(Indranath Prabhu reads letter Srila Prabhupada wrote to Ramesvara about Jayananda, then narrates a slide show being given about Jayananda, Ratha-yatra and Lord Jagannath.)

I first met Jayananda in 1973 when I first joined the Hare Krishna movement. I've got a little story here of how I met him and all of the association I had with him. Jayananda was one of about 60 or more devotees staying there in the San Francisco temple at that time. And even then there was something about him that separated him from the rest of the group of devotees. I realize now that it was because he was so surrendered. Even the big-time devotees, you know the sannyasis and like that, when they saw Jayananda they would all offer their obeisances to him. One could notice that he was a special devotee. Something about Jayananda. Even when he was a karmi, you could tell that he was a really nice guy. There's not too many really nice guys out there.

Jayananda used to tell us how before he became a devotee he was so desperate for some kind of reality in his life that he was ready to commit suicide. And then one day he was reading the paper and he saw a picture of Srila Prabhupada in the paper, advertising that he was going to give a lecture. So just by seeing his picture, Jayananda said, “Oh, he looks like a really nice person. I want to go and listen and see what he has to say.”

So Jayananda, he actually treated everyone in a way which made one feel good and made him feel happy to be in Krishna Consciousness. No person was too fallen, or too anything for that matter, to receive Jayananda's mercy. He was always there with some nice prasadam, some Krishna katha, some good vibes to pick you up and to enliven you in your service to Srila Prabhupada. Jayananda was, when I first joined up, he was already absorbed in this Ratha-yatra festival. He would go out single-handedly to the Indian community door-to-door and beg donations. And he actually was absorbed in all the different aspects of this Ratha-yatra festival. He did soliciting. He did paperwork, getting the permits and all that. He did the actual construction on the carts. In all aspects he was right there doing it.

At that time, we used to keep the carts up on Makhanlal's father's farm. It was up in Sebastopol, and he had his farm up there. These carts, you wouldn't believe how big these axles were, the big wooden axles, they would take about ten devotees just to carry one. So Jayananda used to load a truck up with a closing door on the back. I remember it was Ekadashi the day we went up there. He threw in two five-gallon containers – one five-gallon container of blueberry tapioca and one five-gallon container of strawberry tapioca – and said, “Get in!” and he closed the door on us. And by the time we got there all of that tapioca was about finished, and so were we! Anyway, so we got up there, actually you really needed all of that just to get your strength going, because it was really hard work in them days. It was like building the carts from scratch. And plus these things, they sat out, the devotees just took them up there and threw them on the ground all winter, so they would just sit there in the rain and the weather. We would just take them back in the summer and repaint them.

So one thing Jayananda always told me, which I always remember, is that he said, “Indranath, no matter what you do, get a taste for the Holy Name, because that will save you.” And I can see that more and more we have to get that taste for the Holy Name. He'd say, “Krishna Consciousness is so sweet.” He always used to say that.

I remember also I used to do the produce market runs with Jayananda. We'd get to the produce market, and first of all we would go behind the produce market and hit all of the garbage cans, because in them days the temples didn't have that much laxmi. So actually we used to get about half of our produce out of the garbage cans. Jayananda would be in bliss in these big garbage cans, and all you could see was his head sticking out!

And actually on the, if any of you have been to San Francisco, if you are heading into San Francisco going by Candlestick Park, and then right before you get to the city there's these two big hills, one on each side of the freeway. So a couple of months before Ratha-yatra, Jayananda would get all of this chalk, these 100-pound bags of white chalk, and you know it was illegal to do this, but he would take about 5 or 6 devotees and we'd go up on the side of this hill and climb these fences and everything. And then he somehow or other choreographed this big sign on the side of the hill that would say “Hare Krishna Festival, Golden Gate Park” and the date. And it was pitch black out, he had to do it on a moonless night because it was totally illegal. And then the next day we would do the bhoga run and we'd come back real early in the morning, just as the sun was coming up, and Jayananda would see that sign and he would just be in ecstasy. He would say, “Look at that sign, Indranath! Everybody's gonna see it!”

Then the cops would call later that day and say, “What about this sign on the side of the hill?” And Jayananda would say, “Oh, we just have some very enthusiastic followers. They must have went out there and put this sign on the hill.” And this sign would show up on the hill every year, and somehow or other this sign would last all the way until Ratha-yatra. It was huge, like 10-foot letters. And on the other side, there was a sign that said something like, “South San Francisco, the Industrial City.” So actually it was very transcendental.

In those days we used to have two different trash systems. One regular trash, and one sacred trash. Jayananda use to take the sacred trash out to the ocean and dump in the ocean and feed the fish. So one day he got a ticket, the cops arrested him for that and gave him a ticket for littering in the ocean. So after that, everybody just kind of merges all of the trash because he figures that everything gets eaten anyway sooner or later by some living entity.

During the day we used to do this hari-nama sankirtan with the bhaktas, me and Jayananda, we used to go over to Berkeley, San Francisco. It was a very nice program, we'd leave early in the morning and we'd do the hari-nama all day until lunchtime. And then we'd go to one devotee's house, he always lived outside but he got initiated and Prabhupada used to stay at his house, his name was Brihat Sanu. And we used to go to his house and have lunch and Jayananda would give class. Jayananda would always talk about, we'd always ask Jayananda to tell us about the old days, to tell us about Prabhupada.

