Anyone reading the 2nd Dutch translation of "Prabhupada - your ever well-wisher" (0),

itself a abridged version of the full "Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta" (1),

will be touched by it - again !

- in your case: 26 years after your 1st reading of the EN abridged edition.

Some extracts, taken from the EN edition (1):

Struggling Alone (2)

At Commonwealth Pier, Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote another Bengali poem, entitled “Mārkine Bhāgavata-dharma” (“Teaching Kṛṣṇa Consciousness in America”). Some of the verses he wrote on board the ship that day are as follows:

My dear Lord Kṛṣṇa, You are so kind upon this useless soul, but I do not know why You have brought me here. Now You can do whatever You like with me.

But I guess You have some business here, otherwise why would You bring me to this terrible place?

Most of the population here is covered by the material modes of ignorance and passion. Absorbed in material life they think themselves very happy and satisfied, and therefore they have no taste for the transcendental message of Vāsudeva [Kṛṣṇa]. I do not know how they will be able to understand it.

But I know that Your causeless mercy can make everything possible, because You are the most expert mystic.

How will they understand the mellows of devotional service? O Lord, I am simply praying for Your mercy so that I will be able to convince them about Your message.

All living entities have come under the control of the illusory energy by Your will, and therefore, if You like, by Your will they can also be released from the clutches of illusion.

I wish that You may deliver them. Therefore if You so desire their deliverance, then only will they be able to understand Your message. …

How will I make them understand this message of Kṛṣṇa consciousness? I am very unfortunate, unqualified, and the most fallen. Therefore I am seeking Your benediction so that I can convince them, for I am powerless to do so on my own.

Somehow or other, O Lord, You have brought me here to speak about You. Now, my Lord, it is up to You to make me a success or failure, as You like.

O spiritual master of all the worlds! I can simply repeat Your message. So if You like You can make my power of speaking suitable for their understanding.

Only by Your causeless mercy will my words become pure. I am sure that when this transcendental message penetrates their hearts, they will certainly feel gladdened and thus become liberated from all unhappy conditions of life.

O Lord, I am just like a puppet in Your hands. So if You have brought me here to dance, then make me dance, make me dance, O Lord, make me dance as You like.

I have no devotion, nor do I have any knowledge, but I have strong faith in the holy name of Kṛṣṇa. I have been designated as Bhaktivedanta, and now, if You like, You can fulfill the real purport of Bhaktivedanta.

Signed – the most unfortunate, insignificant beggar,

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami,

On board the ship Jaladuta, Commonwealth Pier,

Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Dated 18th September 1965.

STRUGGLING ALONE (3)

Philosophically at complete odds with Prabhupāda, Dr. Mishra accepted the Absolute Truth in the impersonal feature (or Brahman) to be supreme. Prabhupāda stressed the supremacy of the personal feature (or Bhagavān), following the Vedic theistic philosophy that the most complete understanding of the Absolute Truth is personal. The Bhagavad-gītā says that the impersonal Brahman is subordinate to Bhagavān and is an emanation from Him, just as the sunshine is an emanation from the sun planet. This conclusion had been taught by the leading traditional ācāryas of ancient India, such as Rāmānuja and Madhva, and Śrīla Prabhupāda was in disciplic succession from Madhva. Dr. Mishra, on the other hand, followed Śaṅkara, who taught that the impersonal presence of the Absolute Truth is all in all and that the Personality of Godhead is ultimately an illusion. Whereas Prabhupāda’s theistic philosophy accepted the individual spiritual self (ātmā) as an eternal servant of the supreme spiritual being (Bhagavān), Dr. Mishra’s view accepted the spiritual self as not an individual. Rather, his idea was that since each person is identical with God, the Supreme Brahman, there is no need to worship God outside oneself. As Dr. Mishra would put it, “Everything is one.”

Prabhupāda challenged: If each of us is actually the Supreme, then why is this “Supreme” suffering and struggling in the material world? Dr. Mishra would counter that the Supreme is only temporarily covered by illusion and that through haṭha-yoga and meditation one would become enlightened, understanding, “It is all the Supreme.” Prabhupāda would again challenge: But if the Supreme could be covered by illusion, then illusion would be greater than God, greater than the Supreme.

