“This Is My Heart”
Patita Uddharana dasa, Editor / Compiler
“This Is My Heart”
Remembrances of ISKCON Press
…and other relevant stories
Manhattan / Boston / Brooklyn
1968-1971
Essays by the Assembled Devotees
“This Is My Heart”
Remembrances of ISKCON Press
…and other relevant stories
Manhattan / Boston / Brooklyn
1968-1971
Patita Uddharana Dasa
Vaishnava Astrologer and Author of:
-The Bhrigu Project (5 volumes) (with Abhaya Mudra Dasi),
-Shri Chanakya-niti with extensive Commentary,
-Motorcycle Yoga (Royal Enflied Books) (as Miles Davis),
-What Is Your Rashi? (Sagar Publications Delhi) (as Miles Davis),
-This Is My Heart (Archives free download) (Editor / Compiler),
-Shri Pushpanjali –A Triumph over Impersonalism
-Vraja Mandala Darshan – Touring the Land of Krishna
-Horoscope for Disaster (ms.)
-Bharata Darshan (ms.)
“I am very pleased also to note your appreciation for our Bhagavad-gita As It Is, and I want that all of my students will understand this book very nicely. This will be a great asset to our preaching activities.” (-Shrila Prabhupada, letter to Patita Uddharana, 31 May 1969)
For my eternal companion
in devotional service to Shri Guru and Gauranga
Shrimati Abhaya Mudra Devi Dasi
A veritable representative of Goddess Lakshmi in Krishna’s service without whose help this book would not have been possible
“We are supposed to take our husband or our wife as our eternal companion or assistant in Krishna conscious service, and there is promise never to separate.”
(Shrila Prabhupada, letter 4 January 1973)
(Shri Narada tells King Yudhishthira:) “The woman who engages in the service of her husband, following strictly in the footsteps of the goddess of fortune, surely returns home, back to Godhead, with her devotee husband, and lives very happily in the Vaikuṇṭha planets.”
“Shrila Prabhupada” by Abhaya Mudra Dasi
“Offer my blessings to all the workers of ISKCON Press because that is my life.”
(-Shrila Prabhupada, letter 19 December 1970)
Table of Contents
Introduction “Books Any Man Would Be Proud to Have” …….... 8
Shrila Prabhupada on Printing ………………………………….. 16
The Business of ISKCON Press (Rameshwara dasa) …………… 28
Prabhupada Instructs the Artists ………………………………… 43
Prabhupada Visits Boston December 1969 (Nityananda dasa)….. 50
Shrila Prabhupada’s Boston Initiation Lecture .…………………. 69
History of ISKCON Press (Swarupa dasa)
Introduction ………………………………………………. 83
1. The Big Mridanga ………………………………………. 84
2. The Washington Peace Rally ………………… ………… 86
3. Saving the World from Godlessness ……………………… 89
4. The Cast of Characters ……………………………………. 92
5. Why the Press Moved from Boston Back to New York …… 95
6. “North, East, South and West”… ………………………..... 97
7. 32 Tiffany Place, Brooklyn ……………………………… 101
The MacMillan Miracle (Satyaraja dasa) ……………………… 105
George Harrison and the Krishna Book (Shyamasundara)……….. 111
Reminiscences of a Pandit (Pradyumna dasa) ……………………. 119
Thus Spake Krishna’s Artists:
(Govinda, Jadurani, Baradwaja, Pushkar, Bhargava) ………… 127
From Proofreader to Devotee (Mahamaya dasi) ………………….. 135
How I Met Swami Bhaktivedanta (Madhusudana dasa) ………….. 144
Two Poems from the Early Days (Patita Uddharana dasa)………... 146
I Just Want the Truth (Patita Uddharana dasa) ……..…………… 153
Letter from a Bookbinder (Patita Uddharana dasa) ……………….. 163
His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada:
Wedding Ceremony and Lecture Boston, 6 May 1969 …….........168
In2MeC (Diary Entries of HH Suhotra Maharaja)
1. How I Almost Missed My Initiation ……………………........ 180
2. Meeting David Allen …………………………………………. 184
3 Why Don’t You Write? . ……………………………………..... 188
4. “My Name is Prabhupada dasa” ……………………………… 189
Letter from a Friend (Prabhupada dasa) .……………………….…… 206
The Story of Kushakratha Das (Pushkar Das Adhikary) ……..….…. 210
Crazy Peter (Giriraja Swami) ……………………………………….. 219
Prabhupada’s Lecture at M.I.T. …………………………………..…. 221
Shrila Prabhupada's Indexer (Satyaraja dasa) ………………………. 236
ISKCON Press Bulletin Board (Patita Uddharana dasa) ……………. 256
The Letter that Saddened Shrila Prabhupada (Govinda dasi) ……….. 264
The First of Many Lessons (Rameshwara dasa) …………………….. 267
“You Will Take Stones to Eat?” (Hari Sauri dasa) .………………… 271
The Purport behind the Purport (Shrutakirti das) …………………… 272
Nectar with a Touch of Printer’s Ink
With the kind permission of the many generous contributors this work has been donated to the Bhaktivedanta Archives, Sandy Ridge, NC, for free download and for the posterity and benefit of all future devotees of ISKCON.
