That's his quote. Oh, he loved him!

When the Texas devotees arrive back in Austin, they are so inspired from their trip that it appears like they have just returned from heaven. They go out for sankirtana every day and are totally into it. By contrast, the devotees that stayed back feel out of it. Neither Murti dasa nor Adi Deva are ready to commit to moving into the temple. Murti has his professional career as an academic, with tenure coming up, and he's concerned about losing that. But they are both lamenting that they didn't go to California to meet Srila Prabhupada, whom they've heard so much about from Vishnujana Swami. Seeing their predicament, Maharaja suggests that they take the opportunity to see Srila Prabhupada in New York before he leaves for Europe. Adi Deva: So we both got a vacation and left. Murti dasa shaved his head first. He went down to a fabric shop and bought some yellow cloth, so he had his gig together. I chickened out and didn't shave my head. I got a burr haircut. We jumped on a Greyhound bus in our dhotis, and people thought we were nuts. The two friends arrive at Brooklyn temple to find a huge commotion with hundreds of devotees everywhere. The whole spectacle is very exciting, and they become inspired by everybody's enthusiasm. Every day of the week there's an initiation yajna, as devotees from all over the East Coast have been waiting to be accepted as Prabhupada's disciples. Bhavananda, the temple president, takes advantage of the influx of devotees to have twenty-four hour kirtan at Times Square. "The kirtan at Times Square never stops." Murti dasa and Adi Deva volunteer to do the midnight to 4:00 AM shift. They go down to Times Square every night, and that's their service while they're in New York. When Prabhupada's servant, Nanda Kumar, discovers that two sculptors from Texas have come to meet Srila Prabhupada 'and one of them is a professor' he arranges a darshan for them. In their excitement to meet Srila Prabhupada, the Texans barely notice two beautiful figures standing on a table by the window as they enter his quarters. Sri Sri Radha-Damodara have just come up from Washington, DC. They have a plan that has still to manifest. No one yet knows the role They will play in assisting Srila Prabhupada in his mission. Adi Deva: We went to Prabhupada's room and sat with him for forty-five minutes. We were in awe. He showed us paintings by the artists and told us about what they were meditating on when they were painting. He told us that he really needed murtis, and that we could do it. He would love to have us make something. "We could install Gaura-Nitai Deities all over the world." There would be plenty of work for us. we should just do something. It was a real nice meeting in the afternoon, just before he went to give Bhagavad-gita class that evening. He was great.

Murti dasa: He was coming up from downstairs in his gamcha, and I was thinking, this man looks like an ancient Egyptian. He doesn't look like anybody living in the world in the 20th Century. He read my mind and his black eyes were snapping at me. So when we sat down a few minutes later, he said, "I am not your king, I am your spiritual master. This is not a palace. This is a place to practice learning to live with Krishna in the spiritual world." That was his first remark to me that was pretty amazing. Then he asked me and Adi Deva to sculpt Deities. He had his servant bring out a big painting of the Panca Tattva. It was a very early, kind of crude painting, but quite big. The figures were about two feet tall in the painting. He said, "Make Them the same size in your sculptures." So that was our assignment. He asked if it was hot in Texas, and I said, "Yes Srila Prabhupada, sometimes it gets very hot." "Oh, it is getting very hot. That means you are getting ready to go to India." "We are?" "Yes." When he saw he was going too far-out for us, he asked, "How is my son, Vishnujana Swami?" and he smiled. He had lots of teeth, and he smiled a big broad smile. We just got blown away by his smile, he just glowed. There was silence for a minute, and then I said, "Oh, he's doing fine, Srila Prabhupada. He's recruiting all kinds of new people, and he's going everywhere chanting. He's in San Antonio right now." Then he said, "My Vishnujana Maharaja can get the whole world to chant Hare Krishna." That's his quote. Oh, he loved him!