Opening the Heart to Bhakti – SF 1966-1968

Yamuna – on San Francisco 1967-1968 – from Following Srila Prabhupada series

SF Arrival: At last Srila Prabhupada arrived in San Fransicso, accompanied by his servant, Ranchor. When he arrived at the airport Shyamasundar brought his dog, Ralphie, who travelled in and out of Srila Prabhupada’s feet. Allen Ginsberg was to the side of Prabhupada, Mukunda behind, Yamuna, Harsharani, Janaki, Malati, Lilavati. This was the first time that many devotees had seen Srila Prabhupada, for the first time. You can see everyone dressed very nicely for the event. Most of the beads and the flowers of the hippie-dom weren’t there. There is Rayarama had come from the East coast. There was a small but motly crew of people who came. There’s Janaki by Srila Prabhupada at the car door, wearing a little red dress, and presenting Srila Prabhupada with flowers. So many flowers, nice. That was such a wonderful day. That was the first day Gurudas, he had on a nice pair of kaki trousers and a T-shirt for that event. He was right behind Prabhupada, standing on.

Rathayatra 1967: This historic footage gives us a glimpse into the first Rathayatra celebrated in the Western world in 1967. On another track there’s a kirtan that goes with this Rathayatra. And it was the melody that goes something like this: (Hare Krishna mantra) And that went for hours and hours as we sang it on the cart. A few wonderful things about this Rathayatra were that the crowd that gathered alongside of the cart of partly hippies that knew nothing about Lord Jagannath, and partly some hippies who had tasted Krishna prasad in our Temple and sampled the nectar of the Holy Name in our kirtans, were very genuinely enthusiastic to celebrate this Rathayatra. Lord Jagannath, Subhadra and Balaram faced different directions on the cart. So no matter what side you were on, you were able to get face-to-face darshan of Their Lordships. There was a pastime with this cart where the engine of the flatbed truck that the Deities were seated on stalled. And when we told that to Srila Prabhupada, he said that this was not uncommon that the cart would stall, even if it was pulled by hand, and stop at various places along the route. So he was happy to see that somehow in San Francisco without even knowing about this pastime, our cart stalled on the hill. The route was full length from the Haight-Ashbury all the way to the sea. And when the cart arrived at the sea, there was a very wonderful kirtan on the beach.

Rathayatra 1968:  The very, very first clothing or decoration that was given to Lord Jagannatha was, of course, given by Srila Prabhupada. And that wasn’t in June of 1968, but that was in December of 1967 when Srila Prabhupada returned from India after recuperation from his heart attack. Srila Prabhupada came off the plane with his danda, first time we’d seen Srila Prabhupada with his sannyasa rod, and hanging off of his sannyasa rod was a little saffron pouch. We thought how curious that was because we thought that the rod you held in front of you, but Srila Prabhupada had this rod over his shoulder and the little pouch was on the end. At any rate, we brought him to the Willard Street apartment. So when Srila Prabhupada sat down in the front room, he had his suitcases opened. He had brought gifts for all the ladies, every lady had a sari, and he had brought our temple the first gift of a coconut grater. But in the little bag, he opened it up, unwrapped it and unfolded it and inside were three silken malas, the kind that you get at a deity store. For the small deities, of course, these are very, very thin, maybe a quarter of an inch wide; but these malas that Srila Prabhupada brought were a good inch-and-a-half thick. But because they were in this little bag, they were all crunched up and actually quite unattractive-looking because they had been a little bit damaged. So naturally we had never seen anything like that, what was it. So Swamiji explained that these were decorations that we could offer to Lord Jagannatha and, in fact, Lord Jagannatha, we could even make clothes for Him. So what kind of clothes would you make? Doesn’t He already have clothes on? Isn’t that what the painting is that’s on the deity? “No,” he said, “that’s one kind of painting. You’ll find deities who will be sometimes painted, sometimes there will be carving on the deities that will show that it’s jewelry or clothing but, no, you can make clothes.” So what kind of clothes do you make for a deity like Jagannatha? So Prabhupada said, “Here’s what you do.” So he said, “He wears a turban, He wears a shawl, and They wear a little skirt.” So then he asked for volunteers, who would sew. So Harsharani and Yamuna decided, “Well, we will volunteer.” So for this 1968 Rathayatra, we were working with the builders; and when they gave us the drawing, we had come up with this very, very handsome already made and pleated series of umbrellas, almost like umbrellas that went around these outpourings of these cupolas in this wonderful bright cloth of saffron and gold. Now, Jagannatha, Subhadra and Balarama were in red satin, and you can see the pictures of Them. We even managed to get some wonderful garlands of fragrant flowers for this, red turbans.