Prabhupāda considered Dr. Mishra a “Māyāvādī” because of his inadvertent acceptance that māyā, illusion, is greater than the Absolute Truth. For Śrīla Prabhupāda, not only was the impersonal philosophy unpalatable, it was an insult to the Personality of Godhead.

STRUGGLING ALONE (4)

In his solitary wanderings, Śrīla Prabhupāda made acquaintances with a number of local people. There was Mr. Ruben, a Turkish Jew, who worked as a New York City subway conductor. Mr. Ruben met Prabhupāda on a park bench and, being a sociable fellow and a world traveler, sat and talked with the Indian holy man.

Mr. Ruben: He seemed to know that he would have temples filled up with devotees. He would look out and say, “I am not a poor man, I am rich. There are temples and books, they are existing, they are there, but the time is separating us from them.” He always mentioned “we” and spoke about the one who sent him, his spiritual master. He didn’t know people at that time, but he said, “I am never alone.” He always looked like a lonely man to me. That’s what made me think of him like a holy man, Elijah, who always went out alone. I don’t believe he had any followers.

...

Seeing him from a distance – a tiny figure walking Manhattan’s streets and avenues among many other tiny figures, a foreigner whose visa had almost run out – we come upon only the external appearance of Śrīla Prabhupāda. These days of struggle were real enough and very difficult, but his transcendental consciousness was always predominant. He was not living in Manhattan consciousness, but was absorbed in dependence upon Kṛṣṇa, just as when on the Jaladuta he had suffered his heart attacks, his reading of Caitanya-caritāmṛta had supplied him “the nectarine of life.”

He had already succeeded. Certainly he wanted to provide Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa a temple in New York, but his success was that he was remembering Kṛṣṇa, even in New York City in the winter of 1965–66, whether the world recognized him or not. Not a day went by when he did not work on Kṛṣṇa’s book, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And not a day went by when he did not offer food to Kṛṣṇa and speak on Kṛṣṇa’s philosophy of Bhagavad-gītā.

Lord Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā, “For one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, I am never lost to him, and he is never lost to Me.” And Kṛṣṇa assures His pure devotees that, “My devotee will never be vanquished.” There was never any doubt about this for Prabhupāda. The only question was whether Americans would take notice of the pure devotee in their midst. At this point it seemed that no one was going to take him seriously.

STRUGGLING ALONE (5)

Śrīla Prabhupāda did not attach much importance to lecturing where the people who gathered would hear him only once. This was the main reason he wanted his own building in New York: so that people could come regularly, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, take prasādam in his company, and hear him speak from Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Harvey Cohen and Bill Epstein were friends. Harvey was a freelance artist, and Bill worked at the Paradox. After Harvey had been to Prabhupāda’s place at Dr. Mishra’s yoga studio a few times, he came by the Paradox and began to describe all about the new swami to Bill and other friends.

More info on Harvey Cohen:

https://btg.krishna.com/harvey-cohen-the-story-of-prabhupadas-first-follower-in-the-west/

https://iskcondesiretree.com/profiles/blogs/how-i-met-swami-bhaktivedanta

https://back2godhead.com/new-group/

STRUGGLING ALONE (6)

Harvey offered Prabhupāda his studio on the Bowery... Harvey had decided to leave the city and go to California, but before leaving he offered his loft for Prabhupāda to share with David Allen.

Prabhupāda lived on the Bowery, sitting under a small light, while hundreds of derelicts also sat under hundreds of naked lights on the same city block. He had no more fixed income than the derelicts, nor any greater security of a fixed residence, yet his consciousness was different. He was translating Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam into English, speaking to the world through his Bhaktivedanta purports. His duty, whether on the fourteenth floor of a Riverside Drive apartment building or in a corner of a Bowery loft, was to establish Kṛṣṇa consciousness as the prime necessity for all humanity. He went on with his translating and with his constant vision of a Kṛṣṇa temple in New York City. Because his consciousness was absorbed in Kṛṣṇa’s universal mission, he did not depend on his surroundings for shelter. Home for him was not a matter of bricks and wood, but of taking shelter of Kṛṣṇa in every circumstance. As Prabhupāda had said to his friends uptown, “Everywhere is my home,” whereas without Kṛṣṇa’s shelter the whole world would be a desolate place.

