The Beginning, The 1966 New York Journal

BEG: Introduction

BEG: Introduction

Introduction

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda had been in America four months when he began this 1966 diary of his daily notes and accounts. During the previous year, Śrīla Prabhupāda had kept a record of his voyage from India, which has been published by the Bhaktivedanta Archives as The Jaladuta Diary. Śrīla Prabhupāda later described the early part of the 1966 period recounted in this diary as one of hardship. Having no money or followers, nor the means to live independantly, and often alone with limited opportunities for preaching, Śrīla Prabhupāda sometimes contemplated going back to India.

Śrīla Prabhupāda's resolve is evidenced by the purchase of his first tape recorder, a major expenditure for him. He started recording his classes, kīrtanas and bhajanas. He wrote in his Journal: "There was no response of the visitors invited to come and join Hari Kirtan this evening at 7/30 pm. But I alone executed the Kirtan ceremony with my T.R. till 10 pm." Śrīla Prabhupāda's prescience in preserving his spoken word has resulted in a permanent legacy of over two thousand hours of invaluable tape recordings.

Despite austere circumstances, Śrīla Prabhupāda had faith in his mission, and in the end was rewarded with unimaginable successes. The Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta, the official biography published in several languages, portrays many of these extraordinary events. However, the author of the Līlāmṛta did not know about the existence of this 1966 diary, and so omitted some episodes that Śrīla Prabhupāda had dutifully recorded. The Beginning: The 1966 Journal of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda presents for the first time the exact sequence of these seminal events and the specific details of the initial year of Śrīla Prabhupāda's mission to the West.

We have divided the journal section of the book into three chapters, corresponding to the three places where Śrīla Prabhupāda stayed in Manhattan. A summary for each chapter has been added to provide readers with insights into the events described. The editors have combined entries that are brief on the same page. Pages of the journal that do not contain entries by Śrīla Prabhupāda are not reproduced. Each month begins with a "Highlights" page that contains short excerpts from some of the pages of the diary to give an "at a glance" view of the month.