The first sari: Well, yeah, when we go back to, I guess if we go back a little bit, we’ll just say that you notice the number of men this year that are in dhotis that previously the first introduction to Indian dress was with the women, who had a few saris. I remember my sister and I, Janaki, had just been given Benares silk saris by our father who we hadn’t seen for 20 years. And the first gift he gave to us when we were adults was a sari, that he had heard from an Auntie that we were into something eastern, so he brought us these saris, and we worn them at the “67 Rathayatra but by “68 such a tremendous change has been there that you see so many young men now in dhotis, and of course more ladies in saris.

India on foot:  Before we went to India for the first time, in San Francisco in 1967, Achyutananda sent us pictures of Srila Prabhupada on nagar sankirtan in Calcutta. And when we saw Prabhupada chanting in the streets of India in this one still picture, all of us were just praying for the day that we would join Srila Prabhupada. He said he would take us to India and show us India on foot; and when we were in San Francisco, we had no idea what that meant. But this is what it meant. Going on pilgrimage to a place is one thing; but until you’re on foot in the streets, walking as those before us have walked, chanting the Holy Name, you can’t taste India.

Marriage and initiation: When this kirtan happened, my friend and I, Roger Seigal and I, had rented a little cabin up on the beach in Medicino County.  And it was at that time that I first read SB first canto, all three volumes of the SB. And at that time a transformation took place in my heart, even though I didn’t understand the depth of what I was reading, I understood that Krsna ConsciousnessKC was something that I really wanted to pursue. And I was so excited about it that, of course I didn’t want to break any of the four principles anymore, and I wanted to go back and talk to Swamiji about that. So by hook or by crook we got a ride back to San Fransico, and upon arriving, it just so happened that it was a Tuesday afternoon, and we went for a darshan in Srila Prabhupada’s upstairs apartment in Willard Street. Srila Prabhupad was sitting in his rocking chair, with a very large bead bag hanging off his hand, and he greeted very warmly, both Roger and myself. And I remember at that time, I expressed to Swamiji, how I loved the Srimad BhagavatamSB and how it impacted me, and so he said, “ So what is your program, what are you going to do?”

And I said, “ Well, I until I read this Srimad BhagavatamSB, Swamiji, I wanted to go to the highest place.”

He said, “ Yes, where is that?”

And I said, “ Well, it’s Tibet.” Tibet was the highest place. So I wanted to go to the highest place in explore the highest things. So he was silent for some little while. He had his eyes closed, and when he opened his eyes, I was sitting beneath him in front of the rocking chair. And I looked up and he had these gray slits, watery gray slits of his eyes. And, of course, he gaze was very penetrating, and he looked down and he said, “ I can take you to a place much higher then Tibet. Just see, just see.” And with those four words “Just see, just see”, I knew that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, was explore Krsna Consciousness with some depth. So that happened, just maybe a few weeks after this kirtan or one week after this kirtan footage that we are seeing, he had his eyes closed.

Oh, within two weeks, three weeks he was initiated. So almost before Srila Prabhupada arrived, he had the idea, ‘ Oh, I am going to become a disciple”, but I was very slow, in coming to the realization that I wanted to become Srila Prabhupada’s student. Because I had a sense that it was a tremendous responsibility and commitment, that was required to become Krsna Conscious and to become purified in heart, and it was going to take a lot of work, it wasn’t just the touch stone of the guru to the disciple’s head. So I wanted to be very sure, that I could become a devotee, and I was shy around Srila Prabhupada, I didn’t step forward necessarily

Yamuna and Visakha – Rathayatra talk Saranagati 2004

“ So briefly, the history of the first appearance of Lord Jagannatha within ISCKON did not happen in 1966 when ISCKON was incorporated in New York in the summer. That first Rathayatra time there was no Jagannatha, there was no Rathaytra. In January of 1967, Prabhupada came to San Francisco, January 16, and amongst the people greeting him were two old friends of mine, Sam, and Mel. Sam and Melanie had heard so much about Srila Prabhupada that they were there at the airport, and three weeks later they were initiated, and their names were Shyamasundar and Malati. Now in February, Malati is out shopping for the temple and goes to a Cost Plus Import shop and there in a bin was little tiny Jagannatha, so she picked one up, she thought well that looks Indian, brought it back to our Frederick Street temple, showed it to Srila Prabhupada, he got up and paid his obesciances.