The musical kīrtanas were especially popular on the Bowery, since the Swami’s new congregation consisted mostly of local musicians and artists, who responded more to the transcendental music than to the philosophy. Every morning he would hold a class on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, attended by David Allen, Robert Nelson, and another boy, and occasionally he would teach cooking to whoever was interested. He was usually available for personal talks with any inquiring visitors or with his new roommate.

For the Bowery crowd, sound was spirit and spirit was sound, in a merging of music and meditation. But for Prabhupāda, music without the name of God wasn’t meditation; it was sense gratification, or at most a kind of stylized impersonal meditation. But he was glad to see the musicians coming to play along in his kīrtanas, to hear him, and to chant responsively. Some, having stayed up all night playing somewhere on their instruments, would come by in the morning and sing with the Swami. He did not dissuade them from their focus on sound; rather, he gave them sound. In the Vedas, sound is said to be the first element of material creation; the source of sound is God, and God is eternally a person. Prabhupāda’s emphasis was on getting people to chant God’s personal, transcendental name. Whether they took it as jazz, folk music, rock, or Indian meditation made no difference, as long as they began to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Article appeared in a June 1966 issue of The Village Voice:

https://vanipedia.org/wiki/Srila_Prabhupada_in_the_Media_-_1966#Swami_Bhaktivedanta

Although Prabhupāda’s home had suddenly become an insane terror, the street at its door was also a hellish, dangerous place. He was shaken. He could call Dr. Mishra’s, and they might take him in. But that chapter of his life was over, and he had gone on to something better. He had his own classes, young people chanting and hearing. Was it all over now? After nine months in America, he had finally gotten a good response to his preaching and kīrtana. He couldn’t just quit now.

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Mahārāja, whom everyone knew and respected in Vṛndāvana as a distinguished scholar and devotee, who had an open invitation to see the vice president of India and many other notables, now had to face starkly that he had not one friend of stature in the United States. Suddenly he was as homeless as any derelict on the street. In fact many of them, with their long-time berths in flophouses, were more secure than he. They were ruined, but settled...

This is what it meant to be working without government sponsorship, without the support of any religious organization, without a patron. It meant being vulnerable and insecure. Prabhupāda faced the crisis as a test from Kṛṣṇa. The instruction of Bhagavad-gītā was to depend on Kṛṣṇa for protection: “In all activities just depend upon Me and work always under My protection. In such devotional service be fully conscious of Me. … You will pass over all the obstacles of conditional life by My grace.”

Breaking Ground (7)

The hippies (in the Lower East Side) had turned from the suburban materialism of their parents, the inane happiness of TV and advertising – the ephemeral goals of middle-class America. They were

disillusioned by parents, teachers, clergy, public leaders, and the media,

dissatisfied with American policy in Vietnam, and

allured by radical political ideologies that exposed America as a cruel, selfish, exploitative giant who must now reform or die. And they were

searching for real love, real peace, real existence, and real spiritual consciousness...

Notions about Eastern cultures and Eastern religions were in vogue. Through drugs, yoga, brotherhood, or just by being free – somehow they would attain enlightenment. Everyone was supposed to keep an open mind and develop his own cosmic philosophy by direct experience and drug-expanded consciousness, blended with his own eclectic readings. And if their lives appeared aimless, at least they had dropped out of a pointless game where the player sells his soul for material goods and in this way supports a system that is already rotten.

The Puerto Ricans in the neighborhood would look in the window at Harvey Cohen’s painting and then blankly walk away... But there were young people around who had been intrigued with the painting, who went up to the window to read the little piece of paper. Some of them even knew about the Bhagavad-gītā, although the painting of Lord Caitanya and the dancers didn’t seem to fit.

Prabhupāda uses the cars to give an example: When a car momentarily comes into our vision on Second Avenue, we certainly don’t think that it had no existence before we saw it or that it ceases to exist once it has passed from view; similarly, when Kṛṣṇa goes from this planet to another, it doesn’t mean He no longer exists, although it may appear that way. Actually, He has only left our sight. Kṛṣṇa and His incarnations constantly appear and disappear on innumerable planets throughout the innumerable universes of the material creation.

