Yogesvara: I remember one anecdote about Prabhupada’s humility. There was a group of French religionists who came to the Paris temple, and they were asking Prabhupada to tell them something about the mystical dimension of Krishna theology. They wanted to know what are the deep secrets of the Vaishnav religion. Prabhupada said, “Well, there’s no illicit sex, there’s no meat eating, there’s no gambling…” They said, “No, no. That’s the external. We’d like you to go deeper and tell us something about the very deep mystical dimensions of your philosophy.” “Yes, so there’s no meat eating…” They kept saying, “This is all external. That’s on the level of the body. We want to go deeper.” The more they would push him, the more he was visibly becoming agitated because they were representing themselves as followers of Jesus Christ. He said, “You eat meat, but Jesus says, ‘Do not kill.’ Why do you do that?” They continued pushing him on this “external” point and Prabhupada became so upset by this. Finally he looked at them and said, “Do you believe that Jesus gave his life for you?” They looked at one another and said, “Well, yes.” “Do you believe that He gave His life to absolve you from your sins?” “Yes.” “Then why do you sin?” We were literally pushed back against the wall by the force of this energy coming at us from Prabhupada. And then Prabhupada started crying. He started weeping. He said, “You do not love Jesus. You do not love Jesus.”
That is one of those moments that takes forever to process. Looking back on it, I would say he knew what it was like to give your life to God. He knew the sacrifice involved in that and then to have someone brazenly misrepresent the life that Jesus had given to God, and so cavalierly dismiss the foundational principle, “Don’t kill”. How can you claim to love Jesus and avoid that elementary teaching that He gave? That moment with Prabhupada weeping and so intensely wanting these people to understand the basic teaching of Jesus, I think embedded Srila Prabhupada deeper in my heart than any other time where he gave some important point of philosophy. That experience was something that was so palpable and real.
Reference: Remembrances by Sidhanta Das- Folio Vedabase