And there are two stories I always remember very clearly that he used to tell us about Srila Prabhupada. In the early days when they'd go down to take a shower in the morning, and Prabhupada would be there at the temple, Jayananda would go down there and he'd see Prabhupada waiting in line. Actually, the devotees didn't realize Prabhupada's spiritual position, and Prabhupada would be standing in the end of the line. Everybody would be waiting for the shower and Prabhupada, he's so humble, he would just get in at the end of the line and wait for a shower.

And then Jayananda said one of the first times he went to the airport to greet Srila Prabhupada with the rest of the devotees, he didn't really know how to greet a pure devotee. So he said when Prabhupada came down the ramp, he just grabbed Prabhupada, picked him up and swung him around, going, “Jaya Prabhupada!” and just swung him around in a big circle. Jayananda said that later Prabhupada pulled him aside and instructed him how to greet a pure devotee. So actually you see how in the beginning nobody really knew how to treat a pure devotee.

So we used to do this hari-nama. I remember one time Jayananda bought us these orange rain caps, orange rain coats and some orange boots, you know. There's about 10 of us and we'd go out in rain or shine. And the first time we put these uniforms on and went out, it was pouring rain and we were in Berkeley, and we actually got on the news and millions of people saw us. They said, “Look at these Hare Krishnas, nothing stops them!” So you could just see how by your endeavor in Krishna Consciousness, like Jayananda would say, “It will always be fruitful. There will always be some good results there.”

Jayananda used to live next door to the temple there, he used to live in the garage. We had a garage and I used to go to wake him up every morning. First thing he would do is he'd wake up and he'd do some push-ups and some sit-ups, because he always said he wanted to keep his body physically fit and strong for Krishna.

Jayananda used to say that when he first became a devotee, he thought when you chanted one round on your japa beads it was all the way around and then all the way back, so he would chant 32 rounds! And all of the other devotees were kind of looking at him kind of funny because they'd think, “Why is this guy taking so long to chant his 16 rounds?” So actually he was chanting 32 rounds. He was a very sincere chanter. If any of you have ever seen him, even in this temple room, he'd come in and he'd just sit there and just rock back and forth and chant his 16 rounds very strictly. He realized that japa is the most important aspect of all in devotional life because if you're strong in that, then you'll be strong in all of the other aspects.

So towards the end there, when Jayananda came to L.A., there was a few years there where I didn't see him. Actually, I heard he was coming, I heard he had cancer. Nobody could really picture that Jayananda could actually die because he was always so strong, and so alive. So it was almost like a shock to everybody that here Jayananda had leukemia. He was coming up from Mexico and San Diego. And I saw him coming down the street in his wheelchair, and it just flashed in my mind that, “Oh, I have to be his servant. He needs a servant.” So I arranged it with Ramesvara, and so I became Jayananda's servant. And it is actually a very heavy experience to serve somebody in a situation like that. I know he was in pain a lot, and he was totally dependent on people to help him at that time.

I remember he had a big book shelf. It was about 7, 8 feet high and about 6 feet wide, and he had all these Christmas decorations and all these pictures of Deities he's been collecting for years, so he put all these pictures on there. And actually he was directing me to do the show, and all of this fuzzy stuff that you put on the Christmas trees, and the lights. And boy, when that was done, that looked so pretty, it was like Vaikuntha. And he put this shelf sort of at an angle by his bed so he could just lay there in bed and meditate on these pictures of Krishna all day.

Mukunda Maharaja used to come in everyday, and he used to help me massage Jayananda, we used to have to massage him every day. And he'd grab one foot and I'd grab the other foot, and so we'd sit there and massage Jayananda's feet.

About two days before Jayananda left his body, it was his birthday, and we had a birthday party for him out in the parking lot. You can see the big Ratha-yatra cake, and it was very nice. Everybody was there. It was a kind of surprise party, and I had to trick Jayananda to come out. He was too sick to come out, but I told him, “Lalitanath said that there's something wrong with the carts. You gotta come out.” That was about the only thing that would get him to come out, was the fact that there was something wrong with his cart. So, everybody was hiding behind the wall in the parking lot over here, I wheeled Jayananda around and they all jumped out and said, “Hari Bol!” It was a big surprise.

He was giving a lecture here about how we are not this body, and it was very heavy. He was so weak there that it was even hard for him to keep his eyes open, actually. And then there's Jayananda waving goodbye to everybody.

Jayananda, even when he was dying, he was just absorbed in this Ratha-yatra festival. He came here to leave his body. Previously he was taking laetrile treatments in Mexico, but he decided that it was Krishna's desire for him to leave his body, and he wasn't going to fight it. So he wasn't taking any medication or anything, he was just ready to leave his body.

But when he came here, one day he just approached Ramesvara and he said, “Take me to Venice Beach.” So Ramesvara took him down to Venice Beach, and Jayananda saw the boardwalk there on Venice Beach and he said, “This is perfect for a Ratha-yatra festival!” Because all the time actually he was just absorbed in this Ratha-yatra festival. He couldn't think of anything else... [tape abruptly ends]

Dasaratha-suta    Indranatha  Adi-kesava    Jivadhara     Jayanandanugas Gurudas    BTG Interview    His Own Words  Mukunda Astro Chart Vishoka Jim Sullivan Dhanistha Kala-kantha Murli-krsna His Gita Class Svavasa  Ode to Jayananda   Family Selected Verses Andrew Quotes and Letters JayaIndex Jayakatha   Home

Vyasa puja offerings   Poems Gunga express Ratha-yatra site Prabhupada site

email- Vishoka@altavista.com