Introduction
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I left for Māyāpur planning to stay for two days at the most, but I ended up staying a week. I was the only Western nondevotee on the island, and since I was living with the devotees on their land, this was a unique opportunity to learn intimately about Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
On the third day of the festival, I was invited in to see Śrila Prabhupāda. He was living in a small hut—half-brick and half-thatched, with two or three pieces of simple furniture. Śrila Prabhupāda asked me to be seated and then asked how I was and whether I had any questions. The devotees had explained to me that Śrila Prabhupāda could answer my questions because he represents a disciplic succession of spiritual masters. I thought that Śrila Prabhupāda might really know what is going on in the world. After all, his devotees claimed this, and I admired and respected them. So with this in mind I began to ask my questions. Inadvertently, I had approached a  guru , or spiritual master, in the prescribed way—by submissively asking questions about spiritual life.
Śrila Prabhupāda seemed pleased with me, and over the next several days, he answered my questions. I asked them mostly from an academic point of view, but he always gave me personal answers so that I would actually spiritualize my life. His answers were logical, scientific, satisfying and amazingly lucid. Before I met Śrila Prabhupāda and his disciples, spiritual life was always obscure and nebulous. But the discussions with Śrila Prabhupāda were realistic, clear and exciting! Śrila Prabhupāda was patiently trying to help me understand that Kṛṣṇa—God—is the supreme enjoyer, supreme friend and supreme proprietor. I put forward many impediments to accepting the obvious: that I would