One day in 1977, on the veranda in Mayapura, Srila Prabhupada said that his disciples were pure devotees who had come to help him.

"How could it be that we're all pure devotees?" asked Bhavananda. "We were all born as mlecchas, in meat-eating families, and so on..."

Srila Prabhupada cut him off. "That was all superficial," Srila Prabhupada said. "As soon as you heard the Holy Name, you came running."

Bhavananda told this story on January 5, 2001, commenting on the potency of the Hare Krsna mantra after a Brhad-bhagavatamrta lecture given by Tamala Krsna Gosvami in Sydney, Australia.

Mukunda Datta dasa

© dipika.org December 21, 2002