Sacinandana Swami: In London, while all the devotees were taking breakfast prasadam and the temple room was empty, Srila Prabhupada went to the temple alone to take darshan and pray to the Deities. After a long time he returned to his room. In the morning I washed Sri Sri Radha-London-Isvara’s dishes and at that time I was in turmoil. I thought, “What will be the consequences of my decision to surrender?” My fiancée had come to convince me to take up my old ways and my dying grandfather had requested me to come to his deathbed so he could ask me to give up Krishna consciousness. My family tradition was that you had to agree to the wish of a dying man, but I could not agree to give up the Lord’s grace upon me. So I stayed in the temple but I did not clean the Lord’s plates well. One morning as I was washing the plates, absorbed on the mental platform, the temple president came into the kitchen. His face was red and he stammered, “During Prabhupada’s darshan of the Deities, Krishna told Prabhupada that His plates are not nicely cleansed, that the old offering is still on the plates. Prabhupada said that whoever washes the dishes has to do a good job from now on.” This woke me from my dreaming state. I had to be responsible. I had been pondering deeply important issues but I had not performed my service correctly and Krishna had complained to Srila Prabhupada. Besides Krishna, only the cook, who put the new offering on the plates, could know that the plates were dirty. But the cook was too fast—he put the new offering on hurriedly, without looking at the plates. Then the dirty plate was covered and only the person who ate the offering could know that the plate was dirty. It was that Person, Lord Krishna, who had detected this and He had told Srila Prabhupada. I was moved. And I was also happy that there was a direct connection between Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krishna. I became more inspired to surrender my life to Srila Prabhupada.
Reference: Remembrances by Sidhanta Das- Folio Vedabase