‘Oh, where did you find this?”

“ I found this in a bin.”

“Oh, are there any more like that?”

“Yes,” she said. “There is two more bins.”

‘ Can you bring those other two?”

“Yes.” So then he explained this is Lord Jagannatha, explained who Jagannatha was, and then immediately he asked Shyamasundara, who was a carpernter by trade, and a carver. He said, “ Can you make bigger size then this?”

“ Yes, I can do.” So these deities were found in February, and in March 23, 1967, the first deity installation in ISKCON was the installation of Lord Jagannatha, Subhadra, and Balaram. Now previous to that all we had in our temple were pictures, except one statue that Gurudas had found and that was a little young Krsna, Kartamasayi, and he was sitting on the altar, and there was a picture of Pancatattva on the altar but no deities. So Prabhupada said, “Can you build a platform?” He built a platform.

Yamuna tells about how Malati found the Jagannath Deities in the import store, and how Shyamasundara carved Them, and the installation.

“Remember the last time I spoke, we were talking about this wonderful First Canto, Second Chapter, Srimad Bhagavatam?  And the importance of the First Canto, Second Chapter?  How Prabhupada stressed?  The day that he installed the Jagannath Deities, he gave a lecture on S.B. 1.2.13-24.  He gave that class. And then he said, “Now we have been listening to Bhagavatam.  We have been hearing, chanting and thinking about Krsna.  Hearing, chanting, thinking, and now we will worship.  This is the process and we are introducing this at the advent of Lord Jagannath.  Now this temple is completely fixed up.”  Now, we had just opened it in January, we had just painted the little storefront,  we just got the Deities, and now it is March, so now he says the temple is completely fixed up.

“So now, by this worshiping process, we will offer a light, this is called arati.  So at the end of kirtan, then we will have this arati,  and by this worshipping process, you take the heat of the light, and whatever your monetary condition, you pay something for this worship.  This is a simple process, and if you follow it, just see how you will realize the Absolute Truth.  It is such a simple process.  Now another thing I request of you, all of you devotees, whenev er you come into a temple, you must bring one fruit and one flower.  If you can bring more fruit and more flowers then that is very good,  but if not, just one fruit and one flower.  Now this is not very expensive.  So I request each and every one of you to when you come to the temple you do this.  Whatever fruit it may be, it does not have to be a costly fruit. Whatever you can afford.  One fruit,  one flower. Now you distribute prasada.  Oh, this is a very nice preparation. All glories to the cookers!”

Now, in the picture, you will see, our first feast offered to Lord Jagannath in the temple.  At this time, we have Mukunda and Janaki, who are initiated disciples, Shyamasundara and Malati, maybe six initiated disciples, the rest of us are newcomers to Krsna consciousness.  Then Prabhupada says,  “Jagannath Swami, nayana pata gami bhava tu me. Now repeat this.” Devotees repeat. So then Hayagriva says

“Again: Jagannath Swami, nayana pata gami bhava tu me.”  Devotees repeat.  Prabhupada says, “Now Hayagriva, translate.”  “Oh Lord of the universe, please be present before me”  Then the door opens and closes, “Oh, someone is going away.  Ask him come come immediately, please, please, take this prasada, he must be given prasada.”  So we get a hint of Prabhupada’s mood at this time.  First he is training us in the simplest way to offer lights to the Deity as arati, only thing, no fans, no incense, just a lamp to the Deity, and each and every one of us, when we enter any temple, we bring fruit and a flower, or a leaf if you don’t have a flower.  So that was the standard.  Somehow or another, after that, we had all these hippies   – they were panhandlers – they would bring a little fruit and little flower, and put it directly on the altar.  But that was Prabhupada’s first training for our worship of the Deity.

