THE IDEA OF ENTHUSIASTIC SERVICE

      Mostly I knew A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada through the service of the other devotees.

     Like when Sudama came running down to the kitchen in New Dwarka as I was washing the Deities plates from the last offering for the evening and he began foraging like a madman in a frenzy to find green peas and puffed rice because Srila Prabhupada wanted a little snack before taking rest.
     I got the idea of enthusiastic service to Srila Prabhupada.

     Like when Satsvarupa prabhu was sitting in the brahmacari ashram in the North Beacon Street Temple in Boston using a turned over milk crate for his desk, transcribing on a manual typewriter from Srila Prabupada's tapes. Indignantly I knocked on the door demanded a towel to dry to the Deities plates complaining that no one would help me find the towels. He jumped up and ran down the four flights of stairs two steps at a time into the basement where some paper towels were kept and returned in the same way two steps at a time in a matter of seconds, handed me the paper towels, smiled and returned to transcribing like nothing had happened.
     I got the idea of enthusiastic service to Srila Prabhupada.

     I couldn't really grasp why the disciples were so enthusiastic.
     In the Boston temple room there was a big seat with a nicely framed picture of an old Indian man in saffron cloth.
     I thought, "I could see if he was a young man but an old man?"
     I would hear the disciples chanting on their beads in the morning in front of the picture with great enthusiasm; Suhotra, Satsvarupa, Sumati, Sukhada, Sarmistha, Deviyani, Nanda, Gandarvika, Jadurani, Gauri. But why? They looked so lovingly at Srila Prabhupada and chanted so intensely?
     Most of the devotees were able to take a trip to New York to greet Srila Prabhupada as He arrived there at the airport. We ran as a group from one gate to another not really knowing which gate He would come out of. This went on for some time and then finally He appeared and I immediately understood why everyone loved Him so much. Just one look at His golden form, glowing and radiant. He was smiling with his tongue out as if tasting nectar. He was short but perfectly formed and golden. He wore several flower garlands; some very long to His knees. His eyes moved everywhere as though swimming. Dressed in saffron carrying a sannyasa staff in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other which were drooping so it appeared from the ecstatic grasp of his hand. He was surrounded by a bevy of clamoring devotees throwing flower petals in the air over his head, shouting jaya, and chanting kirtan, tripping over themselves to keep pace. He moved very quickly. Everything was instantly in technicolor. All I could do was laugh delightedly and fall to floor to offer obeisances.
     Thinking to myself, "Of course, now I understand, He is so very beautiful, like no one I have ever seen before. He is fully conscious of everything and full of love. He is like a magnet attracting the love and service of others."