An Interview with Radha Ramana Maharaja

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LOKARAMA DASA: When did you first get connected with ISKCON?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: I was in touch with ISKCON from 1971 or 1972 onwards. Then I returned back to my university, and I completed my education in April 1977. Then I came to Vrindavan. It was in the middle or the last week of May. Prabhupada had returned from Rishikesh. I was there, a completely new devotee. I stayed there and I met Prabhupada. I had seen Prabhupada in 1976, giving a lecture. But in 1977 I came to Vrindavan, and I saw Prabhupada in his room, lying on a bed. I was supposed to take initiation from Prabhupada, but it never happened. For Janmastami, Prabhupada went to England, and from there Prabhupada returned to Mumbai, and Mumbai to Vrindavan, and then Prabhupada had just a few weeks left. After he departed, I again returned to my village.

LOKARAMA DASA: Where is your village?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: Near Varanasi, within the state of Bihar. Kashi. I completed other educational formalities, and after two or three months, again I came to Vrindavan. In the meantime, right after Prabhupada’s departure, my Guru-Maharaja gave me initiation—he is sitting in the other room there. When Prabhupada was in Vrindavan, my Guru-Maharaja took all of us to Prabhupada’s room for initiation. At that time, Prabhupada said, okay, initiation will take place. But because of his sickness, not now.

So after I finally completed my education, I returned to Vrindavan, and then I was sent to Chandigarh, in Punjab, to the ISKCON temple there.

LOKARAMA DASA: This was in 1978?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: Yes 1978.

LOKARAMA DASA: Your Guru Maharaja is...?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: Radha-Govinda Maharaja.

LOKARAMA DASA: He had come to Prabhupada with some devotees, his students, and you were one of them. And he said, “They are ready for initiation.” And Prabhupada said, “You initate them.” I heard it happened like this.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: What happened was, our Guru-Maharaja sat at Prabhupada’s bed, and we were behind. So Prabhupada said, “You are their guru. Why don’t you initiate them?” And Guru-Maharaja said, “No way! No way! I cannot. You should do it.” This was in June 1977. Maybe the beginning of June or middle of June. Then, back and forth, they discussed, and eventually it was decided by Prabhupada, “Okay, in due course of time, they may take initiation.” So like this we were with Srila Prabhupada for a few minutes only. And when we came out, the temple president, Aksayananda Swami came to know, because I told him. I was staying in Vrindavan, so I was under him. But we were waiting, waiting, but the dīkṣā ceremony never happened. So, after Prabhupada disappeared, we were not sure what will happen, so our Guru-Maharaja consulted with Aksayananda Maharaja, the president of the temple, and Aksayananda Maharaja decided that my Guru-Maharaja could do it, since Prabhupada had already told my Guru-Maharaja, “Why don’t you give the initiation?”—in the room when we came for initiation that first time.

LOKARAMA DASA: Where was ISKCON in India at that time? Only a few places? Mayapur, Vrindavan, Juhu...?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: Kolkata, Delhi also. And Chandigarh.

LOKARAMA DASA: So you were sent to Chandigarh.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: I was serving at that temple, and sometimes going here or there. Then came the time of Mahaprabhu’s 500th Centennial. So to celebrate this, Lokanatha Maharaja organized a padayatra, starting in 1984. So I joined that padayatra party. Still that padayatra is going on. So from September 1984 up to June 1986, I was with them. And then I went to different temples. Nagpur, Bombay, Chandigarh...

And when Prabhupada’s centennial came, I again joined the team of devotees for padayatra, so in 1993 we started.

I never, ever was involved in any big managerial things. Many things happened in ISKCON, but actually I was not aware of that. Only later I came to hear that such and such things happened.

LOKARAMA DASA: You were absorbed in sevā!

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: Hm. Sevā. Nobody ever bothered me. There was Vraja-mandala-parikrama—108 mile circumference, twelve different forests. Like Vrindavan, there are other places where Krishna performed His pastimes. Twelve forests. Every year I do Vraja-mandala-parikrama—that started in 1987. It goes for one month. Since the beginning, I became part of that. And then here in Mayapur we also do parikrama. So twice a year, once in Vrindavan and once here in Mayapur. This my sevā. I never ever—I heard that so many things had taken pace. But I never attended any big meetings. I just led small parikramas for groups of devotees. Actually, I don’t understand these big problems or challenges.