.
“Kṛṣṇa consciousness” was Prabhupāda’s own rendering of a phrase from Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Padyāvalī, written in the sixteenth century. Kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvita: “to be absorbed in the mellow taste of executing devotional service to Kṛṣṇa.”

Breaking Ground (8)

Prabhupāda spoke of the necessity of purification for spiritual advancement. “It is not enough merely to chant holy words,” he said. “One must be pure inside and out. Chanting in purity brings spiritual advancement. The living entity becomes impure because he wants to enjoy material pleasure. But the impure can become pure by following Kṛṣṇa, by doing all works for Kṛṣṇa. Beginners in Kṛṣṇa consciousness have a tendency to relax their efforts in a short time, but to advance spiritually you must resist this temptation and continually increase your efforts and devotion.”

Carl Yeargens knew something about initiation from his readings, and he, more than the others, knew what a serious commitment it was. He was surprised to hear that Swamiji was offering initiation, and he was cautious about entering into it. He knew that initiation meant no illicit sex, intoxication, or meat-eating, and an initiated disciple would have new responsibilities for spreading the teachings to others. Carl was already feeling less involved since the Swami had moved to Second Avenue, but he decided to attend the initiation anyway.

He had them repeat, one word at a time, a Vedic mantra of purification:

oṁ apavitraḥ pavitro vā

sarvāvasthāṁ gato ’pi vā

yaḥ smaret puṇḍarīkākṣaṁ

sa bāhyābhyantaraḥ śuciḥ

śrī-viṣṇuḥ śrī-viṣṇuḥ śrī-viṣṇuḥ

The initiates tried falteringly to follow his pronunciation of the words, which they had never heard before. Then he gave the translation:

“Unpurified or purified,

or even having passed through all situations,

one who remembers the lotus-eyed Supreme Personality of Godhead

is cleansed within and without.”

Breaking Ground (9)

One night, a group of about ten hippies from Millbrook came to Swamiji’s kīrtana. They all chanted (not so much in worship of Kṛṣṇa as to see what kind of high the chanting could produce), and after the lecture a Millbrook leader asked about drugs. Prabhupāda replied that drugs were not necessary for spiritual life, that they could not produce spiritual consciousness, and that all drug-induced religious visions were simply hallucinations. To realize God was not so easy or cheap that one could do it just by taking a pill or smoking. Chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, he explained, was a purifying process to uncover one’s pure consciousness. Taking drugs would increase the covering and bar one from self-realization.

Prabhupāda explained that there are three platforms – sensual, mental, and intellectual – and above them is the spiritual platform. The chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa is on the spiritual platform, and it is the best process for reviving our eternal, blissful consciousness.

Beyond the Lower East Side (10)

"Sex is like the itching sensation, that’s all. And as when we scratch, it gets worse, so we should tolerate the itching and ask Kṛṣṇa to help us. It is not easy. Sex is the highest pleasure in the material world, and it is also the greatest bondage.”

But Steve Goldsmith was shaking his head. Prabhupāda looked at him, smiling: “There is still a problem?”

“It’s just that … well, it’s been proved dangerous to repress the sex drive. There’s a theory that we have wars because – ”

“People are eating meat,” Prabhupāda interrupted. “As long as people eat meat, there will be war. And if a man eats meat, he will be sure to have illicit sex also.”

About first publication of Back to Godhead in the West:

The first page opened with the same motto Prabhupāda had used for years on his Back to Godhead: “Godhead is light, nescience is darkness. Where there is Godhead there is no nescience.” And on the same page, Hayagrīva had not been able to resist giving a quotation from William Blake, approved by Swamiji, which substantiated the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness:

God appears, and God is Light
To those poor souls who dwell in Night,
But does a Human Form display
To those who dwell in realms of Day.

