Prabhupada recognizes the sincere service of Jayananda Prabhu

The Nectar of Devotion is now finished. Prabhupada recognizes the sincere service of Jayananda Prabhu in the Preface: I beg to offer my sincere thanks to all my friends and disciples who are helping me to push forward the Krishna consciousness movement in the Western countries, and I beg to acknowledge, with thanks, the contribution made by my beloved disciple Sriman Jayananda brahmacari. My thanks are due as well to the directors of ISKCON Press, who have taken so much care in publishing this great literature. Hare Krishna. Jayananda was the first to offer money to help Srila Prabhupada print his books with a donation of $5,000 back in 1967. After Teachings of Lord Caitanya was printed, Jayananda accepted half the shipment and went out alone for months to distribute them. By pleasing his spiritual master, Jayananda is a direct recipient of Krishna's mercy. Jayananda is now busily organizing the Ratha-yatra festival. He is the nuts and bolts man in San Francisco. He can generally be found under one of the cars fixing it. But the temple needs a leader. To bolster the flagging spirits in San Francisco, Madhudvisha is sent up to take over as temple president. He immediately fires up the sankirtana party by taking them out all day to chant, duplicating the mood of Vishnujana. Madhudvisha is in ecstasy going out to chant with Jayananda, and the two of them really get into the kirtan. Jayananda is also a strong mridanga player and kirtan leader, having learned by going out every day with the kirtan parties in LA. Both are accustomed to chanting for hours at a time, so with two senior devotees inspiring each other, the sankirtana party finds new life.

Gaurahari: I was hanging around North Beach, and one night they had a kirtan there, led by Madhudvisha in front of Big Al's. I didn't recognize him at first because he was shaved up. He came up to me and said, "Come on over to the temple. Remember the Swami that came out to the farm? He's my spiritual master now." So the very next morning I walked over to Haight-Ashbury, and that was it. One of my first duties as an uninitiated devotee was to cook for the Ratha-yatra festival. I had done some cooking at Morning Star, so Jayananda put me in charge of preparing the feast. I was just two or three days in the temple, and I was preparing a feast for around 5,000 people! Prabhupada sees that the La Cienega temple will be able to supply devotees to other temples, as they are attracting so many new people. After being trained, they can be sent to open new centers or bolster sagging ones. Of course, he doesn't want the other centers to simply rely on importing devotees; they must also actively recruit new members. The basic principle for accomplishing this is going out for street sankirtana. But whenever there is an urgent need, devotees can be sent. The L.A. center is now specially meant for training devotees and dispatching them in different centers wherever they are required. So open correspondence with Tamal Krishna, and I also will tell him to assist you as far as possible. Letter to Subala, July 8, 1969

Comfortably situated in Los Angeles, Prabhupada now gives all his energy to writing KRiShNA book. The new bhaktas are satisfied to serve in the presence of their spiritual master. While Tamal Krishna gets the credit for managing the temple, Vishnujana trains the new devotees and has many playful rasas with them. The younger devotees see him more as their older brother than as their sankirtana leader. Although he is their instructor, he does so with such humor and kindness that they feel completely comfortable with him. Thus they give him their hearts. Yudhishthira: Of all the devotees that were there, Vishnujana was the most approachable. I was always attracted to him because his kirtan was so beautiful. He used to tell me, "Yuddisthira, you have Lord Buddha ears." Once I needed a needle, so I said, "Vishnujana, I need a needle so I can string some beads." "OK. But, remember, don't lose it, because if you lose it, Tamal Krishna will chastise you." But somehow I lost the needle. I went to Vishnujana, "I'm sorry, but I lost your needle." "Boy, now you're going to get it." When I saw Tamal Krishna, I ran over and offered my obeisances. "I'm sorry I lost your needle." Vishnujana was just laughing. It was a joke, but I took it seriously. He was like a big brother to me. Mirabai devi dasi: Eventually the lady devotees came down to Laguna Beach, brought me back to the temple and dressed me up in a sari. Vishnujana gave me little engagements, like cutting up fruits and vegetables, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the temple. The way he would do things was so nice; he made you feel like you wanted to do that, and more, just by his presence, the way he was. He was like everybody's father, in a way. He would do everything and I remember him vacuuming. He was like my guru because I could talk to him. We women didn't get much of a chance to associate with Prabhupada directly. Jayananda was so wonderful when I first came, but he was much quieter. Vishnujana was like a magnet. Jayananda was equally wonderful but really quiet.

Mohanananda: The kirtans out on the streets were absolutely magical, and we lived in kirtan in those days. Morning, noon, and night we were out; we practically lived in the streets at that time and came back just for prasadam then went out again. Vishnujana was always the leader. Karandhara was also a remarkable fellow at that time. He was real quiet and very serious, and he just commanded respect. Kesava was a young pup like myself. Vishnujana, Karandhara, Gargamuni, and Tamal Krishna were the leaders, and we were just the troops at that point. Kesava: Mohanananda and I used to distribute BTGs in the beginning. Vishnujana was the chanting leader, and he was in a class of his own. When Vishnujana went out on sankirtana, no one needed any prodding, they wanted to be with him. Sometimes he'd play two mrdangas at one time, one on top of the other, just to attract people on the street. He wore brown cotton carpenter gloves that he used to tape around his wrists. He always said, "bliss," and "love feast," when he lectured to the people on the street. Tamal really impressed me, too. You could ask him anything. Tamal had all the answers. In the beginning I was more attached to Tamal, but he had so much going on, that I ended up becoming Gargamuni's protigi. He was more real with me. He was fun.

Before becoming a devotee Kesava had worked on a ranch, baling hay, so when he joins the temple he is in excellent physical shape and really strong. The brahmacaris enjoy wrestling one another when they have some free time on a Sunday morning, and Kesava is quickly challenged. But he is difficult to defeat and wins handily. There are only two devotees who can defeat Kesava. Kesava: I couldn't beat Jayananda and I couldn't beat Vishnujana. They were the only two that I couldn't dominate, or eat more than. I wrestled with Vishnujana once and he dominated me. Jayananda and I wrestled on more than one occasion. Jayananda was so strong you couldn't imagine. I was really strong, but Jayananda would just dominate me. Nobody could beat Jayananda. He was powerful. Jayananda was big and he was strong, like a bull.

The other ISKCON leaders are beginning to appreciate Tamal Krishna's organizational abilities. Brahmananda writes to Srila Prabhupada praising Tamal. In his reply, Prabhupada reciprocates this mood of appreciation, indirectly bringing up the sannyasa issue once again. You are correct that Tamal Krishna's endeavor is very successful, and we should cooperate with him fully, and other centers should follow the same principles to make it successful. Recently, Tamal Krishna has sent Madhudvisha to San Francisco to organize the temple there, and as soon as he had gone there, the sankirtana collection has become raised from $17 to $70. So in this way we should help all the centers, and in the future both you and Tamal Krishna, assisted by the others, should be the main guiding stars of the society. Letter to Brahmananda, July 8, 1969

Prabhupada is spending a lot of time and effort in guiding and instructing Brahmananda, with a mind to entrust him with a lot of responsibility. Brahmananda is already in charge of book publication, as well as being the New York temple president. Prabhupada keeps stressing that sankirtana and book publication are ISKCON's "right and left hands, so everything should be done very carefully and in remembrance that this is Krishna's business that we are executing."