The Most Glorious Day I Went to Jail for Srila Prabhupada

One of my most treasured memories from my 46 years in ISKCON is the time I went to jail for committing the" most heinous crime" of distributing Back To Godhead Magazine. I was distributing Back to Godhead, the world’s greatest magazine, at a parking lot in Leesburg, Florida back in the early 70’s feeling very eager to share Srila Prabhupada’s mercy with the suffering people of Leesburg. A police car pulled up. I was approached by a police officer and immediately put under arrest. In the squad car I was driven to jail and given my new home in a private cell. I was there locked up for 36 hours.

In those days we used to give out prasadam candy when we approached people to warm them up to getting a book or a magazine. I did not eat any jail food. My diet was the prasadam candy that I had with me while distributing. I also used that candy for counting how many rounds I had completed while chanting japa on my fingers. Each time I finished a round I would move a piece of candy from one side of my bunk to the other side of the bunk.

While incarcerated I wrote an essay called “Which Side of the Bars Are You On?” From my perspective there in the jail cell the whole material world was behind the bars and I was on the liberated side. I was feeling quite happy to be doing this austerity on behalf of Srila Prabhupada’s world deliverance mission. On the second day my temple president, Amarendra Prabhu, drove down from Gainesville, Florida and bailed me out of jail. I was not stressed out from being arrested and jailed. Rather I was feeling ecstatic about having gone to jail for Srila Prabhupada.

I Had a Place of Worship (Bhajan Kutir) Like This

Sankarshan Das: I Had a Place of Worship (Bhajan Kutir) Like This

Video For the Day

How to Get Out of this Nasty Place

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version

Question: How to Progress Without Devotee Association?

Dear Guru Maharaja,
Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada.
All glories to Vaisnavas

1. How to progress in our Krishna consciousness path and protect ourself from the influence of the material energy when we do not have devotee association?
2. Please guide me how can I qualify myself for initiation

Your insignificant servant,
Ashish

Answer: Always Remember Our Teachings

If you will always remember our teachings, you will always have our association. To qualify for initiation chant 16 rounds of Hare Krishna japa mala every day without fail and always strictly avoid illicit sex, meat eating, intoxication, and gambling. Consult with your local ISKCON temple to take our ISKCON Disciple’s Course and when your local temple recommends you for initiation I will gladly accept you as my duly initiated disciple.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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