Mukunda Goswami : Actually there is an interesting story that I wrote about. It took place when Govindam first came out, when the recording was first released. I was in England, and she [Yamuna] was in England, and we sent this recording to the devotees in Los Angeles to show how we were really preaching big time to the Beatles, and we did this record, and so on and so forth. But the devotees in Los Angeles didn’t want Prabhupada to hear this because they thought it was very strange that a woman’s voice would be leading the Hare Krishna mantra. And so they didn’t let Prabhupada hear it.
One morning, just before the greeting of the Deities, Prabhupada was sitting on his vyasasana. When the Deity doors open in Los Angeles, there is a big billow of incense smoke from the charcoals. The devotees use a lot of incense, and when they open the doors, it kind of pours out like a big cloud coming out. So right before this, Prabhupada said, “What about that record that the devotees sent from London?” He had heard about it. But they told him, “It is just Yamuna singing; we don’t want you to hear it.” Then they said, “There is no place to play it.” And he said, “Just play it on the system – the speakers.“
In [the] Los Angeles temple there are very large speakers where they play lectures. So when they told Prabhupada there was nothing to play it on, he said, “Just play it on the speakers.” They said, “Okay,” and very reluctantly went and fetched the recording and played it. It was just at the right time, and it is about six minutes long. As the Deity doors opened, Prabhupada was sitting on his vyasasana, and he didn’t say a word. He just listened with his eyes closed. Devotees got to see streams of tears coming down his cheeks. That day Prabhupada ordered that the song be played in temples all over the world at the time of greeting the Deities.
