Temple Gargectdotes Part 1

Once in the mid-80's, I was reading synonyms for the word stupid out loud from a thesaurus to Dheera and Rom Roy while sitting in the temple president's office.  We were in a giddy mood and my friends started laughing hysterically.  For some reason, words like lame-brain, imbecilic, out-to-lunch, nincompoop and moron seemed particularly funny that day, I don't know why.  Anyway, as I kept reading, they kept laughing louder and louder.  Finally, Dheera fell off his chair, and rolled on the floor holding his side and screaming with water coming out of his eyes.  It was therefore sobering when Vijitatma appeared at the threshold, Bhagatavatam volume in hand and a grave look in his eyes.  "What's all the noise about?" he asked.  "Gargs is reading from the thesaurus for the word stupid," Dheera said, his laugh petering off.  "You should hear some of these."  "Do you Prabhus realize that I'm trying to read the Bhagavatam in there?" Vijitatma said pointing to the guest room, "And you guys are in here making nonsense noise like frogs simply attracting the snake of death."  Surprised, Rom Roy meekly responded "I thought we were just having some good clean fun."

Bhakta Steve Pitts was frequently seen around the Boston temple in the early 80's.  Steve was a nice enough guy from Derry, New Hampshire who had a bit of a hunch back and talked out of the side of his mouth.  People thought he looked a lot like Popeye.  He had been around ISKCON since the mid-seventies and regularly reminded the new devotees about it.  "Prabhu, I've been around this movement a lonnggg time," he often said.  "Way back to the days of Nityananda in New Talavan."  Then he would look into your eyes quite seriously, pause and say, "I've got some free advice for guys just starting out like yourself:  You keep your mouth closed and your ears open and you'll find out who your friends are."  On another occasion, I heard him giving some similar advice to week-long member Bhakta Breton after his usual New Talavan preamble, "Don't do any service for the senior devotees.  You're in this for yourself."

Steve, in case you haven't figured it out by now, wasn't exactly all there.  He had drank paint-thinner recreationally before he joined, albeit in low doses.  "I knew what I was doing," he said.

Once, during japa period, my brother Kesi and I were sitting against the temple wall chanting as Steve paced by us, walking around the temple room floor again and again.  When he was almost in front of us, he stopped and shook his head violently, vibrating his lips and making a high-pitched wailing noise.  Kesi and I looked at each other and tried our best to contain our laughter.  When he came around again and did it for the second time my brother asked him.  "What was that, Steve?"  "Symptoms of ecstasy, Prabhu," he answered in a most serious manner. "Symp-toms of ecs-tasy."