Categories: Srila Prabhupada

Srila Prabhupada: If everyone is God, am I not also God?

During his stay in Seattle, a few people came to join his disciples, living with them and aspiring to become devotees. After several weeks, Prabhupāda held an initiation for students who had already been with ISKCON for about six months. Prabhupāda held the traditional initiation ceremony with mantras and fire yajña in the temple room. He had just completed the last mantras, had turned to the devotees, and said, “Now chant Hare Kṛṣṇa,” when a guest, a woman who had some local fame as a haṭha-yoga instructor, interrupted the proceedings.

“Excuse me,” she began, “I have to speak to you.”

“Please wait,” said Prabhupāda.

“Why are you sitting on a raised seat?” she exclaimed. “You are sitting up there, and all these people are sitting here, and you’re like you’re on a throne.” Devotees tried politely to check her, but she wanted to be heard. Prabhupāda was silent.

“Why does everyone bow to you?” she demanded. “Don’t you know God is everywhere? Everyone is God.”

“That’s all right,” said Prabhupāda. “Let us chant.” Her argument was drowned out by a rousing kīrtana celebrating the completion of the initiation ceremony. When the kīrtana ended, Prabhupāda was still thinking of the disruptive guest.

Prabhupāda: “Where is that girl? She is gone?”

Viṣṇujana: “I think Madhudviṣa explained to her. She didn’t know about the bowing down and everything.”

Prabhupāda: “What was her question?”

Viṣṇujana: “She was thinking that we were bowing to you as if you were God. She resents this because in the Christian religion it says, ‘Bow down to no man.’ ”

“What did you explain?” Prabhupāda laughed. “Did you not explain that we are bowing down not as God but as God’s representative? Could you not explain like this?”

“She’s over there, I think,” said Madhudviṣa, “if you’d like to talk to her.” But the yoginī had left the room and was now out front talking with the new girl, Joy, who had been living with Prabhupāda’s disciples since his first night in Seattle. The yoginī was trying to revive Joy’s old interest in impersonal yoga and was criticizing Prabhupāda. Although Joy had cried when Prabhupāda was blasphemed, she became confused hearing the yoginī speak impersonal, antidevotional philosophy.

Then as Prabhupāda was leaving the temple to get into his car, the yoginī obstructed his path and continued her blasphemy.

“No one should bow down,” she railed, “because everyone is God.”

Prabhupāda became angry, a fiery look in his wide eyes. Suddenly Joy Fulcher came forward and threw herself on the ground before Prabhupāda, placing her hand on his foot. She had been confused about whom to accept, but now felt compelled to surrender to Prabhupāda. He allowed her to keep her hand on his foot while the yoginī gradually subsided before Prabhupāda’s angry silence and let him pass. Getting into the van, Prabhupāda bumped his head on the inside of the roof. The devotees were furious and blamed the blasphemous girl for what happened. As the van drove away, Prabhupāda turned to Nara-Nārāyaṇa, who was driving. “That girl said everyone is God. But she objected that they were bowing down to me. But if everyone is God, am I not also God?”

Source: Srila Prabhupada-Lilamrita Ch. 60