Mulaprakriti: An old brahmachari told me that for a little while Srila Prabhupada lived in humble conditions in Mathura, writing Easy Journey to Other Planets. One day after this brahmachari and Srila Prabhupada had been preaching, they were sitting together honoring leftover prasadam when some rich visitors came up the stairs. These people looked around and, seeing the dilapidated conditions, they turned and walked back down the stairs. Then Srila Prabhupada turned to the brahmachari and said, "Oh, just look. They are coming up the stairs and all they see is an old man eating a dry chapati. They don't know what plans Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has for this old man."
Hansadutta: Srila Prabhupada was sitting on his bed and I was sitting in front of him. I said, "Swamiji, I'm so nervous I can't sleep. I couldn't sleep this night or last night or the night before last." He said, "Ohhh. That's good." He leaned forward, looked me right in the eye and said, "Actually our aim is to make sleeping zero, eating zero, defending zero, and sex zero. We don't preach that, but that is the aim." That was my first one-on-one instruction from Srila Prabhupada.
Bhuta Bhavana: When Prabhupada heard we had come he said to Brahmananda, "Send them up immediately." So Hari Kripa and I went up to his room. There we saw Prabhupada in all his grandeur, sitting cross-legged, with a huge smile on his face as if someone had just told him a joke. He said, "Four hundred years ago your ancestors were taken away from here as slaves." He made his eyes real big and said, "But, ah, just see, you have returned as masters." I thought, "How poetic! Who could say something like that?" Generally in the black community if you refer to slavery, it's not a very jovial thing, but Prabhupada made it wonderful. We had returned to Africa in Krishna consciousness. Then he told Brahmananda to give us prasadam, and we left to honor it.