Open in App
Open in App

Who was this chanting?

Kalasamvara Dasa: There was an instance where just before Prabhupada left. I was downstairs. Gribblehirst Road had two stories, the bottom storey with the temple room and prasadam room, and upstairs with Prabhupada's room, bathroom and place for the men to live. I had this strong desire to go upstairs now. I was in the cleaning. I'm a really cleaning fanatic. So I just finished cleaning all the paths and everything. My dhoti from the knees down, it was an old dhoti, it was wet and muddy.

I go upstairs and Hari Sauri is still there. Prabhupada had just finished having breakfast. So Hari Sauri calls me and we have the leftovers from Prabhupada's prasadam. I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, "Prabhupada is not even up there." I'm sitting and all of a sudden, Prabhupada walks out of the bathroom past the door where we're sitting. And then he goes into his room. Hari Sauri says, "Let's go and pack Prabhupada's clothes." So I go in there and I pay my obeisances. And when I put my knee on my dhoti and my knee comes right through. Prabhupada's here, he just looked. He just continued on and Prabhupada was sitting at his desk, and then he got up and started chanting.

Prabhupada would chant like this (holding the chanting beads in both hands), walk up and down chanting with beads like this. So he was chanting up and down. We were packing and there was a nice quilted rug that someone made which was on the bed, and Prabhupada says, "Ah, are we taking that?" And Hari Sauri says, "No no, we're not taking that, your bags are already full." So Prabhupada says, "But I am taking." So he picked up the thing and he put it over as the waiters do, he put over this rug and is walking up and down chanting.

And then downstairs, Hari Rama who was from a famous rock band, he was one of the Haribols, he was chanting with the guitar. They had this tune, "Hare Krishna!" a real romantic thing. Prabhupada was chanting and then he stops, he looks at Hari Sauri and goes, "Who was this chanting?" Hari Sauri goes, "This is Harvey Mann or Hari Rama." Prabhupada says, "Very nice." Prabhupada just continued chanting up and down.



Reference: SPF Interviews