The Loves of My Life

                    A woman without a husband is lost.

                               --Canakya Pandit

Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is the most important and significant person who ever set foot in my life.  He is the pure representative of Lord Sri Krsna who came to show me and all of us how to reconnect with the Supreme Lord.  He is not God.  He never claimed to be God, nor did he tolerate others saying such a thing about him.  He is the pure devotee of God who saved me and thousands of other souls from our continuous revolution in the cycle of repeated birth and death in this material world.  Säksäd-dharitvena samasta-sästraih: all the shastras—samasta sastraih—proclaim that the guru is on an equal level with Hari, because he is delivering the message of Hari.  He is not God, but because he is krsna-priya, very, very dear to God, and because he is training his disciples to serve God, he is the dearmost servant of God.  Because Srila Prabhupada is the pure representative of God—of Lord Sri Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead—and because he perfectly served the Lord’s desire and mission here on earth, he can be called the “Supreme Personality of Servitor Godhead.”  Srila Prabhupada is the first person I ever felt unconditionally loved by.  He is number one in my life and in my heart, my eternal spiritual father, my shelter.  “Only out of His immense compassion does the Personality of Godhead reveal Himself as the spiritual master…He is the Supreme Personality of Servitor Godhead.  It is worthwhile to take shelter of such a steady devotee, who is called äsraya-vigraha, or the manifestation or form of the Lord of whom one must take shelter.” (Caitanya-caritämrta, Ädi, 1.46, Purport)  Therefore, because he is the perfect servant of God, he is included in the first category below, although he is not Krsna himself.

When I was very young I remember being deeply attached to three very important persons: (1) God, (2) my father, and (3) my husband.  I always thought about all three.  I wanted my three loves to be always with me.

I loved to sing Christmas carols glorifying the birth of Jesus and Latin hymns glorifying God the Father.  I loved to go to Mass at St. Philomena’s Church in Denver, Colorado.  In the night when I was alone in my room, I would scoot my bed up close to the open window, prop my pillow on the window sill, and look out at the heavens, breathing in the fresh night air.  Feeling separation from God, I would think about Him and talk to Him for hours, unconcerned about the fact that I had to rise early the next morning to go to school.  Because I hadn't encountered Vedic teachings yet, I didn't understand that He was actually in my heart, but I sensed that He was able to hear my prayers even if He was up there in heaven.

My father was my second love.  When my father was home, I enjoyed spending time with him.  I watched him build us a house on South Dexter Street in Denver.  I helped him pick grapes from the Concord grapevines in our backyard on Detroit Street and then watched him make grape jam.  I watched him make pickles.  I watched him work on cars and build a work-shelf for the garage.  I learned from him how to change light-bulbs and fuses.  It didn’t matter what he was doing, I just loved being with him, watching and learning how to do this and that.  I even liked going to the dump with him in our neighbor’s rickety, old open-air jeep.  And although my Daddy was not always with me—sometimes he had to go to "the office" or on business trips to Hartford, Connecticut—he was usually home in the evenings and on weekends.

From childhood, God and my father were very palpable presences in my life.  But for the first thirty years of my life, my third love was missing.  There was an emptiness in my heart because of not knowing who or where my husband was.  From the time I was very small, I remember looking for and longing for my husband.  I imagined our future life together.  Everywhere I went, I was always searching for the man of my dreams.  That feeling of not knowing the identity or whereabouts of my husband was gnawing and uncomfortable—almost akin to pain.  In a way, I felt lost without him.  Srila Prabhupada quotes Canakya Pandita: "A woman without a husband is lost."  I needed and wanted him desperately, and I was determined to find him.

At the age of thirty, when I finally found the man of my dreams, I felt complete in a way that I had never felt before.  To this day--and I am writing this on the thirtieth anniversary of our fire sacrifice--I still feel that the day of my wedding was the happiest day of my life.