Hayagriva Changed So Many Things.

by Radhavallabha Dasa I mentioned that Jagannatha dasa had some corrections that he wanted to ask Prabhupada about, and there was one about Brahma, that "he worships Sri Krsna, the essence of all Vedas, with this hymn." So it was a question of a comma being misplaced when the book was printed, and Jagannatha was asking about this. So Prabhupada asked where it was, and I had to lean over his desk right next to him and showed him where it was in the book. Then I said to Srila Prabhupada, "So Jagannatha said it should be, 'then he worshiped,' " and Prabhupada interrupted me very sharply, "No, no. Jagannatha cannot correct. That is a bad habit he must give up." So I said to Srila Prabhupada, "So we should just leave it exactly." And he said, "Oh, yes. We should not be more educated." Then I told Srila Prabhupada, "He wasn't changing any of the words." Prabhupada said, "Not anything. This should be strictly forbidden." Then I said to Srila Prabhupada, "So, no corrections. That makes it simple." Prabhupada said, "They can divide the synonyms. That is his tendency, to correct. That is very bad. He should not do that. The system is, what an authority has done, even if there is mistake, it should be accepted." Then he said some word like asopraya. He said, "He should not become more learned than the authority. That is very bad habit."

Then I mentioned to Prabhupada that Jagannatha was always wondering what he should think if he saw a mistake. Prabhupada said, "He cannot see mistake. He is mistake." So we both laughed, and Prabhupada said, "That is being done by this rascal Hayagriva. Easy Journey, he has changed so many things. He has now a bad character. You should not maintain him." So Prabhupada went from chastising Jagannatha dasa..., actually from chastising Gopavrndesa, to chastising Jagannatha dasa, now to chastising Hayagriva. His chastising Gopavrndesa was more or less his prediction that this "Vedic" marriage wouldn't work in most cases, and specifically in this case. And his chastising Jagannatha dasa was a longstanding thing that he always did with the Sanskrit department and the artists and people producing the books in general.

Prabhupada was very, very adamantly against change. He would chastise us severely even with seemingly very small changes in many, many cases. Basically, Prabhupada was just trying to prepare us for the future, where these books have to be around for ten thousand years, and if our tendency to change wasn't corrected by him, then in the future his books could be so watered down they would be useless. So he very, very violently chastised us on numerous occasions about changing, either editorially or artistically or in the format or any way. Prabhupada was very, very adamant against change in any form unless he approved it.

Now he was chastising Hayagriva. His changes were actually quite bad. In one case he took the point where Prabhupada said they will never land on the moon and he took that out of the Easy Journey many years ago when he first edited it, because he thought they had gone to the moon. So Prabhupada would always refer to this, that "In 1958 I even said they would not make it to the moon." And he was looking for that and he couldn't find it. This was in Hawaii, and he became furious. Hayagriva had taken it out. This was a very strong preaching point. So he heavily chastised Hayagriva in Hawaii. He told Hayagriva, and Hayagriva finally broke down and asked to be forgiven, but at this point Prabhupada is back again chastising him. Also because of the fact that Hayagriva was no longer following the principles. He began making a point that I shouldn't maintain him at all, even for editing. Prabhupada said, "No, you should not maintain him." Then he said something about "He's not responsible."

I mentioned to Srila Prabhupada that Hayagriva's wife had just come to Los Angeles to meet him, and he said, "What did she say?" I said to him that she was asking me whether Hayagriva would want to live with her, and I told her that I didn't think so. Srila Prabhupada asked me why, and I said, "Well, he's not very responsible." Prabhupada said, "Responsible or not responsible, they should live together." Then Prabhupada said, "Actually he is bad." I told Prabhupada, "He is just finishing the philosophy book, so after that, that should be it." Prabhupada said, "Why finish it? Whatever is done is done. No more. I understand that he is intoxicated. We cannot pay for his intoxication." I told Prabhupada that I wanted to ease him off anyway, and now this makes it easy. I told Prabhupada that I'd find a way to do it that it would be done nicely, and Prabhupada agreed.