Pleasing the Spiritual Master

Kurma Dasa: It was the coldest Melbourne winter for some years. Despite the electric fan heater going full blast in his room, Srila Prabhupada felt chilled. Towards late afternoon he called his young disciple Cittahari, and asked him to get a replacement heater. Not only was this one not warming the room, he said, but it was too noisy. Cittahari rushed off, and later returned with two kerosene heaters. The room became somewhat warmer. Soon, however, Prabhupada again called Cittahari, complaining that the new heaters emanated a bad smell. “They’re poisoning me,” he said.
Cittahari asked Prabhupada, “So you would like a heater that makes no noise and doesn’t smell?”
“Ah, yes,” Prabhupada replied, “that is wanted.”
Cittahari purchased an electric bar heater, and it met with Prabhupada’s approval. For the rest of the visit, when devotees would come to see him in his room, Prabhupada would sometimes point out, “This heater doesn’t smell and doesn’t make any noise.” 
These sometimes small and domestic dealings of Prabhupada with his disciples might be seen by someone outside of devotional service as of little consequence. To the devotees, however, they were always important because the devotees held the pleasure of their spiritual master as the supreme value in life. If the spiritual master, Krishna’s representative, was pleased by even a little service, they reasoned, then that meant that Krishna was pleased.