The Day I Got Srila Prabhupada's Special Mercy
One day in 1971 at ISKCON Los Angeles I got Srila Prabhupada's special mercy. That morning the most amazingly wonderful thing happened to me. It was an experience of unadulterated bliss that I have now cherished for half a century.
Srila Prabhupada regularly took a morning walk while he was there in Los Angeles either on Venice Beach at the nearby Pacific Ocean seashore or at Cheviot Hills Park, a mere 12 minutes drive from the temple. This was a typical morning. When he arrived back from the morning walk all the devotees were there to greet him. He got out of the car at the curb. The devotees were stationed along the sidewalk on which he would be walking to go to his quarters on the southern side of the building. Each devotee had a flower and Srila Prabhupada was given a basket of flowers. He went down the line of devotees accepting a flower from each of them and then handing that devotee a flower. I was near the front of the line.
The first fortunate soul in the queue was His Holiness Vishnujana Swami, the great saint who was so expertly training me how to be Krishna conscious. I was very happy to see that he got much more than a flower. Wow! He got a big hug. How unimaginably wonderful was that! Then Srila Prabhupada came to me. I handed him a flower, and he handed me a flower. Then I had the most wonderful treasure in the entire universe, more valuable than tons of gold, a flower that Srila Prabhupada had just personally handed me. And then Srila Prabhupada continued on down the line of devotees.
Wanting to have another wonderful glimpse of my spiritual master as he passed by on the way to his quarters, to drink his transcendental form into my heart through my eyes I stationed myself two steps up on the stairs in the front of the building. As he walked by he noticed me standing there as someone who was not in the flower queue. He wondered if I have gotten a flower or not yet and held out a flower for me to take. I could have been greedy and dishonest and taken another flower. But that would have been lying to my spiritual master, something I would never dream of doing. So I held up the flower he had already given me to show him that I was okay because I had already gotten a flower from him.
He then proceeded on to his quarters leaving me feeling that I was the most fortunate person in the entire universe to have received such loving mercy from him in the form of his genuine concern that I had gotten a flower. He singled me out from an assembly of dozen of devotees to make sure that I had also been blessed. So then what to do with that most special flower so that I would never lose it? If I had been a householder I could have put it in a glass display case to keep it very nicely in my apartment. But I was then a brahmacari (celibate monk) with no apartment and no possessions. How would I preserve such a priceless treasure? I had a brilliant inspiration. I would eat that flower merging into my body for long term keeping. So that’s what I did. My body then became purified with the unlimited loving mercy from one the greatest spiritual masters in the history of the universe.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
Anonymous
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
ISKCON Founder-Acharya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, ordered his disciples to become gurus and deliver the world. Sankarshan Das Adhikari has taken this order very seriously and is thus accepting disciples all over the world and has dedicated himself fully to the mission of making the entire world Krishna conscious as soon as possible. He requests your help in this most urgent world deliverance mission to save the suffering humanity from gliding down to the animal kingdom in their next births.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari email: sd@worldleader.com
Srila Prabhupada regularly took a morning walk while he was there in Los Angeles either on Venice Beach at the nearby Pacific Ocean seashore or at Cheviot Hills Park, a mere 12 minutes drive from the temple. This was a typical morning. When he arrived back from the morning walk all the devotees were there to greet him. He got out of the car at the curb. The devotees were stationed along the sidewalk on which he would be walking to go to his quarters on the southern side of the building. Each devotee had a flower and Srila Prabhupada was given a basket of flowers. He went down the line of devotees accepting a flower from each of them and then handing that devotee a flower. I was near the front of the line.
The first fortunate soul in the queue was His Holiness Vishnujana Swami, the great saint who was so expertly training me how to be Krishna conscious. I was very happy to see that he got much more than a flower. Wow! He got a big hug. How unimaginably wonderful was that! Then Srila Prabhupada came to me. I handed him a flower, and he handed me a flower. Then I had the most wonderful treasure in the entire universe, more valuable than tons of gold, a flower that Srila Prabhupada had just personally handed me. And then Srila Prabhupada continued on down the line of devotees.
Wanting to have another wonderful glimpse of my spiritual master as he passed by on the way to his quarters, to drink his transcendental form into my heart through my eyes I stationed myself two steps up on the stairs in the front of the building. As he walked by he noticed me standing there as someone who was not in the flower queue. He wondered if I have gotten a flower or not yet and held out a flower for me to take. I could have been greedy and dishonest and taken another flower. But that would have been lying to my spiritual master, something I would never dream of doing. So I held up the flower he had already given me to show him that I was okay because I had already gotten a flower from him.
He then proceeded on to his quarters leaving me feeling that I was the most fortunate person in the entire universe to have received such loving mercy from him in the form of his genuine concern that I had gotten a flower. He singled me out from an assembly of dozen of devotees to make sure that I had also been blessed. So then what to do with that most special flower so that I would never lose it? If I had been a householder I could have put it in a glass display case to keep it very nicely in my apartment. But I was then a brahmacari (celibate monk) with no apartment and no possessions. How would I preserve such a priceless treasure? I had a brilliant inspiration. I would eat that flower merging into my body for long term keeping. So that’s what I did. My body then became purified with the unlimited loving mercy from one the greatest spiritual masters in the history of the universe.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
Srila Prabhupada Giving Out Flowers at ISKCON Los Angeles
Answers According to the Vedic Wisdom
Question: Why Is Hare Krishna a Sect?
Why is Hare Krishna a sect?Anonymous
Answer: Hare Krishna is Not a Sect
It is not a sect. Just as one plus one equals two is true everywhere we teach the universal science of the relationship between the individual self and the Supreme Self which equally applies to Hindus, Jews, Christians. Buddhists, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, and everyone else!Sankarshan Das Adhikari
The Most Urgent World Deliverance Mission
ISKCON Founder-Acharya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, ordered his disciples to become gurus and deliver the world. Sankarshan Das Adhikari has taken this order very seriously and is thus accepting disciples all over the world and has dedicated himself fully to the mission of making the entire world Krishna conscious as soon as possible. He requests your help in this most urgent world deliverance mission to save the suffering humanity from gliding down to the animal kingdom in their next births.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari email: sd@worldleader.com
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