LOKARAMA DASA: This is the best position. Like Gopa Kumar in Śrī Bṛhad-Bhāgavatāmṛta. He was unhappy in management.

Your Guru-Maharaja, he came from Bihar?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: Yes, from our village.

LOKARAMA DASA: When did he come to ISKCON?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: He came in touch with ISKCON though a newspaper. He was connected with one big personality, Hanuman Prasad Poddar. Poddar-ji was a gṛhastha, but he was a saintly person, a worshiper of Radha-Krishna, and a follower of the Six Goswamis and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

LOKARAMA DASA: He was in Bihar?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  No, he was in Uttar Pradesh, near Gorakhpur. Since childhood, my Guru-Maharaja was going back and forth, visiting him. And Hanuman Prasad Poddar knew Prabhupada. So he was personally describing Prabhupada to my Guru-Maharaja, how Prabhupada was preaching, what a great sadhu he was. He knew my Guru-Maharaja was a Radha-Krishna worshiper, so he said that Bhaktivedanta Swami was preaching Krishna bhakti in the Western countries. He is the perfect person. In this way, he introduced my Guru-Maharaja to Prabhupada.

Then, one day, there was a newspaper article saying that Bhaktivedanta Swami and 200 of his disciples were coming to Varanasi, and a whole kirtan procession would start from such and such place, and a description was given of where they would go. So immediately, the next morning, my Guru-Maharaja decided to go and see Srila Prabhupada. He had heard and known about him, but he had not met him. By that time, the kirtan procession had already started. There were maybe sixteen different groups doing kirtan in different places. Local people. One kirtan party, another kirtan party—it was a large kirtan party procession. And one of the parties had Srila Prabhupada. My Guru-Maharaja found Prabhupada and directly told him, “I want to stay with you.” Prabhupada said, “I am not staying in one place. I am traveling.” So my Guru-Maharaja asked, “Where is your next program?” Prabhupada said, “From Varanasi I am going to Gorakhpur.”

This was the place of Gita Press, and Hanuman Prasad Poddar was also living there. My Guru-Maharaja decided he would also go there. Prabhupada said, “I am not going directly there, I have to go from here to Lucknow.” Then my Guru-Maharaja came to know what date they would arrive there, and he returned to our village, which is approximately 75 kilometers from Varanasi, and he prepared some things, his luggage, etc, and then he left for Gorakhpur. And by that time, Prabhupada already reached there.

LOKARAMA DASA: He was walking?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: [laughing] No, no, by train. In Gorakhpur, Prabhupada stayed for ten days. And since Poddar-ji knew my Guru-Maharaja, he was able to stay there. And, again, Prabhupada said, “I am traveling. You can’t just stay with me. Go to Vrindavan.”

And then Prabhupada left, and my Guru-Maharaja went to Vrindavan. But he did not stay permanently there. Later Prabhupada came there for a few days, so in this way my Guru-Maharaja got to take initiation from Prabhupada in Vrindavan. And then one day, Prabhupada personally gave my Guru-Maharaja one clay mridanga and a pair of kartals, and told him, “Don’t just stay here in Vrindavan. Go and preach, wherever you like.”

And so my Guru-Maharaja came back to our village, and he went to the nearby forest villages and began to preach. In that area, he made many devotees. In 1976, he brought a group of devotees to Vrindavan to meet Prabhupada. 1977 was not the first time. In 1976 also, he brought devotees to Vrindavan. At that time, there was no talk about dīkṣā. The devotees had come from different places, and then after the festival time they returned to their respective villages. Then the second time he brought devotees was in June 1977—it wasn’t exactly that they came for initiation, but Prabhupada was there.

Anyway, in 1976, my Guru-Maharaja sent me a telegram, after Gaura Purnima, before Rama-Navami. The content of that letter was, “Prabhupada is here. Why don’t you immediately come for initiation.” I read that telegram, and the next morning I went to the train station—

LOKARAMA DASA: He sent the telegram from Mayapur?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  No, Vrindavan. So when I reached there, I saw that Prabhupada was giving morning class, Bhagavatam class. For five days Prabhupada was there. It was a five-day festival. But at that time, there were no initiations. And after that I again returned to my university in Varanasi. Then 1977 came.

