The Atlanta Conversations

After a few days, I left Vrndavana to return to Atlanta for my post-doctoral work at Emory University. From 1974 up till the end of 1976 I was staying in Atlanta. Emory University is called the Harvard of the South and it has a very good department in theology. There was Prof. Gardener, who was teaching a course on bio-medical ethics. I became friends with Prof. Gardener and through discussions with him I got the idea that bio-ethics is an important field for presenting Vedic ideas.

In 1975 Prabhupada came back to US from India and I was told that he was going to South America. Balavanta Prabhu was the temple president at Atlanta at that time and he said to me, "Since Prabhupada likes you, please invite him to Atlanta. If you write he will come." So I wrote a letter to Prabhupada informing him that I am in Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, and that it is a very nice city and the devotees are very eager to see you here. Prabhupada agreed to come and he visited Atlanta at the end of February 1975 on his way back from South America.

Rūpanuga Prabhu was the GBC at Atlanta at that time and he was very interested in scientific preaching. Madhava and Sadapūta Prabhus, two scientist disciples of Srila Prabhupada, were then in Washington. Rūpanuga Prabhu said that since Srila Prabhupada is coming, all the scientists must gather together to meet him and he brought both Madhava and Sadapūta Prabhus to Atlanta. We presented to Srila Prabhupada our ideas about writing a book called "The Origin of Life and Matter." I had outlined about 12 chapters in the book and we read it out aloud to Srila Prabhupada. These chapters were to be written by different devotees including Sadapūta, Madhava, Rūpanuga, Jnana Prabhus and myself. Srila Prabhupada approved the contents of the book and said that we must add one more Chapter in the end entitled "Krishna is the origin of life". I requested Srila Prabhupada that he must write this chapter and he agreed.

It was in Atlanta that we decided upon the name 'Bhaktivedanta Institute.' I suggested this name to Srila Prabhupada thinking that this will be his appropriate glorification. Srila Prabhupada was not very enthusiastic about the Institute being named after him, but he agreed on the proposal. I also suggested the logo for the Institute and Srila Prabhupada proposed that the words "athatho brahma-jijnasa [This is the first aphorism from Vedânta Sutras, the essence of Vedic knowledge. Translated literally, it means, "Now, Therefore, inquire [about] Brahman [the Absolute Truth]."] must appear on top of the logo. We incorporated Srila Prabhupada's proposal and artists in BBT prepared the logo.

"Concerning the emblem for the Bhaktivedanta Institute, the words "athatho brahma-jijnasa" is alright, however instead of inside the emblem, you can put athato on top (in Devanagari) and brahma-jijnasa on the bottom (in Devanagari). That will be nice." [Letter to Svarupa Damodar das, 20 May, 1976]

Although we decided upon a name and logo, we did not yet have a formal place of the Institute. During his visit to Atlanta, Srila Prabhupada told me that he was still negotiating with Bon Maharaja about the land in Vrndavana so that we can start the Institute in Vrndavana. Just a few days later, however, after Prabhupada's leaving Atlanta I got a telephone call from his secretary Brahmananda Maharaja in New Orleans conveying Prabhupada's message that Bon Maharaja was hesitating about giving the Oriental Research Institute land to us and there has not been any progress since we last met him. Therefore, Prabhupada was suggesting that we must start the Institute in America. At that time we had a gurukula in Dallas and there was some proposal to buy an old army building exclusively for the gurukula. Srila Prabhupada wrote to me saying,

"The negotiation with Bon Maharaja is not very feasible. It is too much encumberous. So if it is possible, you start the institute in USA. Do you think it is possible in India or in USA?" [Letter to Svarupa Damodar das, 31 August, 1975]

"In Dallas there is one former army base which is now vacant that has a number of buildings and enough land. It is located about 70 miles from the city of Dallas. So you should immediately correspond with Jagadish. It is very big and nice. I think we should take it for the Bhaktivedanta Institute. The climate there is also nice." [Letter to Svarupa Damodar das, 12 November, 1975]

We tried as per Srila Prabhupada's instructions, but the proposal did not materialize. Atlanta is about 3000 miles from Los Angeles and all during my stay there I could not visit Srila Prabhupada like I used to during my student days at Irvine. My contact was only through letters.