Where I Went and What I Did
During the nineteenth week of 2026, I spent first three days living at ISKCON New York in Brooklyn and chanting with the NYC Harinam party for three or four hours.
Sunday I took a bus to Schenectady, where I led kirtan and gave a talk at the Sunday feast program at our center there, and I did harinama by myself in the largely vacant downtown afterward for an hour. Monday I did harinama by myself in Schenectady for an hour, and then I attended a memorial service for my mother in Albany, where I distributed mango lassi and palak paneer from the previous day’s program.
Finally I did harinama for an hour and a half in Albany, where two friends from Schenectady joined me for the final hour. I cooked breakfast for my guru, Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami, on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I also chanted Hare Krishna on his porch for an hour each day for the benefit of passersby. Wednesday evening I chanted the first kirtan at the Chatham program, led the Gita discussion there, and brought three items for the dinner, including an Ekadasi coconut sweet that I had made for lunch.
I share quotes from Srila Prabhupada’s Srimad-Bhagavatam, as well as a letter of his. I share quotes from ISKCON in the 1970s by Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami. I share notes on lectures by Bhakti Padma Swami and Arcita, Sri Prahlada, and Hadai Prana Prabhus.
Many thanks to ISKCON Schenectady for their kind donation. Thanks to Mathura Mohan Prabhu, who picked me up at the bus in Schenectady and to Rishi Isvara Prabhu, who drove me from Albany to Stuyvesant Falls. Thanks also to Baladeva Vidyabhusana Prabhu, who gave me a ride from Stuyvesant Falls to Hudson.
Itinerary
May 4–June 14: NYC Harinam
– May 29: Baltimore harinama
– May 30: Baltimore Ratha-yatra
– June 13: New York Ratha-yatra
June 28: Paris Ratha-yatra
Chanting Hare Krishna in New York City
My mother, Pat Beetle, passed away two years ago Thursday, according to the lunar calendar. I always offer her mango lassi and palak paneer, two of her favorites, along with some maha-prasadam. Please give her your blessings that she might attain that love of God which Lord Caitanya is distributing in this age of degradation.
Sevika Devi Dasi chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/4J2Kl5lfHbA?feature=share):
Hadai Prana Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/R4tq5Ot8sCs?feature=share):
Rama Raya Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/OUpF-Cm24L8?feature=share):
Chatamayi Devi Dasi chant Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/HaV5Aa40_aQ?feature=share):
Vraja Mohan Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Manhattan (https://youtube.com/shorts/cJgZxhTEozU):
There Tara Prabhu, visiting from Silicon Valley, who has distributed book since the 1980s, tried to sell a few books.
In that station, the daughter of Tulasirani Devi Dasi, distributed Ratha-yatra invitations for a few minutes.
Sri Prahlada Prabhu chants Hare Krishna at 26 Second Avenue (https://youtube.com/shorts/EMCFHXXz8mU?feature=share):
Sri Prahlada Prabhu chants Hare Krishna at 26 Second Avenue, and several devotees dance (https://youtube.com/shorts/Z6Cg2PmarT8):
Chanting Hare Krishna in Upstate New York
I wasn’t planning to go upstate at this time, but my sister invited me to a memorial program for our mother, who wanted a third of her ashes buried behind the Quaker meetinghouse in Albany. I grew up going to that Albany Friends Meeting, and in recent years, I would go when I visited my mother, so I knew many of the people, and so I decided to to participate in the event.
That program was on Monday, so I decided to go a day early so I could give the lecture and lead kirtans at the ISKCON Schenectady Sunday program, and I decided stay upstate a few days after to cook breakfast for my guru, Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami, who lives under 45 minutes from there. That way I could also attended the Wednesday program in Chatham.
Between the ISKCON Schenectady Sunday feast and the midday Monday memorial program for my mother in Albany, I was able to do harinama in Schenectady for an hour.
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While there I put up the poster for the amazing Schenectady 60-hour kirtan in that town’s only vegan restaurant.
I was pleasantly surprised to find a few people attracted to chanting, and I told them about our center and that event. One person spontaneously gave a donation, and I gave her a book.
Barbara, who attended the Albany Friends Meeting at different times in her life, once saw me on harinama in Union Square while she was studying in New York to become an interfaith minister. She likes Bhagavad-gita, and previously got two from me. I met her before the memorial service for my mother, and she got another Bhagavad-gita.
I spoke first at the memorial service, mentioning that Quakers are in the Christian tradition, and Christ talked about loving thy neighbor as thyself. I see my mother’s civil rights and peace activism as an expression of her realization of that, and said that her feeling for the suffering of others, her enthusiasm and her ability to engage others were inspiring.