LOKARAMA DASA: Did you join the padayatra from the beginning, when Lokanatha Maharaja started it?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  No. Lokanatha Maharaja—Prabhupada had directly given him a bullock cart in 1976. Lokanatha Goswami started the first padayatra from Vrindavan on Rādhāṣṭamī, and by Gaura Pūrṇimā 1977, he came here to Mayapur. But the padayatra came to Varanasi when I was a student there. So I had seen it, but I was not connected. And then in January 1977, Prabhupada came for the Kumbhamela. Prabhupada was there for fifteen days. Varanasi is nearby the Kumbhamela, a few hours by train. Just two hours, or two-and-a-half hours.

LOKARAMA DASA: You went to the Kumbhamela at that time?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes! I tried to see Prabhupada. Some camp was there, and Prabhupada was inside, but I could not get entrance there. There were so many people there. I was there in Prayagraj. I stayed for one month, but I could not get opportunity to see Prabhupada personally. I saw the other devotees. We had kirtan, but I could not get an opportunity to see Prabhupada. He was not well physically. Then at one point I heard that Prabhupada had gone to Bhubaneswar with Gaura Govinda Swami.

LOKARAMA DASA: How many devotees were there? A hundred?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  No, a small group. Maybe six or seven devotees were chanting in the kirtan, plus local people came. Still, I remember that Swami, who is very famous for kirtan. Acyutananda Swami. He was there. During kirtan, he had one loṭā, a copper pot. And he was collecting donations. People were putting coins inside, one, two, three [Maharaja laughs]. Every day for a few hours, we sat and did mela kirtan.

LOKARAMA DASA: So the padayatra restarted in 1984. What is padayatra? You go to different villages?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  It was organized—it started from Dwarka, Gujarat. From Dwarka we went to Mumbai, and then down to the sea, Kanniyakumari—Udupi, Kannur, then Kanniyakumari. You know Kanniyakumari? Then up to Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Jagannath Puri... It was for eighteen months. We started in September 1984, and we reached Mayapur for the Gaura Pūrṇimā festival in 1986.

LOKARAMA DASA: From Dwarka to Mayapur in eighteen months.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes.

LOKARAMA DASA: Wow. Where did the devotees sleep? Tents? Did everyone have tents?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA: No, the devotees organized it very nicely. When we started, there were two hundred people, but after some time on average there were a little less than a hundred devotees. Because when we reached Mayapur, it was one hundred or one hundred forty. Because after Jagannath Puri many had joined. But in between, say a little less than a hundred devotees. We had an advance party that went to many villages there. The advance party was there to arrange where we would stay—most of the time a temple or dharmasala, but still we had our own tents for mandal programs. But we stayed most of the time in temples, dharmasalas...

LOKARAMA DASA: How long would you stay in one place?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Usually one night. Sometimes two nights also in big places.

LOKARAMA DASA: And you would have evening programs? Kathā, kirtan...

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes, yes. In the evening time, villages were coming, and a procession was also there. There was an elephant, a camel, and eight bulls. One pair of bulls for the Deity cart, and another pair of bulls were carrying another cart. There was a total of eight bulls, and a camel was carrying a camel cart, and the elephant was at the head, leading the procession. Each night hundreds, sometimes thousands of people would come. Our number was on average eighty or eighty-five devotees, plus always at least a hundred local villagers. Sometimes two hundred, three hundred. They did not walk the whole way, just for some time.

LOKARAMA DASA: And as you’re walking, there was kirtan?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes, kirtan was going on.

LOKARAMA DASA: Wow.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  And we were distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books also.

LOKARAMA DASA: And in the evenings, Lokanatha Maharaja was giving class?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes, Lokanatha Maharaja, and many other devotees were there. Not always Lokanatha Maharaja. On average we were walking fifteen kilometers—ten miles—every day. Maximum it was a four-hour walk. Sometimes it was more, sometimes less, but average fifteen kilometers, or ten miles we walked. We planned ahead, because we had to reach a certain place. The advanced party planned the route, saw the road conditions. Sometimes we had to walk twenty kilometers because there was no village. Nothing at all. Sometimes less, sometimes more.