To: Their Graces at Shri Bhaktivedanta Archives
2015
Dandavats Eknath dasa Prabhu and Nitya Tripta Mataji,
May His Divine Grace, our beloved Guru Maharaja whose lotus feet alone must be served, continue to shower his divine benedictions upon us and upon ours, upon our better halves who are veritable incarnations of Lakshmi, and upon our other family members. Which includes families we have been born into in lives past as per the authority of the prayers of Shri Prahlada and the Bhaktivedanta Purports thereupon.
Jai to you both.
Prabhu, This Is My Heart (attached) is ready to go into the Archives if your goodness will be kind enough to accept this humble offering for the sake of Shrila Prabhupada's divine dispensation of joyful Krishna consciousness. I will share with you privately the letters from the devotee authors who have kindly allowed their historical works to be included herein. A big thanks to all of these exalted Vaishnavas for allowing their brilliantly scribed offerings to Guru Maharaja find their places here in the literary history of the Gaudiyas and ISKCON Press!
Please accept in that light this humble effort of compiling the finest eye witness accounts to an important era that Shrila Prabhupada named by saying of the press, “This is my heart.” Therefore, this book is an offering from us to the lotus feet of the archives of which you both represent so nicely. Once I hear from you I will be ready to send it.
Please let me have both of your thoughts on these matters.Thanks again for being there for the coming Golden Age. Your work is so very important.
Always the insignificant servant at your feet by the grace of Guru Maharaja,praying for the best for you also
Patita Uddharana dasa
Dear Patita Uddharana Prabhu, Obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.Thank you for your kind blessings and well-wishes. Yes we will be happy to store “This is My Heart”. Thank you for the offer. I'd love to read it and we are looking forward to receiving the book. Please extend our obeisances and respect to Mother Abhaya Mudra. Jaya Radhe! Thank you.
Your servant,
Ekanatha dasa
Introduction
“These Are Books Any Man Would Be Proud to Have”
When the first hard bound books, Shri Ishopanishad, came out of ISKCON Press, we bookbinders—Vaikunthanatha and I—sent copies to Shrila Prabhupada. From Los Angeles in a letter dated 9 May 1970 His Divine Grace replied:
My Dear Patita Uddharana,
Please accept my blessings. I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 24th April, 1970, along with the typical examples of hardbound editions of Shri Isopanisad, and thank you so much for them.
This binding work is so nicely made. You have done it very well, and I am completely satisfied. I very much appreciate your efforts in our ISKCON bindery, and if such binding is done we will have sure success with our books.
So you can bind our books in this way, and although it may go slowly just now it is being done very nicely. Then in future you may be able to do our binding here instead of in Japan. You write to say that these are some nice typical examples of your binding work, so it is a great credit because these books any man would be proud to have. I beg to thank you once again for your kind appreciations and excellent work.
Hope this will meet you in good health.
Your ever well-wisher,
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
ACBS:db
When Shrila Prabhupada visited ISKCON Press in late December of 1969, he stayed in a tiny room in the temple. A friend of the movement had rented the penthouse suite in Boston’s finest hotel, The Four Seasons, for His Divine Grace. But Prabhupada objected, “Oh, I will not stay in a hotel.” Quoting one of the millions of verses at his command, he instructed the devotees, “The country is in mode of goodness, the city is in the mode of passion, but a hotel is a brothel.”
The work force of assembled devotees was a motley crew that hung together based only upon our collective faith in the message of Shrila Prabhupada. Basically we were a kaleidoscope that had very little in common—except that each of us was convinced that only the message of our spiritual master could save the world from the false values and deception that plagued its every corner. We had absolute faith that our Guru Maharaja was the direct representative of Shri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and we desired nothing other than to spread the news of his divine message through the medium of his printed words.
As Shrila Prabhupada sauntered like a great king into the pressroom and for the first time saw the Chief 29 offset, he affectionately pointed to the machine and said, “This is my heart.” I was standing just behind His Divine Grace and witnessed that every devotee in the room was affected by that simple declaration. Our Guru Maharaja impressed upon us the importance of his “Big Mridanga” and each one of us felt honored that we were involved in such an important project as ISKCON Press. To compare the press to his heart was tantamount to preparing this machine to God Himself. And that is because the message carried by ISKCON Press through the medium of the Lord’s pure devotee was indeed non-different from Krishna.
