Jaya Gauranga:

One time I brought my father to see Srila Prabhupada. My father used to live in Beverly Hills when he was conducting an orchestra for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Opera Company. He was a big shot. He had been a medical doctor so he was a little puffed up, always looking down at people and especially me and the devotees. He was always thinking that we were just hippies. When I invited him to come see Srila Prabhupada, he came reluctantly. He came dressed in a very nice suit but when he had to take his shoes off he said, “What is this?” The devotees were singing and I told my father, “Look, that’s the maha mantra. Sing with us, chant with us.” My father wouldn’t do that. All of a sudden the doors to Prabhupada’s quarters opened up and Prabhupada walked in with his cane very elegantly and at the same time very simply. All the devotees just immediately paid obeisances to Prabhupada. This very arrogant and puffed up man, as soon as he saw Srila Prabhupada, couldn’t help but bow down all the way to the floor and paid his obeisances. Prabhupada passed right next to us, stopped for a second, looked at both of us and he could see the resemblance. He just gave us this beautiful smile, full of compassion, full of love, and carried on. Needless to say my father was totally changed after that. All though he didn’t become a devotee he did write something very nice about Srila Prabhupada and I used to ask my father, “What made you pay your obeisances to Prabhupada when you did not believe in any of these things?” My father said to me, “He commanded that respect. He was not an ordinary person. He was someone very special, someone in the mode of goodness.” Those were my father’s words.

From “Srila Prabhupada Remembrances,” ch. 48.