Although the editorial spoke of Blake, Whitman, and Jesus Christ, it stressed:

… it is to teach this science [of devotion to God] that Swami Bhaktivedanta has come to America. His message is simple: the chanting of the Holy Name of God: “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare …”

Following the orders of his spiritual master, His Divine Grace Sri Srimad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupad, Swami Bhaktivedanta began the initial publication of Back to Godhead in 1944. This bi-monthly, published from 1944 to 1956 in Vrindaban, India, … established Swami Bhaktivedanta as the leading Personalist in India. This issue marks the first publication of Back to Godhead in the West.

“Swami Invites the Hippies” (11)

Reporter: “What does one have to do to become a member of your movement?”

Prabhupāda: “There are four prerequisites.

-I do not allow my students to keep girlfriends.

-I prohibit all kinds of intoxicants, including coffee, tea and cigarettes.

-I prohibit meat-eating. And

-I prohibit my students from taking part in gambling.”

Reporter: “Do these shall-not commandments extend to the use of LSD, marijuana, and other narcotics?”

Prabhupāda: “I consider LSD to be an intoxicant.

I do not allow any one of my students to use that or any intoxicant.

I train my students

-to rise early in the morning,

-to take a bath early in the day, and

-to attend prayer meetings three times a day.

Our sect is one of austerity. It is the science of God.”

...“The big mistake of modern civilization,” Śrīla Prabhupāda continued, “is to encroach upon others’ property as though it were one’s own. This creates an unnatural disturbance. God is the ultimate proprietor of everything in the universe. When people know that God is the ultimate proprietor, the best friend of all living entities, and the object of all offerings and sacrifices – then there will be peace.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda objected to being called conservative. He was indignant: “Conservative? How is that?”

“In respect to sex and drugs,” Mukunda suggested.

“Of course, we are conservative in that sense,” Prabhupāda said. “That simply means we are following śāstra. We cannot depart from Bhagavad-gītā. But conservative we are not. Caitanya Mahāprabhu was so strict that He would not even look on a woman, but we are accepting everyone into this movement, regardless of sex, caste, position, or whatever. Everyone is invited to come chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s munificence, His liberality. No, we are not conservative.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda knew that it would be difficult for his Western disciples to

-stick to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and

-attain the goal of pure devotional service.

All their lives they had had the worst of training, and despite their nominal Christianity and philosophical searching, most of them knew nothing of the science of God. They did not even know that illicit sex and meat-eating were wrong, although when he told them they accepted what he said. And they freely chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa. So how could he refuse them?

Of course, whether they would be able to persevere in Kṛṣṇa consciousness despite the ever-present attractions of māyā would be seen in time. Some would fall – that was the human tendency. But some would not. At least those who

-sincerely followed his instructions to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and

-avoid sinful activities

would be successful.

He gave the example that a person could say that today’s fresh food, if not properly used, would spoil in a few days. But if it is fresh now, to say that in the future it will be misused and therefore spoil is only a surmise. Yes, in the future anyone could fall down. But Prabhupāda took it as his responsibility to engage his disciples now. And he was giving them the methods which if followed would protect them from ever falling down.

Aside from Vedic standards, even by the standard of Swamiji’s New York disciples the devotees in San Francisco were not very strict.

Some continued

-going to the doughnut shop,

-eating food without offering it to Kṛṣṇa, and

-eating forbidden things like chocolate and commercial ice cream.

Some even indulged in after-kīrtana cigarette breaks right outside the temple door.

Some got initiated without knowing precisely what they had agreed to practice.

As they passed the shuffleboard courts and the old men playing checkers, Prabhupāda stopped and turned to the boys. “Just see,” he said. “Old people in this country do not know what to do. So they play like children, wasting their last days, which should be meant for developing Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Their children are grown and gone away, so this is a natural time for spiritual cultivation. But no. They get some cat or dog, and instead of serving God, they serve dog. It is most unfortunate. But they will not listen. Their ways are set. Therefore we are speaking to the youth, who are searching.”