The tour of ISKCON Press is recorded in Shri Prabhupada-lilamrita by Satswarupa dasa Goswami:
A hundred devotees, straining to see and hear Prabhupāda's responses, followed him as he went downstairs. Although the crowd surrounded him, he remained relaxed and unhurried. He entered the press room, a long hall directly beneath the temple room. A large old offset press, a paper cutter, a folder, and flats of paper stock filled the room, which smelled like a print shop. Advaita, the press manager, bowed down in his green khakis before Prabhupāda. He rose up smiling, and Prabhupāda stepped forward and embraced him, putting his arm around Advaita's head. “Very good,” he said.
Standing before the printing press, Prabhupāda folded his palms together and offered a prayer to his spiritual master: “Jaya Om Viṣṇupada Paramahaṁsa Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja Prabhupāda ki jaya!” Advaita asked Prabhupāda to give the press a transcendental name. “ISKCON Press,” Prabhupāda said matter-of-factly, as if it had already been named.
“Keep all the machines very clean,” Prabhupāda said, “and they will last a long time. This is the heart of ISKCON.”
“You are the heart of ISKCON, Prabhupāda,” a devotee said.
“And this is my heart,” said Prabhupāda.
Leaving the main press room, Prabhupāda toured the other press facilities. Squeezing in, ducking under, standing on tiptoe, the crowd of devotees followed him step by step. He peeked into a little cubbyhole where a devotee was composing type. The typesetters, he said, should proceed very slowly at first, and in that way they would become expert. Turning to Advaita, he said, “Everyone in India who speaks Hindi has a Gītā Press publication. So everyone who speaks English should have an ISKCON Press publication.”
Compared to most authors, Prabhupāda's literary contribution was already substantial. But he wasn't just “an author.” His mission was to flood the world with literature glorifying Lord Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda's ISKCON was now three years old, yet his disciples were only beginning to execute his plans for printing and distributing transcendental literature.
Printing was an important step—the first step…
And just prior to coming to Boston he had written,
Now ISKCON was printing fifty thousand copies of Back to Godhead per month, and Prabhupāda hoped to increase the sales more and more.
Standing in the crowded, chilly basement, surrounded by devotees, press machines, and transcendental literature, Prabhupāda described how he wanted ISKCON Press to operate. He said that after dictating a tape he would mail it to Boston to be transcribed. The transcription should take no more than two days. During the next two days, someone would edit the transcribed manuscript. Then another editor would take two days to edit the transcript a second time. A Sanskrit editor would add diacritical markings, and the manuscript would be ready for composing.
Prabhupāda said he could produce fifteen tapes—three hundred manuscript pages—every month. At that rate, ISKCON Press should produce a book every two months, or six books in a year. Prabhupāda wanted to print at least sixty books. Therefore his press workers would have plenty to do for the next ten years. If the devotees simply printed his books incessantly, he said, even if they had to work twenty-four hours a day in shifts, it would give him “great delight.” He was ready, if necessary, to drop all his activities except for publishing books.
This was the special nectar the press devotees were hankering to hear. Printing books was Prabhupāda's heart; it was the thing most dear to him.”
Soon the demand for Shrila Prabhupada’s revolutionary message became so profound that by 1972 all ISKCON printing had been shifted to Japan and ISKCON Press shut down. And for many years the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, which ISKCON Press evolved into, has been the world’s largest indological publisher with millions of books sold all over the world in over 50 languages.
l to r: Devi dasis Kasturika, Saradiya and Lila Sukha collate a mountain of pages. Photo: Uddhava dasa
In the decades that followed many disciples have gone on to write books about what their spiritual master means to them. Indeed it is significant that more books have been written about Shrila Prabhupada by his disciples than the sum total of all the books written by all the yogis who came from India to America to sell manufactured enlightenment to a gullible public during the sixty years up to our Guru Maharaja’s appearance in the west. The books of the disciples of the pure devotee are expressions of the initiate’s love for the transparent via media to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Written glorifications of the Sat-Gurudeva Maharaja demonstrate the ability of the bona fide representative of the Supreme Lord to empower the sincere student with the ability to carry on the message of Krishna consciousness, a process which begins with surrender to the bona fide spiritual master.
The true disciple does not approach the bona fide guru merely to impress others that he keeps a guru as an ornament or personal success motivator, as is fashionable in some circles. The process of guru parampara is one of self-willed submission, surrender pure and simple, that the disciple begins to fathom his or her debt to Shri Guru. The disciple’s debt is eternal and can never be repaid. Devotees’ books about Shrila Prabhupada are eye witness testimonies to the spotless character and divine intelligence of Krishna’s pure devotee. Each written legacy proves the potency of the authorized disciplic succession coming from Lord Krishna through Lord Brahma, Narada Muni, Veda Vyasadeva, Madhvacharya, Ishwara Puri, Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Six Goswamis, Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakura through Shrila Prabhupada to his disciples.