This shape of the first Rath cart that Prabhupada drew.  Let me give you a little history on that.  Srila Prabhupada had a little apartment above the temple building on Frederick Street, and in San Franscisco, the architecture  is such they are called bay windows – it sticks out of the building, and you can go out and sit in that area and see sideways more than a flat window.  So Prabhupada would put his rocking chair in the bay window, and that is where we would come for Tuesday and Thursday nights, for what we called darshana, Prabhupada would sit in that rocking chair.  So one day, he is sitting in the bay window, in his rocking chair and looking outside, and just next to us on the right hand side of our temple there was an icecream store that was owned by the diggers, and in that, the Berkely chapter of the Hells Angels, a real gnarly motorcycle group, very , they were actually a little modes of ignorance, let’s say very, very intense modes of ignorance.  They used to make lots of noise,  when they came, when they were in the building, out of the building.  So one day a big truck drives up, I’ve been told it was a two ton flatbed truck.  It was a big truck and they had all their bikes on it, and they started “Vrrmmm, vrmmm, vrmmm” making all this noise like this.  Prabhupada is looking out the window, “what is this?  What is this?” So then they start, “Vrmmm, vrmmm, vrmmm,” and then they drive their motorcycles off,  and then “vrmmmm, vrmmm, vrmmm”, all the way in front of the building, and Prabhupada  looks down and says, “That truck, that would be a nice truck for Rathyatra.”  And we said, “What Rathyatra?”He said, “Well , Jagannath in Jagannath Puri, he goes out on the street, in a car. You could have that cart for our Rath cart.”  And then he did the same thing, he said, “I will show you how we can do it.”  So he took a little pencil and paper, and he drew a picture, and he drew the picture.  And the only thing that was similar about this, because this was high and tall, and hand pulled,  was that there were four columns, that he drew, and then a pyramid type canopy, which was similar to this. Which is a pyramid type canopy.  So he drew the truck, the front of the flatbed, the back part that is flat, the four columns, the little canopy.   And then he said, “Lord Jagannath, when he goes on the cart, each Deity can face sideways, and then backwards, and then everybody can get a view.”  And that was the vehicle, and the idea that he gave us for Iskcon’s first Rathyatra parade, in San Franscisco.

There were roughly twenty people, of which six were devotees, that did this event.  Prabhupada said, “Along with the Rathyatra, what is the first thing that is important, besides the Deities on the car?KIrtan. We will have very nice kirtan on the car and, if you  can make some sound, so everybody can hear it, then that would be very good.”

So what’s the second thing at Rathyatra that he wanted, if you can guess?

Devotee:  Prasadam.

Yamuna:  Prasadam, yes.  So a rock and roll group called The Grateful Dead,  were our friends,  they lived across the street from us, and they gave us a restaurant size stove for the back of our temple.  So it was an eight burner restaurant stove.  And that thing was always in use for our San Franscisco temple.  We did a huge amount of prasada distribution.  But we were relatively new to mass prasada distribution. You’ll see the picture of the feast we arranged for in the temple, but for public distribution of prasada  and Prabhupada said no selling, we cannot sell any food at Rathyatra, it must be given out free. So what did we do?  We made hundreds and hundreds of chapattis. The most wonderful chapatiis, those burners were going all the time. We had stacks and stacks of chapattis, then we had boxes of chapattis. We had like ten boxes of chapattis.  There were enough chapattis for two or three thousand people.  Then we cut oranges.  We cut lots of oranges. So we had buckets and boxes of prasada that went into the Krsna car, that was a blue, funky old car which we called the Krsna car.

So these slides are very few, but they are rather rare, a lot of people have not even seen these slides before.  They were taken by Gurudas,who was one of our first official Iskcon photographers, and the person that I was married to in the grhastha asrama.

Yamuna:  TA DA!  There’s the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Jagannath, Subhadra and Balarama.Now as you can see They are all freshly painted, and there is no clothes on Them. They were situated above this picture of Panca Tattva.  There’s our little tiny temple storefront.  There is Malati devi.  So by this time we have a couple of saris and a couple of dhotis. At the first wedding of Janaki, Malati, myself, we had one sari, which we lent to everyone. And one yellow dhoti, which everyone wore, which was Hayagriva’s dhoti. You know this custom to tie the things – well Hayagriva would mumble “I want my dhoti back, you give me my dhoti.”  It was dirty, yellow polyester, ugly thing, and we all borrowed. But by first Rathyatra, we had some saris and a couple more dhotis.