It was arranged that we would reach Mayapur before Gaura Pūrṇimā, and we did it. It was the fifth centennial of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He appeared in 1486, and it was 1986. So that year the whole government, everywhere, everyone was celebrating Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The Gaudiya Math devotees walked from Jagannath Puri to Vrindavan. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did that parikrama, so starting from Jagannath Puri, they also went to Vrindavan.

LOKARAMA DASA: So since then, 1984, you were with the padayatra?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  No, after the festival was over, I walked from Mayapur to Varanasi. My village was there. And then I discontinued. But from time to time, for one or two months I would join. Sometimes for ten days, one month, two months, but not continuously. Even during the padayatra, for a total of maybe one-and-a-half months, I was not there. Lokanatha Maharaja was president of the Delhi temple, so each month for maybe ten days he was not there, and sometimes I was also going with him.

LOKARAMA DASA: After 1986, where were you preaching?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Chandigarh, Mayapur, and Vrindavan. And I started to go to America. One thing was that the padayatra team planned that we should do padayatra in one hundred countries for Srila Prabhupada’s one hundred year anniversary, his centennial. I was sent to America. I did padayatra in America. From Sacramento, near San Francisco, to Tijuana, Mexico. Every single inch I walked. The whole way. Starting from Berkeley, San Francisco, San Jose, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego... the padayatra committee had decided that I should go, and some local devotees joined also. Somehow I was chosen to go there. I was given responsibility for two countries: Nepal and America. Because I had done padayatra, so I knew how to do it. The walk in America was approximately one hundred days. It was not a continuous padayatra, but for Prabhupada’s Centennial, we decided that some parikrama should take place in one hundred countries. So we went from Berkeley to San Diego, and then we crossed into Mexico also. In all it took approximately one hundred days.

LOKARAMA DASA: This was in 1996?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  No, we started in 1989. In 1989 we completed it also. It took one hundred days only. And then I stayed in Washington D.C.

LOKARAMA DASA: For preaching?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  No, no. I was staying there doing pūjā there. There were very few devotees. I was staying there, cooking and worshiping the Deities. And then we did another parikrama in 1990. We started in Philidelphia—there is one big bell there, the Liberty Bell. From there, we walked to the Capitol Building. It is maybe one hundred fifty miles. We did it in twenty or twenty-five days. So we also did that padayatra, in the month of April.

LOKARAMA DASA: And local devotees joined?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes, the local devotees also joined.

LOKARAMA DASA: You were not a sannyāsī then?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  No, no I was not a sannyāsī. Then up to 1996, 1997, I was in many places, always with the Prabhupada Centennial group. But from 1977 December onward, I came to Vrindavan, and my base is Vrindavan. I am from there, and most of the time, most of the year I stay there. And I go to America every year. Almost every year. From 1998 onwards, there were only two years I did not go.

LOKARAMA DASA: Where in America do you preach?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Los Angeles, Alachua, Washington D.C, New Jersey, New York, these areas.

LOKARAMA DASA: I met you in Chicago also.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes, many places. Gita Nagari, and the capital of Tennessee… Nashville.

LOKARAMA DASA: So for Srila Prabhupada’s Centennial, there was padayatra in one hundred countries?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes.

LOKARAMA DASA: Wow.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Not for so long. America was one hundred days. Nepal we did less than one month. Three weeks.

LOKARAMA DASA: So a little bit of parikrama.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes, in some places they did for maybe one or two weeks.

LOKARAMA DASA: Who had this idea?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Lokanatha Maharaja. In America, we had a plan for one hundred days, and after that one devotee continued, and then eventually he stopped.

LOKARAMA DASA: Yes, America is a very different kind of country for padayatra.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  In America they had taken permission for walking. In Los Angeles, our biggest number was thirty-five, otherwise maybe we had twenty devotees. In one place, the police came and escorted us. In some places you can’t go alone. But that was on the way we had to walk. So police came and escorted us. We were going in the middle of Irvine, and then one police car came in front and one behind and one on the side. And then once we had crossed that area, they left.

LOKARAMA DASA: I see. It was some restricted area.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes it was some highway. Number One. Not the big highway. What is that?

LOKARAMA DASA: The interstate.

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  Yes, not the interstate. It was a small highway. Sometimes there were red lights.

LOKARAMA DASA: What did you study in university?

RADHA-RAMANA MAHARAJA:  I was studying language, Sanskrit.