First and second Initiation- Cittahari Das

Cittahari Dasa: Madhudvisa just said to me one day. He was a swami, a GBC. He ran everything. He was fantastic. Prabhupada loved him, that's why he came to Australia so much. He kept beseeching, "Prabhupada come! We're going to do this, we can do this and that," and he was so exciting and he made so many devotees. He called me and said, "Hey Chris! I've put you in for initiation. I've recommended you." Then the letter came from Prabhupada, but he lost the letter. I don't know how. They had lost the letter but he told me my name was Cittahari Dasa. Prabhupada had told Madhudvisa, as he always did when you got a recommendation, to do a fire yajna and give them the beads. Prabhupada had sent me the beads but they were all broken, they were all in a mess. I put them back together. But I did lose those beads. It's just one of those things. I lost my initiation beads. The same thing with brahmana initiation. There came another letter. There was supposedly a tape there but we couldn't hear, so I got the words written up by Madhudvisa or somebody else. I never really heard Srila Prabhupada say the Gayatri-mantra. Anyway, I knew he accepted me as his disciple and I didn't ever have any problems with that.