Suhotra Maharaja:
Suhotra Swami on his joining ISKCON:
1/ "I became interested in the Hare Krishna Movement while I was in the
high school. It was a long time ago, in 1967. At that time I heard the Hare
Krishna mantra chanted not by devotees, but by a rock group. One of the singers
was Alan Ginsberg, a well known American poet. He had already before had the
contact with Œrila Prabhupada, who told him, that whenever he would read
poetry, he should start by chanting too. So I also started to chant. I had no
idea that it was related to any deeper philosophy. Then I learned that some
people I knew were joining the Hare Krishna, but still I had no idea what the
Hare Krishna was about, I had many strange ideas about it. So I was interested
in the Hare Krishna Movement. So I was imagining so many strange things what
the Hare Krishna Movement could be. So then I had a chance to meet devotees,
it must have been 1970 or 1971. I saw the devotees for the first time, and I
spoke with them a little bit. And this put something into my heart. I just could
not come back to my Life that I lived before. I wasn't really interested in
joining, but I thought I had to find out about the devotees, as they seemed
to be so happy. Eventually I visited the temple in Detroit. At that time Indradyumna
Maharaja was a devotee at that temple, but I did not meet him, only later I
came to know he was there. In the temple I saw the aratik ceremony, the kirtan,
I took prasadam, and took some magazines. When I came back home I read them
over and over again. I started to think that I had to join this movement, I
had to become a devotee. I just thought about going where this magazine was
published, I wanted to meet the person who wrote these articles. At that time
this magazine was published in the Boston temple. I had the desire to go to
Boston and talk to devotees. I had this desire, but Boston was 800 miles from
Detroit, it was winter, and I had no money. But I had this idea, and the next
day a friend of mine came, he was a driver, and he came to say good-bye to me
and my friends, he was a lorry driver and the next day he was going to Boston.
So I told him: "Take me with you." I knew this was Krishna's arrangements.
I knew it was some higher power. So I arrived at Boston, and than I became a
devotee."
2/ "I became a devotee in October or November of 1971 when I joined the ISKCON temple in Boston, USA, although I had been living eight hundred miles away near the city of Detroit. How I came to join the Boston temple is an interesting story. I was living with some friends in a house on the outskirts of the greater Detroit area.
I'd seen the devotees a few times and learned the maha-mantra. I was attracted but was still too absorbed in my own speculations to commit myself to Krsna consciousness. Then at about 18:00 one day in downtown Detroit, I saw the devotees on harinama. On an impulse, I joined their kirtana. They invited me to the temple, so I went back with them in their van. That was my first visit inside of an ISKCON temple. I attended arati, evening class and afterwards took a little prasadam. It all seemed so strange yet wonderful.
I was impressed by the brightness, cleanliness and purity of everyone and everything. Before I left that night I bought a Back to Godhead Magazine. Back home with my friends, I read the magazine over and over. After a few days I decided I should move into a temple -- but because of my speculative tendency, I thought I should go to the temple in Boston, not Detroit. I had noted that the BTG was published in Boston. I found the magazine very illuminating and concluded that the Boston devotees must be big philosophers. I thought myself a big philosopher too, so I wanted to be with others of the same caliber. In reality, I was just a proud fool. Anyway, Krsna was kind to me. But I did not have much money and it was late autumn -- any day the cold winter winds would start to blow.
So how could I carry out this mad plan of traveling eight hundred miles across the USA from Detroit to Boston? The same day I decided I wanted to go to Boston, a friend who drove a long-distance lorry visited the house. He mentioned that tomorrow he had to drive his truck to Boston. Krsna provided me with a free ride! After a few weeks in the Boston temple, I became a little serious by the mercy of the devotees, and decided to commit my whole life to Krsna.
My moving into the temple was initially just an experiment. At first I planned to leave after 3 months or so, after I had "become spiritual." But the Boston devotees saved me from my crazy speculative mind, and I ended up staying for good.
 Chicago ISKCON temple, summer 1975. On Srila Prabhupada's right are HH Visnujana Swami, HH Satsvarupa dasa Goswami, HH Sudama Swami. To his Divine Grace's right are HH Brahmananda Swami and HH Tamal Krsna Goswami. I am standing at the far left. |
Srila Prabhupada was very kind to me when I first saw him. That was in Boston, summer 1972. I was asked by the vice-president to serve Srila Prabhupada prasadam. Being only a bhakta, I was very nervous of offending His Divine Grace, but Prabhupada so mercifully encouraged me. On three occasions during his short stay in Boston he showed me that he knows the inside of my heart. I could not help but accept him as my eternal spiritual master after this. Then a few years later, in New York, he showed appreciation for the service I had rendered to him as a book distributor. Actually, Srila Prabhupada has been so merciful to me throughout all my years in ISKCON. Considering this, I am simply astonished. Without him, I would be lost. By my own nature, I am, not a devotee at all. If anybody sees me as a devotee, what they are really seeing is just Srila Prabhupada's mercy."
3/ Suhotra Swami remembering his darsan with Srila Prabhupada (taken from the DVD "Following Srila Prabhupada Volume 7"):
"After the Radha-Damodar Party, I went to the BBT Library Party; and we had the good fortune to have a darshan with Srila Prabhupada in Chicago. Mostly, of course, Satsvarupa Maharaj, Mahabuddhi, Ghanashyam, they had many points that they were taking up with Srila Prabhupada and I was sitting on the edge of things. But I had one question in my mind, and I waited for my chance. Then when there was a little lull, I raised my hand and Prabhupada called on me. My concern was often the professors wanted to know if these books will tell us about the ancient technology of Vedic India because at that time a book had come out by Erich von Daniken called Chariots of the Gods and there was reference in there to the Mahabharata and Puranas, that there were vimanas or airplanes or flying saucers, whatever they were, described in these ancient Sanskrit texts. So I wanted to hear Prabhupada, what he would say about this. I said, "Srila Prabhupada, many times the professors I meet, they ask me about Vedic technology," and Prabhupada hardly let those words get out of my mouth before he rapped the table with his knuckles and he just said very shortly, "Vedic technology means Sri Guru Parampara," and that's all he said. But it was such a profound statement for me. It was an immediate instruction because, of course, I was asking the question impelled by all kinds of speculations going on in my mind. I had actually read that book Chariots of the Gods just to find out more what these professors were talking about. So my mind had been drifting in orbit, and Prabhupada just brought me right down to earth. "Vedic technology means Sri Guru Parampara," and I meditated on that. That's been a very important sutra in my life since that time. One thing is that you think about technology in the modern sense and it's the motive force behind this Western civilization and the culture that is associated with that, which has really covered the earth. So technology is the dynamic force of civilization. We know that the Vedic civilization once covered the earth. India was once in the position that America is in now as being the leading country that all other countries emulated, and how it got to that position was because of following Sri Guru Parampara. And that is the key to how again Vedic culture can spread all over the world and become synonymous with civilization. Now when people think of civilization they look to America or they look to Western Europe, they think that's where civilization is. But actually real civilization is Vedic civilization, and the key to that is Sri Guru Parampara as Prabhupada said."