Several people said told of pleasing interactions they had with my mother:
I love how she inspired people to act accordingly to their convictions.
I don’t recall ever hearing her complain. Thanks for setting that example.
She stressed the importance of showing up.
She was gracious to me as a new person.
I love her T-shirt: I will not raise my child to kill your child.
After I spent a day with her, I thought that if all Quakers are like her, I think I’d like to stay.
At the end, I felt inspired to quote from an amazing astrological reading based on the time and place my mother passed away done by Atitaguna Dasi, the wife of Pancaratna Prabhu. I prefaced it by saying that I do not know how many of you believe in astrology, Western or Vedic, but in this reading you can see some of the nice qualities of my mother that you shared here today and so I thought I would read it.
At the end, I felt inspired to quote from an amazing astrological reading based on the time and place my mother passed away done by Atitaguna Dasi, the wife of Pancaratna Prabhu. I prefaced it by saying that I do not know how many of you believe in astrology, Western or Vedic, but in this reading you can see some of the nice qualities of my mother that you shared here today and so I thought I would read it.
Here’s what I read:
“Your mother has an interesting departure chart.
“Her departure ascendant was Leo. This shows that she was following her inspiration in this life. She was always motivated to doing something good in her life. The lord of the first house, the Sun is powerfully placed in the tenth house of action. Right until her last days she wanted to do something positive and special in this life. The sun is closely connected to two positive planets: Venus and Jupiter. Even at the end of life she wanted to do something special.
“When she left, she left as a free spirit. She had the ability to sacrifice her lower forms of ego to the higher self. She was generous and humble. She was of a Sattvic nature [the nature of goodness]. With auspicious Venus placed here in the tenth house, shows a smooth transition from this life to the next. She wanted to be involved with other people.
Her Mars is placed in the eighth house showing that she left in a valiant way. She had a courageous heart and she searched for inner strength through spiritual strength and right action. She was a great parent.
“She left when her moon was in the nakshatra of Sravana, a demigod. She really wanted to know what was worthwhile in this life. She was inquiring deeply in this life.
“According to her departure chart, she went to a much higher plane of consciousness than she was experiencing in this life. I can see that you meant a lot to her in her life and she was interested to know how you felt about spiritual life and experiences.
“She was a happy, free spirit—skillful, charitable and learned. She was kind and pious and eloquent. In looking at a devotee’s [person’s] chart, I focus on Jupiter and Venus which are prominent in her passing away chart. . . . She went to a very high planet in her next birth.”
Everyone loved the mango lassi and palak paneer I brought from the Schenectady program, which I had sponsored and which was made by Shekhara Prabhu. There was enough for my sister and her partner to take home and some for my niece’s other relatives as well.
The Quaker meeting caretaker put up the Schenectady 60-hour kirtan poster in the meetinghouse.
On Monday afternoon, after the memorial program for my mother at the Quaker meetinghouse, Haridas and Rishi Isvara Das Prabhus of ISKCON Schenectady joined me in doing harinama around Albany, beginning and ending at the New York State Capitol building there.
Before the others, joined me one young man gave me $1.05, and I gave him a Chant and Be Happy.
Later we met a person who knew Saunaka Rsi Dasa Prabhu, a regular attender at the ISKCON Schenectady Sunday program, from working with him years ago. Also Sacisuta Prabhu, who has arranged the accommodation for our guru and his caretakers in Stuyvesant Falls, also saw us on harinama from his car.
Here Damodara Priya Devi Dasi chants Hare Krishna at the Chatham Wednesday program (https://youtube.com/shorts/60ink3TVD_A?feature=share):
Srila Prabhupada:
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.2.36, purport:
“All the great acaryas, like Ramanuja, Madhva, Caitanya, Sarasvati Thakura or even, in other countries, Muhammad, Christ and others, have all extensively glorified the Lord by chanting always and in every place. Because the Lord is all-pervading, it is essential to glorify Him always and everywhere. In the process of glorifying the Lord there should be no restriction of time and space. This is called sanatana-dharma or bhagavata-dharma. Sanatana means eternal, always and everywhere. Bhagavata means pertaining to Bhagavan, the Lord. The Lord is the master of all time and all space, and therefore the Lord’s holy name must be heard, glorified and remembered everywhere in the world. That will bring about the desired peace and prosperity so eagerly awaited by the people of the world.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.17.32, purport:
“One who is experienced and is favored by the Lord can understand that everything is being done according to the Lord’s supreme plan.”
