Recently, two devotees from the Gita-Nagari farm, Sri Krsna das and Rasala das (Ralph Laurino), became interested in the Butler Eagle story while reading Srila Prabhupada's books and meditating on that time in his life. While the Butler Eagle article was apparently not available in the Folio, the devotees were aware of its existence, having been around Gita-Nagari and hearing of it's existence in talks with other devotes.
Srila Prabhupada's 'Butler Eagle' Article
BY: SUN STAFF
Sep 3, USA (SUN) — On August 29th, 2005 the Sun ran an article entitled "Ambassador of Bhakti Yoga" in honor of Srila Prabhupada's Vyasa-puja day. Assuming that the article had come from the Vedabase or a similar archive, we didn't look-up a specific source citation. We were pleased to learn that there is, in fact, a very interesting story behind the 'Ambassador' article.
On September 22, 1965, just five days after arriving in the U.S., Srila Prabhupada gave a lecture at the YMCA in Butler, Pennsylvania. The local newspaper, the Butler Eagle, printed an article and picture of the event.
Recently, two devotees from the Gita-Nagari farm, Sri Krsna das and Rasala das (Ralph Laurino), became interested in the Butler Eagle story while reading Srila Prabhupada's books and meditating on that time in his life. While the Butler Eagle article was apparently not available in the Folio, the devotees were aware of its existence, having been residents Gita-Nagari and hearing of it's existence in talks with other devotes.
Being geographically close to Butler, PA, Sri Krsna das and Rasala das contacted the Butler Eagle Newspaper, inquiring as to how they could get a copy of the article. The newspaper advised them to hire someone with proper access to the archives, who could go find and make copies of the article for them. Once they had secured a copy, they published it (August 24. 2003) on their website for the Protect-A-Cow program, which was recently featured in a July Sun article. The Butler Eagle also informed them that they purge their archives periodically, and it was only a matter of weeks before the article would be lost forever.
Given their dedicated service to cow protection, the devotees were very pleased to discover that Srila Prabhupada had made mention of the cows in his very first article from the West:
"Life and Milk of Cow" is all-important to the Swamiji's way of life; all else is artificial, he claims.
Our thanks to Sri Krsna das and Rasala das for re-discovering this important and memorable transcendental artifact.
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