Compassion: there is no limit to Lord Nityananda’s mercy

 Tamala Krishna Maharaja, "My Life With Srila Prabhupada", Spiritual Sky Productions, 2004 (Video interview transcription, 32:52 – 38:34 mins.)

Re. “another fatal blunder,” allowing the contract for Hare Krishna Land, Juhu Bombay to lapse (1972).

‘So Prabhupada, I think, was in Pune, and I called him up to tell him the ‘good news.’ So I said, "Srila Prabhupada, I wanted to call you to tell you...” He said, “What happened? Did everything go through?” I said, “No, Srila Prabhupada, we cancelled the contract.” All I heard was, “Click.” Prabhupada just hung the phone up. 

Prabhupada came back, and then for the next two months, Prabhupada would call in one [Life] Member after the other and parade me in, and he’d say, “This foolish boy.” He would show them the contract and say, “He cancelled the contract! He cancelled the contract!”

This was such a huge blunder. So the thing I feel about this - and there were more such blunders that went on in time -  is that the wonderful quality of Prabhupada through all of these [blunders] is that he never gave up on a devotee, or on a disciple. No matter how many mistakes a devotee might make, he wanted to see if the devotee would continue to want to serve Krishna and to serve him.

In that instance, with the cancellation of the contract, Prabhupada did not reject me. He gave me the opportunity to go through a hellish year and a half after that - with Giriraja Maharaja - where we had to go all the time into Bombay, sitting in the lawyers’ chambers and just trying to rectify the situation.

So it’s a symptom of Srila Prabhupada that he never gave up on a devotee. He said about Krishna that, “When you chant Hare Krishna even one time sincerely, Krishna will never leave you alone.” So I feel, in the same way, that Prabhupada never leaves you alone.

Even though you may make many mistakes in his service, he still does not reject you. But he accepts you just as a father would accept a child, as a parent accepts a child. He expects that there may be mistakes. He will chastise you like anything, but he never gives you the sense that He doesn’t love you.

So, despite all the grand mistakes that were made, I never got the sense that Prabhupada loved me less because of them. I always felt encouraged and never felt discouraged, even when these mistakes occurred.’

Prabhupada had a disciple who was driving Giriraja Swami and me around - and we would be going, making Members and collecting money (to build the Vrindavana Temple) in Bombay. So after a while, this devotee somehow got it in his mind that he should go off on his own, and leave and make his own way – spiritually – in life.  He took up living on Juhu beach with one bogi yogi, with the intention of learning the art of passing a coin in one ear and out the other ear.

So before he had done this, he was already canvassing our Members, collecting on his own. So I had approached Prabhupada that, “Srila Prabhupada, we have to write something to our members to warn them about this person.” So Prabhupada was a little hesitant to do that. He was not ready to give up on this devotee.

But when this devotee finally started to live with that bogi yogi I said, “Prabhupada, now it’s reached the limit. This person is on the beach, living with a bogus yogi, trying to learn how to pass a coin from one ear out the other.” So I said that, “Now, it’s the end, it’s finished!” And Prabhupada looked at me and he said, “You do not know about Lord Nityananda’s mercy?” I said, “Why, Srila Prabhupada?” He said because “There is no end to Lord Nityananda’s forgiveness.”

And later on, sure enough, that devotee came back. Again, Prabhupada tried to help him; he gave this devotee sannyasa even. And the person eventually left. I met him about a year ago, and he’s still on a spiritual path of some type.

But Prabhupada was so clear. He looked at me and he said, “There is no limit to Lord Nityananda’s mercy and compassion.” So Srila Prabhupada is the manifest representative of Lord Nityananda Prabhu, and his forgiveness is like that. So I think that both in terms of both our dealing with our own short-comings and in terms of dealing with each other, we have to always remember that Prabhupada never rejected a devotee.