From a letter to Kirtanananda on April 7, 1967:
“Perhaps you have marked it in my preaching work that I love Lord Jesus Christ as good as Krishna; because He rendered the greatest service to Krishna according to time circumstances and society in which He appeared. Similarly Hajrat Mohammed and Lord Buddha also rendered greatest service to the human society according to circumstances. So work with more enthusiasm and we are sure to be successful in our great mission.”
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
From ISKCON in the 1970s:
“If devotees continue discussing and sincerely trying to please Prabhupada, then even big mistakes can be corrected. The wonderful opportunity is still before us because what Prabhupada gave us is so enduring and perfect. And he is very kind.”
“For the rest of my life, I want to spontaneously remember that great personality whose pastimes are no longer manifest before us.”
“I remember he sat up in his bed in Beth Israel Hospital in the spring of 1967 and said, ‘I don’t know Krishna. I only know my Guru Maharaja.’”
“It is not a small thing to be without the presence of the world acarya. Who can replace him? Can some sort of election produce a great soul? We don’t think so. Who replaced Ramanuja? Who replaced Madhva? There is no move for a new head.”
“But our movement is spiritually assured of continuance. There will be gurus, there will be initiation—the parampara will continue. It is not a cult built on one person’s charisma, and it never was.”
“Without preaching, you will not feel enthused to do temple worship, and without temple worship you cannot keep yourself pure, clean. The two things are parallel. Then there is success.”
“Everyone must be thoroughly understanding philosophy which we are preaching. This means read thoroughly every day.”
“We have to continue the purity and vigorous preaching, at least in our own lives, and try to set up as much as we can, a living institution that can go on without us.”
“Prabhupada’s accomplishment is a living gift. He has not left something that will become useless in time, like ancient emperors who erected stone monuments to themselves. He has left a living, working society of devotees, inspired and determined to preach.”
“Yes, the spiritual presence is fully in his books (‘All I have wanted to say is in my books’), but without him, we may refuse to take it. We may interpret it. These are dangers.”
“I have no heavy questions to ask Srila Prabhupada. I’ve asked all I could. He has always answered to my satisfaction. Whatever else I want, I know it’s somewhere in his books and tapes. I simply have to go on chanting and hearing. Likewise all of us.”
“Talking to a boy who is asking, ‘Who is the successor guru’ He says our philosophy of parampara demands a successor guru, but I say, ‘Why one successor guru? Why not hundreds?’ And if you say, ‘Well, all his disciples together don’t make even one guru,’ then I say, ‘What is your idea of guru?’ If we preach to whomever we meet about Krishna, then we are guru. If we always chant Hare Krishna, then we are mahatma. This may not be acceptable to caste conscious Hindu brahmaṇas or professional gurus, but this is what Srila Prabhupada and Lord Caitanya have defined as guru. Despite what we lack, we have to go on.”
“I was reading Srila Prabhupada’s letters. He said a devotee always feels inadequate and fallen and that it is his qualification.”
“if we follow the parampara path, then it can also be predicted that we will attain pure devotion to Krishna and will attain Krishna-loka.”
Srila Prabhupada said there was no ‘next leader’ of ISKCON. He said, ‘Whoever follows will lead.’”
“The whole history of the Gaudiya Matha stands before us. It almost seems like an arrangement of providence to teach us what can happen to our ISKCON. Thus we have all seen the references in the books how they split apart, how they failed to preach. We may also fail to preach by misrepresenting our spiritual master.”
“This is the consciousness: that Srila Prabhupada can still be pleased or displeased. Don’t start acting in ways you never would have when he was here to supervise us.”
“In Hong Kong I said to him, ‘There appear to be splits.’ He said there are no splits. There is no such thing. There is only insincerity. ‘I chant sixteen rounds and follow the principles and preach and you do also. There is no split. Only if one is insincere and doesn’t follow.’”
“I have also been thinking more that—now more than ever—when I speak in class, I should be a transparent via medium. Whether I give a ‘great’ lecture or one which another could have given isn’t of prime importance. The main thing is to repeat what I have heard from Srila Prabhupada and the sastras. Quoting verses is important. Transparent via medium.”
[On writing the Prabhupada biography:] “Feeling blissful in an ocean of Prabhupada’s life. Playing. Authorized bliss. Going through his life. Remembering it, as I was there too. Feeling it all around me as too vast. Sitting in this study, beginning to run through his life and have his life run through me. I have been given so much charge. Now just do it confidently. Just go do it. Become drowned, but at the same time become a studious, industrious gatherer and tracker-down of knowledge about him. So much to do. Going over letters month by month.”
“Prabhupada’s secret motivation, the one he made public, simple and open: he wanted to please his spiritual master and Krishna by making the world Krishna conscious.”
