xii THE SCIENCE OF SELF-REALIZATION

raw fascination, I knew I wanted to follow his progress every step of the
way. His plans for expansion were daring and unpredictable—except for
the fact that they always seemed to succeed gloriously. He was seventyish
and a stranger to America, and he had arrived with practically nothing,
yet now, within a few months, he had singlehandedly started a move-
ment! It was mind-boggling.

One August morning at the Second Avenue storefront temple, Srila
Prabhupdada told us, ‘‘Today is Lord Krsna’s appearance day.’” We would
observe a twenty-four-hour fast and stay inside the temple. That evening
some visitors from India happened along. One of them—practically in
tears—described his unbounded rapture at finding this little piece of
authentic India on the other side of the world. Never in his wildest
dreams could he have imagined such a thing. He offered Srila Prabhu-
pada eloquent praise and deep thanks, left a donation, and bowed at his
feet. Everyone was deeply moved. Later, Srila Prabhupada conversed
with the gentleman in Hindi, and since what he was saying was unin-
telligible to me, I was able to observe how his every expression and
gesture communicated to the very core of the human soul.

Later that year, while in San Francisco, I sent Srila Prabhupada his first
airline ticket, and he flew out from New York. A sizeable group of us
greeted him at the terminal by chanting the Hare Krsna mantra. Then we
drove him to the eastern edge of Golden Gate Park, to a newly rented
apartment and storefront temple—an arrangement very similar to that in
New York. We had established a pattern. Srila Prabhupada was ecstatic.

A few weeks later the first mrdanga (a long clay drum with a playing
head on each end) arrived in San Francisco from India. When I went up
to Srila Prabhupada’s apartment and informed him, his eyes opened
wide, and in an excited voice he told me to go down quickly and open the
crate. I took the elevator, got out on the ground floor, and was walking
toward the front door when Srila Prabhupada appeared. So eager was he
to see the mrdanga that he had taken the stairway and had beaten the
elevator. He asked us to open the crate, he tore off a piece of the saffron
cloth he was wearing, and, leaving only the playing heads exposed, he
wrapped the drum with the cloth. Then he said, ‘‘This must never come
off,’ and he began giving detailed instructions on how to play and care
for the instrument.

Also in San Francisco, in 1967, Srila Prabhupada inaugurated Ratha-
yatra, the Festival of the Chariots, one of several festivals that, thanks to
him, people all over the world now observe. Ratha-yatra has taken place
in India’s Jagannatha Puri each year for two thousand years, and by 1975
