Condolences

On May 1, just four days after his thirty-eighth birthday, Srila Prabhupada's very dear disciple Jayananda dasa passed away in his quarters at the Los Angeles Temple complex (New Dvaraka). For the last few months his body had been ravaged by leukemia, and recently he had abandoned all attempts at recovery and, preparing for the crucial time of death, moved to New Dvaraka to immerse himself in the pure association of Lord Krsna's Deity and His devotees.

Jayananda joined the San Francisco Radha-Krsna Temple early in 1967, just after it opened and less than a year after Srila Prabhupada founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in New York City. Though he had both an engineering degree from Ohio State University and a San Francisco State Teachers College degree, Jayananda was then supporting himself by driving a taxicab. He was looking for a way to make life simple. At twenty-eight, he became the senior devotee in San Francisco, and soon the temple president.

Mukunda dasa, who was there at the time, told us about Jayananda's rare qualities: "He proved himself to be the most responsible and selfless person. You could never detect even the most subtle type of wish to satisfy his own personal needs. He had that very unique attribute-whatever needed to be done, he would do. He was driving his taxicab fifteen hours a day or more to get overtime to pay the temple's rent and various other expenses, and he was looking after fifteen or twenty new brahmacaris [celibate students]."

Over the years Jayananda took special interest in the annual Ratha-yatra festival (please see "The Festival of the Chariots," page eight). He would plan the festival, build the carts, cook and distribute the prasada (spiritual food offered in love to Lord Krsna). During his last days he was always planning how to expand Ratha-yatra so that more temples could participate. Incapacitated as he was, he still helped design the special carts now being built in Los Angeles, which can be disassembled for easy transportation from city to city.

Back in 1967 Jayananda gave Srila Prabhupada his life savings of five thousand dollars, and then again, with his last letter to Srila Prabhupada, Jayananda enclosed a second gift of five thousand dollars-money that had been earmarked for medical expenses. Jayananda was so anxious to serve Srila Prabhupada that he even gave up the desire to go back to the spiritual world. "When I leave my body," he said near the end, "I want very much to come back to continue serving Srila Prabhupada in this world." These are the sentiments of Krsna's most exalted devotees (Vaisnavas), of whom Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, our great-great-grand-spiritual master, once wrote:

The following letter, dated May 5, arrived from Srila Prabhupada just before we went to press:

My Dear Jayananda,