Prabhupada on palanquin

Mahapurana : My God-brother, Jyotiraditya, made a palanquin for Srila Prabhupada at the temple in Detroit. When Prabhupada came in the first day, he looked at the palanquin and continued to walk upstairs to the attic that had been converted into the temple room. But on the third day, Prabhupada came in the front door, he looked at the palanquin again, and he actually went and sat on it. The devotees called for myself and Jyotiraditya and two other devotees to come and carry the palanquin. I was of course quite nervous. As I touched the handle to the palanquin, sweat beads popped out on my head. I was thinking, “We can’t drop Prabhupada because that would be the end of the world.” We all stood up straight, and as I was the tallest person I had to kind of scrunch down a bit to make it level. I was thinking, “We have to make things nice for Prabhupada. We can’t make him uncomfortable.” We were all different sizes, and probably came to the movement at different times, but none of that mattered then. What mattered was that we didn’t inconvenience Prabhupada in any way. We carried him across the floor, up two steps and a little platform, and then turned left to go up the stairs going toward the second floor. I kept thinking, “We can’t drop Prabhupada. We have to watch if his head is coming close to the ceiling.” We came up to that second level and we couldn’t go up any farther with the palanquin because the stairs became tighter. We had to let him down so he could get off the palanquin and he walked into the temple room.

My realization from that event was that if we look at ISKCON as Prabhupada’s body, and we’re all helping to carry that body, we all have to cooperate in order that Prabhupada’s not inconvenienced at any point. We have to really work together. It doesn’t matter about our size, shape, when we came, what our different services might be, but they all have to be coordinated in such a way that as Prabhupada’s movement grows, Prabhupada’s not inconvenienced to the point where he becomes upset by the way we act and treat each other.