(*Click on photo to see a larger image of Srila Prabhupada at the airport.)
Between the heads and the shoulders of the people just in the terminal, I caught intermittent glimpses of Prabhupada. I had never seen him, his actual form, and my senses were not very disturbed. I had not been a drug taker. I maybe experimented with each of the available drugs at the time once; but otherwise I was a trained observer, physiology labs and so on. I was certain he was not walking like an ordinary person. If you look at their head, it’ll be sort of bobbing. He was moving smoothly like a swan or other water bird floating on the water. That was my first glimpse of him. At that time actually I saw he was effulgent, and that was the first time I’d ever seen any effulgence like that. It was real, and I hadn’t had any vision like that in dreams or any religious experiences like that. It was as real as I see this door. And as I say, I was a trained observer. Then I paid obeisances and, rising up from the obeisances, I looked up and he was looking at me with that penetrating look that gave the one being looked at the understanding that this great personality sees our soul. In retrospect, we were so receptive. You see such nice faces, as Prabhupada says. But actually we had no position, no power, no use until Prabhupada joined us to him.
Rasananda das
.
