Teaching By Example With A Very Profound Effect

Giriraj Swami: At the Ardha-kumbha-mela in Allahabad in January 1971, our program was very rigorous, because it was bitterly cold at night and we were expected to get up at four o’clock in the morning to bathe and attend mangala-arati. A few staunch devotees like Tamal Krishna and Hamsaduta got up early, by three or three-thirty, and walked all the way from our camp to the Ganges to take an early-morning bath. But those of us staying in the brahmacari tent were not so staunch, and generally when it was time to get up at four o’clock it was so cold out that we preferred to remain in our sleeping bags.

Srila Prabhupada began to notice that some of us were coming late to mangala-arati and that some were not coming at all. He became very upset about this, because he knew how important mangala-arati was for us. So one morning, although he was a little frail in health, he got up at four o'clock and came out in his gamcha, sat down under the hand pump, and took an ice-cold bath - just to encourage us to get up, bathe, and come to mangala-arati. His action had a very profound effect on all of us, and we felt so ashamed that we just couldn’t sleep late any more.