Another interesting thing; I guess it is alright to talk about it. It can be taken as instructive, because Prabhupada has spoken about it.
I also met my wife in 1976 when I came back from the Middle East, I had a desire. Somehow or other a desire manifested to marry. Moreover, I was very concerned about it, because I had been living in Vrndavana since 1972, and all of a sudden, I have these desires manifesting in my heart to become married – some attraction developed. So then, I finally approached Prabhupada, after being on the mental platform for so long, about this situation. At that time I was in Delhi. Did I ever tell you this story? I was in Delhi, Srila Prabhupada was there, and everyone was very much against me being married. So, yeah, there were many, many devotees in Delhi at that time. Prabhupada was going to leave that morning for some other center.
So Harisauri said to me,
“Why do not you come and speak with Srila Prabhupada.”
I said I would really like to get Prabhupada’s opinion. He said alright, Actually Srila Prabhupada had heard the whole conversation between the devoteeS; how the devotees were harassing me, I should not do this, I should not do that. So he invited me in, and I sort of crawled in. Hamsadutta Maharaja was with Harisauri and me. Hamsadutta Maharaja wanted me to come and travel with him. So he was very much against it. So I went into his room and Prabhupada said with a big smile,
“Ahh! what news?” Big smile. And I thought, “what is new.”dddddd
I said,
“Prabhupada I am having some problem. I am wondering whether I am in Maya. I have this desire to be married, it is causing disturbance to me, and I wanted you to clear it up.”
He said,
“Well GBC, three GBC’s here in Delhi why cannot they decide.”?
“You are my spiritual master; I just want to know what is my position? What I should do?”
So then, he looked at me and in a very loud voice he said,
“What is wrong with marriage?”
“I thought, it is a material desire, and you have said that it is second-class. And I want to be a first-class devotee.”
Somehow or other, hope against hope I then said,
“Maybe I should go with Hamsadutta Maharaja, change my environment a little, do sankirtana, and maybe transcend this.”
Prabhupada replied,
“There you go, going here, going there, here there, here there. The soul has been wandering for millions and millions of births, going here, going there. But your mind is your association. Wherever you go your mind will go. Gunarnava, the worst thing you can be in spiritual life is a pretender.”
And he quoted Bhagavad-gita 3.6,
“One who restrains the senses of action but whose mind dwells on sense objects certainly deludes himself and is called a pretender.”
And then said,
“This is the point. So you get married and you live like a gentleman and you be happy.”
“That is really far out because I have a letter Prabhupada wrote to Kirtiraja He said even Lord Siva was agitated about sex life. Different people, he had to promote both points.”
So the realization I got was that it is an individual thing. Because we are individuals and we all have individual karma, or paths, everyone had a different duty to perform. Anyways, so Prabhupada gave me this instruction, which I actually do not preach about too much, because I know it is an individual thing. But I realized how Prabhupada was transcendental in the sense of engaging me, and knowing what was right for me.