Now one, really neat thing about Jagannath that I can tell you, is that right underneath this canopy, were three spotlights, one was red, one was green and one was blue. And they were on a circuit thing like Christmas lights, so they went “Blipp, blip, blippp,”  So as you know, Jagannath’s eyes are big, and they go, “ blippp, blippp, blippp” and these lights would  hit them, and it was the idea of, we thought that would be attractive.  Right?  So it was very disconcerting, it kind of disoriented you, to have this odd lighting arrangement, and they were very, very close, just hidden under here, so they were very close and very strong.  So you would come in and kind of like, couldn’t catch your balance almost.  So we thought, “Oh, this is nice.”  No, we didn’t know anything.  We didn’t know anything.

Next slide.   This is part of our first temple feast for Lord Jagannath.  We had this sense from Srila Prabhupada, that prasadam was really important.  And everyone cooked.  We had this, when it was feast time, they just poured in. And it was very time consuming things – kachoris, samosas, always julabjamin.  Puris.

Devotee:  What is this thing?

Yamuna:  Fruit salad. Prabhupada told us there should be fruit salad. So pineapple, and berries and so many things in there.  And it went all the way, there is another picture up here….Now we had so many guests that came to this, that in our little tiny storefront, we set up madras’ out on the sidewalk  in front, and sometimes there would be a line-up all the way to the corner of people that would be coming to take. And this is only after three months of Prabhupada’s contact.  He was so powerful.  That just a little contact, people that are (inaudible),  don’t know anything about Krsna, just – “Oh, I want that.”

There’s some more pictures.

Devotee:  This is the place where at the corner you get the tram?

Yamuna:  No.  That was a little up the hill, there was a train.  That was up above the Willard Street apartment, one block. Where Prabhupada came at the end of ’67 to stay.  There was a little train there.

So it is kind of beautiful just to look at the prasada.  It is kind of exciting.

Devotee:  How many guests would you say came to these?

Yamuna:  Okay, this is our official escort, a San Franscisco policeman.  They didn’t know what to expect, so they thought, just to be safe we will have a police escort.  Before the Deities.. this is an interesting thing, that before the Rathyatra festival, when Lord Jagannath got sick, Prabhupada was also very sick, had a heart attack, and we weren’t even sure that Prabhupada was going to stay with us.  He was in New Jersey, New York side, on the other side of the country.  And there was a tremendous praying to Lord Jagannath, Prabhupada sent us a telegram, and he said, “If you pray to Lord Jagannath, and if He hears your prayers, I will stay, otherwise I may go..  And we the first all night kirtan that any of us ever had, was at Lord Jagannath’s lotus feet, in our temple, with those lights going, and we had a 24 hour kirtan for Prabhupada.  And no one left the temple. And it was one of those life changing events, where you go through many, many stages of appreciating the holy name, very powerful thing.  So Prabhupada was not present for Iskcon’s first Rathyatra festival, only at distance.  He came shortly after, but he was so ill, he couldn’t stay in the city,and he went to Stintson Beach.

So this is really washed out, but here is the beautiful flatbed truck, that you can see the big wheels, a few banners off of it, you can see the columns, and our police escort.  There were about three to four hundred people that came to our first Rath festival.

There’s a beautiful picture of it, a little washed out.  But uh,  Prabhupada’s vision – from the motorcycles to Rathyatra.  Utility is the principle.

Devotee:  So how did it happen that you got that truck?

Yamuna:  No, we actually didn’t borrow their truck, we rented a truck.  Now here is the first kirtan going on,  on the Rath truck, and this is kind of exciting.  Here is Syamasundara up here. Next to him, is his dog Ralphie.  See the two ears? Sitting in the cab of the truck.  Here’s Mukunda – you can’t see him, but the end of the horn is there – and he is wailing away.  This is my sister Janaki, and she is leading the kirtan.  This is Jivananda, this is Yamuna, Haridas, Uddhava and Hayagriva.

And there is his wonderful Lordship, Balarama on His Rath cart.

This was the first mrdanga that Haridas is playing.

