Please look at me!

Nityananda Dasa: In Boston, December 26, 1969, one morning was the initiations ceremony. Srila Prabhupada came down from His elevated seat and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the sacrificial fire pit. He was going to perform the sacrifice himself, whereas in later years he would typically delegate this responsibility to senior devotees. Sunlight flooded the room from large windows along the whole of one side of the tightly packed room. I squeezed and snuggled into a sitting space just behind the six new initiation candidates, who sat directly across from Srila Prabhupada. I was trying to get as close, physically, mentally, and spiritually as I could.

Srila Prabhupada began by sprinkling with His dexterous long fingers the variously colored rice flours from separate containers, making lines and diagonals over the sand floor of the pit. He stacked some pieces of tinder wood kindling in the center. He rearranged for proper access to various ingredients in bowls to His left and right. Occasionally His vision swept around the room in surveillance of the devotees, and simply instructed, “Chant!” Immediately the hum of everyone chanting on their beads increased several notches, and all attention was on our ultimate leader. All were eagerly anticipating participation in the transcendental rite of initiation performed by the pure devotee for His new disciples. I asked Rupanuga if I could be initiated that day, but the time was too soon. I had to wait for a few more months. It could be done later through the mail.

I longed for Prabhupada’s recognition of my presence as an aspiring initiate, for some minor exchange, or at least some show of acknowledgment by a nod or smile- anything. I thought that this would surely be good for me, and boost my weak spirits and mangled, battered psyche, fresh as I was out of the material energy’s whirlpool of dangerous illusions. So, I began to stare intently at Srila Prabhupada, concentrating my mind with the thought, “Please look at me!” Although this certainly was a meditation on the guru, it was not exactly in the line of mature, favorable service.
 
For the better part of an hour while the fire sacrifice ceremony was underway, I strained my eyes and mind, trying to reach out on the subtle plane and compel Srila Prabhupada to look directly at me, to recognize me. The book Autobiography of a Yogi had influenced me with vague ideas of yoga powers, and I mistakenly understood mind machinations as being spiritual. I was frustrated as I saw him look directly at several others near me, but ignoring me. I kept up my silly mind projection, pathetically focused on attracting his attention to me.

Suddenly his penetrating eyes locked strongly and deeply into my eyes, and I was shocked by the experience, one so grave and disarming, that I have never lost the memory of it. As I looked into his infinitely dark deep eyes, he looked straight into mine and into my very self, a self that I myself did not know nor could even see. For a couple of seconds, I was embarrassingly exposed and stripped stark naked, without the external defenses of body, mind, and false ego. He had but glanced at me, effortlessly peering through my outward shell, and noting my morbid condition of spiritual health. While I was spiritually blind, he was not, and he looked at my soul within my body. In an instant he had assessed all my karmic baggage, impurities, sins, desires, and nonsense. Of course, at the time, my understanding of what had happened escaped me.

Disarmed, I had to awkwardly look aside, but not before He turned away from me first, almost casually. Amazing how a brief glance from Prabhupada could be so profound! It jolted me, shaking my obviously faulty perception of reality. However, I was also tantalized by this experience of higher reality. My faith in Srila Prabhupada as an exalted seer and advanced spiritualist was greatly enhanced, and I then knew that he was not an ordinary person of this mundane realm. This was my first experience of Srila Prabhupada’s exalted stature and never again in my life did I experience this “soul nakedness” in the sight of anyone else.

I understood that I could not hide anything from Srila Prabhupada any more than I could from Krishna. There was no use in pretense. After recovering from the shock, and seeing that Prabhupada was humbly carrying on with the sacrifice, chanting mantras and placing offerings of grains and ghee into the fire, I then dared to yearn for another of Srila Prabhupada’s transcendental glances, and although I continued to watch Him very closely in case he would look into me again, he did not. The lecture was superb, although my listening capabilities were very limited.