New Jagannātha Purī (12)

Speaking privately in his room to one of his disciples, Prabhupāda said that during kīrtana in the temple he thought of Lord Caitanya dancing before Lord Jagannātha. He told how Lord Caitanya had traveled to Purī and danced before Lord Jagannātha in such ecstasy that He had been unable to say anything more than “Jag – , Jag – .” Lord Caitanya had been thinking, “Kṛṣṇa, for so long I wanted to see You. And now I am seeing You.” When Lord Caitanya had lived in Purī, as many as five hundred men at a time would visit Him, and every evening there would be a huge kīrtana with four parties, each with four mṛdaṅga players and eight karatāla players. “One party this side, one party this side,” Prabhupāda explained. “One party back side, one party front side. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu in the middle. They would all dance, and the four parties would chant, ‘Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa …’ That was going on every evening so long He stayed at Jagannātha Purī.”

The devotees understood that there was a great difference between themselves and Swamiji. He had never been a hippie. He wasn’t at home amid the illusion of Haight-Ashbury’s LSD, psychedelic posters, rock musicians, hippie jargon, and street people. They knew he was different, though sometimes they forgot. He spent so much time with them every day – eating with them, joking with them, depending on them. But then sometimes they would remember his special identity. When they chanted with him in the temple before Lord Jagannātha, he, unlike them, would be thinking of Lord Caitanya’s kīrtanas before Lord Jagannātha in Purī. When Lord Caitanya had seen Jagannātha, He had seen Kṛṣṇa, and His love for Kṛṣṇa had been so great that He had gone mad. Prabhupāda thought of these things to a degree far beyond what his disciples could understand – and yet he remained with them as their dear friend and spiritual instructor. He was their servant, teaching them to pray, like him, to be able to serve Kṛṣṇa: “O Lord of the universe, kindly be visible unto me.”

Swamiji’s Departure (13)

Prabhupāda sat still and continued speaking to them gravely, asking them to stick together and push on the movement, for their own benefit and for others. Whatever they had learned, he said, they should repeat.

They realized, perhaps for the first time, that they were part of a preaching mission, a movement. They were together not just for good times and good vibrations; they had a loving obligation to Swamiji and Kṛṣṇa.

Sitting on the old carpet, he spoke quietly and personally. “I may be going, but Guru Mahārāja and Bhaktivinoda are here.” He looked toward the paintings of his spiritual master and Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. “I have asked them to kindly take care of all of you, my spiritual children. The grandfather always takes care of the children much better than the father. So do not fear. There is no question of separation. The sound vibration fixes us up together, even though the material body may not be there. What do we care for this material body? Just go on chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, and we will be packed up together. You will be chanting here, and I will be chanting there, and this vibration will circulate around this planet.”

India Revisited: Part 1 (14)

“They are caste gosvāmīs,” Prabhupāda explained. The original gosvāmīs, such as Jīva Gosvāmī, who established the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple, had engaged householders to worship the Deities. And these caste gosvāmīs were descendants of those first householder pūjārīs. Prabhupāda explained that the caste gosvāmīs were the proprietors of the temples and that they maintained the temples and ran the Deity worship as a business to support their families. Several years ago each of the Deities now on the altar had had His own temple, land, income, and priests. But for economy the gosvāmīs had sold the property, reduced the opulence of the worship, and amalgamated the Deities.

India Revisited: Part 1 (15)

When the day for Prabhupāda’s departure finally arrived he gave last instructions to Acyutānanda and Rāmānuja.

“Just pray to Lord Kṛṣṇa that I can go to America,” he requested Acyutānanda.

“How can I?” Acyutānanda replied. “You’ll be leaving me.”

“No,” Śrīla Prabhupāda replied, “we’ll always remain packed up together if you remember my teachings. If you preach you will become strong, and all these teachings will be in the proper perspective. When we stop our preaching, then everything becomes stagnated, and we lose our life. Even here in India people think that they know everything, but they are wrong. There is no end to hearing about Kṛṣṇa. God is unlimited. So no one can say, ‘I know everything about God.’ Those who say they know everything about God do not know. So everyone will appreciate you. Do not fear.”

Acyutānanda: When I returned to the room after sending off Swamiji and paying my obeisances at the airport, I felt a void. I felt very lonely and rather weak. I returned to the room in front of Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Govinda, and chanting on my beads I started pacing back and forth. “What will I preach?” The black and white marble floor passed under me. I stepped on the cracks, in between the cracks, and on the black and white marble again and again. Then I realized I wasn’t seeing Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. So I sat down directly in front and saw the brilliant form of Rādhā-Govindajī, and my eyes filled with tears.