These two saris, my sister and I had not seen our father since our birth.  I was 25 and she was 23, and an aunt informed us that he was coming to San Fransisco, and he brought us two saris.  And he had never seen us before.  He brought us two Benares silk saris.  Never saw him after.

Here is Hayagriva, and Devananda, who later became Devananda Svami.  There’s a “scalphorn? Prabhuapda said at this time, “Hippies are our best customers.” In 1969 he gave this.  And here is a wonderful picture of the “flower power people” following our wonderful Rath cart. So there is the picture that Prabhupada did, the dome.  These are so classic, vintage San Franscisco, pictures of the hippies enjoying Lord Jagannath. Okay.

This is our destination on the beach, when we brought,  these are some of the people streaming out onto the beach. Here is the Pacific Ocean.  For some reason the Pacific Ocean become kind of a hot spot for us to go to.  At Saranagati, we don’t really have a hot spot that we go to,  but when we went out and we weren’t in buildings, we loved to go to the beach for kirtans.  In fact this is a beach kirtan at Rathyatra time.  Harsarani, and Tamal, and Visnujana and Yamuna.  Sometimes we would build a fire there on the beach, and roast potatoes, and marshmallows.  Srila Prabhupada would come and sit at the beach, and at the end of one famous kirtan, when he said the jai om visnupada prayers, he said, “All glories to the Pacific Ocean! Hare Krsna!  All glories to the Pacific Ocean! Hare Krsna!  All glories to the Pacific Ocean!”  His hands were in the air, very magical moments.  Okay the next picture.

Yamuna – Prabhupada Memoirs by Siddhanta das

Morning Walks: In the early San Francisco period, Srila Prabhupada allowed us to spend time with him all day and into the night, but morning walks were one of the most relishable, glorious times with him. I generally wanted to be on the morning walk. One of the other devotees and I used to get up at two in the morning, pick flowers in Golden Gate Park, make garlands for Srila Prabhupada, present them to him, and go on the morning walk. Those moments in the park were always very special for us, walking next to our spiritual master, trying to chant Hare Krsna just as he chanted Hare Krsna. The morning walks were japa walks, and he walked briskly, chanting Hare Krsna with his hand in his bead bag. He walked like a young man of twenty-five. The first day I went I was wearing wooden yogi shoes, and my feet bled because Srila Prabhupada was walking on and on very fast.

As early as 1967, I wanted to go to Vrindavan. I always had an attraction to Vrindavan. One morning I was walking right next to Srila Prabhupada when he stopped, put his cane out to lean on, and said, “You have received a letter from Achyutananda? He wants some men to join his party in Lucknow.” I immediately popped up and said, “I’d like to go, Srila Prabhupada. May Gurudas and I go?” He said, “ Yes we can arrange that. We will start an American House in Lucknow.” Then he walked a little further and said,” No. You should not go now.” He turned around and said, “ Someday I will take you to India, and I will show you India on foot.” From that moment I was waiting for that day, and three years later, on October 4, 1970, Srila Prabhupada’s party of American and European devotees landed in Bombay. Our party had arrived in Caclutta via Tokyo just a few days earlier. From October 4 to the time Srila Prabhupada left India in the spring of ’71, he showed us many places on foot, literally walking through the streets with us.

Marriage and Initiation: Actually in those days [ laughter ] we were so um, inefficient at everything we did, and so incapable of knowing the significance  of…of what initiation meant, and I remember that of course that at our fire yajna for the marriage, ah..[short laughter] we didn’t have enough money to buy butter so we used margarine. And when Srila Prabhupada tried to start the fire, he picked up a piece of wood, and he dipped it in… beautiful Prabhupada hands were magnificent, long fingers. Like this, he picked it up and held it over the flame and it went fwit fits fit. He did it again, over the fire, no, no action. So he looked up very grave, and said, “Oh, this marriage will have a very slow start.” [Yamuna’s laughter]. I was mortified at that, I thought, ‘Uh-oh, what have I gotten into now?” But, yeah, very significant, I suppose that initiation, I do remember very clearly that Srila Prabhupada, had first given me the name Kalindi, which is another name of Jamuna. And very quickly within ten twelve seconds he said, “No it is Jamuna devi,” and I said, “What does that mean, Swamiji?”And he said, “The river that Krishna sports in Vrndavan, is Jamuna.”