blah blah blah...Narayana," evidently he was preaching Mayavadi philosophy. And Srila Prabhupada was visibly becoming more and more disturbed at this Mayavadi philosophy. He came to a point in this Mayavadi’s lecture when he couldn’t endure any more of this blaspheming, so he looked at me and said, "Chant!" I had kartalas and another devotee had a mridanga and so we began chanting and chanting and the other devotees who were sitting at the bottom of the stage began to join us and the people in the congregation, they also began chanting and then Srila Prabhupada began chanting and soon everybody in the pandal was chanting, jumping up and down. This Mayavadi stopped his speech and he got up and left the stage and his disciples also followed him down with their heads down and they left.

Normally we would chant and Prabhupada would lecture, but in this case, he didn’t lecture at all. We just chanted and chanted. At the end, when we were on the way back in the car, Prabhupada says, "We kicked those Mayavadis in the face." "Yes, Prabhupada. You kicked them very hard."