Krishna consciousness Transcendentally Sweet
Srutakirti Dasa: The first time I went to India, we were there for three or four months. In the second month I was on a morning walk with Srila Prabhupada, when Shyamasundar looked me right in the eyes and started laughing. He said, "Oh, boy, do you have jaundice." My eyes were yellow. Right away everyone else said, "Oh, you have jaundice." Jaundice is very contagious. It's transmitted by touch. Some of the senior devotees said, "You shouldn't cook for Srila Prabhupada, and you shouldn't handle his plates, because he might get jaundice." I thought, "Oh, God." When I went to give Srila Prabhupada a massage I said, "Srila Prabhupada, some of the devotees said that it's better if I don't cook for you, handle your plates or touch you because I have jaundice and you might get it." Prabhupada said, "No, that's all right. Don't worry about it. Go on with your service." Then he said, "You have jaundice?" Very seriously I said, "Yes, Srila Prabhupada." He said, "What are the symptoms?" Besides being a pure devotee who was always in touch with Krishna, Srila Prabhupada was also a master chemist. He had his own Ayurvedic facility and certainly knew about jaundice. I wasn't thinking but was taking everything at face value, as I always did. When Prabhupada said, "What are the symptoms?" I said, "My urine is dark and the whites of my eyes are yellow and I'm very weak. I have no appetite." He said, "Oh, prehaps you have jaundice. Then he said, " For jaudice drink lot of sugarcane juice." Sometimes Prabhupada used the analogy from The Nectar of Instruction about how Krishna consciousness is transcendentally sweet like sugar candy and ignorance is like jaundice. As the cure for jaundice is to eat sugar candy, similarly the cure for ignorance is to chant Hare Krishna. In Bombay, there was an abundance of sugarcane juice, and drinking it was the fun part of having jaundice. At that time we were staying at a life member's place, Kartikeya Mahadevia's, and he arranged for me to get sugarcane juice a few times a day.
Reference: Memories Anecdotes of a Modern Day Saint - Volume 2 by Siddhanta Dasa
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