from early days ISKCON Denmark

[Paramananda das]

from early days ISKCON Denmark
Dandavat pranams
All glories to my Gurudeva and Srila Prabhupada
ISKCON Denmark had a rough start German devotees tried since 1974 to 1977 to start temple in Copenhagen , and devotees from Sweden were distributing Srila Prabhupada books in Danish since at least 1978 where I got 3 books of Srila Prabhupadas in Danish, Sri Isopanisad, Krsna book volume one and Vedic Philosophy and religion by Satsvarupa Maharaja.
Bhakti Bhusana Swami then not yet a sannyasi had brought his daughter from his previous marriage with him to Denmark, but the mother wanted her and had left ISKCON so she charged him that he had kidnapped the daughter and was 'hiding in Denmark " so the chief of police of Copenhagen was alerted from Interpol and did his best to find this girl, he told me this in 1982 when I met him on Sankirtana in Copenhagen ,that time he had just retired , he donated for some of the books of Srila Prabhupada. He told me he was happy to see Hare Krsna is now established in Denmark , He told me how he was ordered to shut down the Hare Krsna movement around 1975/76 and confiscate all the books (as they did not know what they contained ) he told me the West German Police had compared Hare Krishna to a Terror Group in the West Germany called Bada Meinhof .So he told me the Danish police was really worried what are these Hare Krsihnas, but in hindsight he said we were wrong . But we send all the German Hare Krsnas back to Germany , World war 2 is still in our minds and we do not want more trouble with Germans in Denmark he said.
So in 1980 some more devotees had joined in 1979 when we started ISKCON n Denmark it was just Gopisvara Prabhu and his wife and myself , and after 3 month they left and Vaidynath Prabhu the brother of Saccinandana Swami came and become TP,so it was just him and me and we would distribute books daily from 9 am to 8 pm that was the program , One of the persons that joined in 1980 was Bhakta Michael ,later he became Adi Deva das and Devamrta Swami later made him the TP, which I personally thought insane .He was a pimp when he joined and taking heavy drugs..he had another friend he used to take drugs with and sell heavy drugs too he was also Mikael same name .This Mikael came to the temple ofte to see Adideva and gradually became a vegetarian most of the time, and started chanting ,Harikesa then Swami heard of this Mikale and met him, he admitted he was trying his best to stop taking drugs : Harikesa told him to chant Pancatattva mantra a lot before he chanted Hare Krsna , Harikesa was hoping the Pancatattva mantra would save him , so he told me Harikesa told me to chant 3 rounds of the Panca Tattva Mantra and then chant Hare Krsna
One day Adi deva told me Mikael had died from drug overdose , he said yes but his frend and room mate told he he was chanting this Pancha Tattva Mantra
and did it the hour before he died .I said I am so sorry to hear this but I pray the Panca Tattva will somehow be merciful to him in his next birth
This took place in our first real temple in Amager 1980 Copenhagen Denmark
your servant
Paramananda das