“I can link them to the greatest acarya of all, although I am very small. I am loitering on the scene just to link you to Prabhupada. Please accept this arrangement he has made, be happy in Krishna consciousness, and receive his blessings. Let me do this function and give you Krishna. Let Prabhupada live in this way.”
“I am very tiny. My power is to link you to His Divine Grace.”
“Amarendra cited that once Srila Prabhupada was challenged whether he was sama-darsinah (able to see the soul in all creatures). He said, ‘I may or may not be, but I am exactly repeating the message of my guru, and therefore I am guru.’”
“One may think that his inner group is reinforcing and supporting him, but if it is a group of faultfinders, they’re actually dragging him down.”
“The verse today discussed that we have to please Krishna and it is not that we have to be pleased. Of course, if He is pleased, then we become pleased because we are His parts and parcels and our original nature is to please Him. It is our eternal nature to serve Krishna and to feel unlimited bliss.”
“We share the secret of Krishna consciousness. It is an open secret, but we have to take it. I have given you a link with Krishna.”
“We are going today, three GBC men, to one guru’s residence where there is question that he is thinking himself beyond all law and guidance based on his being appointed guru. If it is true, it is bad.”
“The new gurus don’t suddenly become their Godbrothers’ gurus as if the Godbrothers have lost substantial guidance in the particular instructions of Prabhupada and now need to hear everything from one of the new gurus!”
“It is said that wise men learn by other men’s mistakes, fools by their own.”
“Being spiritual master means taking a headache for Krishna.”
“Even Americans can appreciate his ‘rags to riches’ success.”
“My ongoing devotion to Prabhupada is to develop as the biography develops. Seeing him was as good as seeing Krishna.”
“Make the future bright by remaining steadfast in Krishna consciousness.”
Bhakti Padma Swami:
From a class on SB 4.17.27 in New York on May 10, 2026:
The ksatriya plans for war during a time of peace and plans for peace during a time of war.
It it not enough just to be good. One must also be powerful to protect dharma.
The ksatriya offers conditional forgiveness – I will forgive you if you follow the rules. The brahmana, however, offers unconditional forgiveness.
Arcita Prabhu:
If you publicly beat a dog, you can be put in jail, yet they kill cows and eat them.
In Pennsylvania, local farmers were amazed at how much milk our cows produced, but it is not a mystery. Because our cows knew they were not going to be killed, they were happy, and thus they produced so much milk.
When Srila Prabhupada chanted the prema-dhvani prayers, he didn’t pause after “ki” and wait for others to say “jaya.” He said the “jaya” himself and other joined him.
Srila Prabhupada did not like people to stand in front deities with both hands behind their back.
Kolaveca Sridhara was selling banana leaf products in a place where everyone had banana trees, so how much money could he make?
If you absorb yourself in practical service on Janmastami, you will not notice the fasting.
Srila Prabhupada encouraged us to make America Krishna conscious because that would greatly benefit the entire world.
If you buy a can of ground beef, you could get the sinful reaction for the killing of the two hundred cows whose flesh was ground up and placed in that can.
Sri Prahlada Prabhu:
If it was up to us, we might be discouraged. But is not up to us. Krishna can reveal Himself to us if we just become inclined to Him.
If we put ourselves on the front line, Krishna may choose to empower us.
If you just show up, you are already doing quite well.
In the beginning of the movement, after just a few days or months of Srila Prabhupada’s assocation, the early devotees were very empowered in many ways to help him spread Krishna consciousness. They were not mature, but they were sincere.
Sometimes someone says to us, “What you said is exactly what I needed to hear at that time.” In that case, Krishna has guided our words.
Hadai Prana Prabhu:
In this chapter where King Prthu threatens the earth shows that selfish tendencies have no place in civilized life, what to speak of Krishna conscious.
If we see the facilities that we are given for spreading Krishna consciousness as meant for our own sense enjoyment then we are fallen.
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With some traditions, you find out at the time of death, if you attained perfection. According to Krishna, however, you can attain perfection during this span of life, and thus experience transcendental happiness and become free from all miseries:
gunan etan atitya trin
janma-mrityu-jara-duhkhair
vimukto ’mritam asnute
“When the embodied being is able to transcend these three modes associated with the material body, he can become free from birth, death, old age and their distresses and can enjoy nectar even in this life.” (Bhagavad-gita 14.20)
How is that transcendental stage attain? Krishna explains a few verses later:
mam ca yo ’vyabhicarena
sa gunan samatityaitan
brahma-bhuyaya kalpate
“One who engages in full devotional service, unfailing in all circumstances, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.” (Bhagavad-gita 14.26)