Unlimited Opportunity, Limited Time (16)

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, Prabhupāda’s own spiritual master, had wanted Kṛṣṇa consciousness in Europe. During the 1930s he had sent his most experienced sannyāsīs to London, but they had returned, nothing accomplished. It wasn’t possible to teach Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the mlecchas, they had complained. Europeans couldn’t sit long enough to hear the Vaiṣṇava philosophy. One of the sannyāsīs had met Lord Zetland, who had inquired curiously, “Swamiji, can you make me a brāhmaṇa?” The sannyāsī had assured Lord Zetland he could, certainly, if Zetland would give up meat-eating, intoxication, gambling, and illicit sex. “Impossible!” Lord Zetland had replied. And the sannyāsīs had accepted this response as the standard for all Europeans. The sannyāsīs had returned to India; Vaiṣṇavism could never take hold in the West. Prabhupāda had faith that his disciples would succeed; they would help him establish ISKCON centers in Europe, just as they had in North America. Certainly such success would greatly please Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. Prabhupāda told of a man who found a gourd lying on the road and picked it up and then found a stick and a wire and picked them up. In themselves, the three parts were useless. But by putting the gourd, the stick, and the wire together, the man made a vīṇā and began to play beautiful music. Similarly, Prabhupāda had come to the West and found some rejected youths lying here and there, and he himself had been rejected by the people of New York City; but by Kṛṣṇa’s grace the combination had become successful. If his disciples remained sincere and followed his orders, they would succeed in Europe.

Prabhupāda’s reasons for traveling from center to center were to train and convince each disciple and to speak with newcomers. Many young people came to hear, but Prabhupāda found the majority already ruined by illicit sex and drugs. They were “rich men’s sons,” but they had become hippies, wandering the streets. By Kṛṣṇa’s grace, now some of them were being saved.

Even while recuperating in India, Prabhupāda had always thought of returning to America to continue his movement. The Indians had seemed interested only in sense gratification, like that of the Americans. But many American youths, disillusioned with their fathers’ wealth, were not going to the skyscrapers or to their fathers’ businesses. As Prabhupāda had seen from his stay in New York City and San Francisco, thousands of youths were seeking an alternative to materialism. Frustrated, they were ripe for spiritual knowledge.

The devotees, still neophytes, knew nothing of spiritual life and in most cases very little of material life. But because they were sincerely taking to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, Prabhupāda was confident that their shortcomings would not prevent their spiritual progress. Although naturally beautiful, these Western youths were now dirty and morose; their beauty had become covered. But the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa was reviving them, Prabhupāda said, just as the monsoon revives the land of Vṛndāvana, making it fresh and verdant. And as the Vṛndāvana peacocks sometimes dance jubilantly, so the devotees, having shed their material bonds, were now ecstatically dancing and chanting the holy names.

...

Śrīla Prabhupāda loved his disciples, and they loved him. Out of love, he was giving them the greatest treasure, and out of love they were following his instructions. This was the essence of spiritual life. On the basis of this love, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement would grow. Not surprisingly, some disciples had fallen away to their former, materialistic way of living. But Prabhupāda sought those sincere souls who would stay. That was the important thing, he said. One moon is more valuable than many stars; so even a few sincere workers would accomplish wonderful things. The sincere and intelligent would stay, and Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu would empower them to carry out His desires for distributing love of Kṛṣṇa. In this way, the devotees’ lives would become perfect.

...

Comparing New Vrindaban to the Vṛndāvana in India, Prabhupāda said that New Vrindaban was in some ways better, since Vṛndāvana, India, was now congested with worldly men. Five hundred years ago the Gosvāmī followers of Lord Caitanya had excavated the sites of Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes in Vṛndāvana, and only pure devotees had lived there. But in recent years Vṛndāvana had become a place for materialists and impersonalists. New Vrindaban, however, should admit only the spiritually inclined. In Vedic society, Prabhupāda said, everyone had been satisfied to live like this, in a small village beside a river. Factories were unnecessary. Prabhupāda wanted this Vedic way of life for the entire world, and New Vrindaban could serve as a model for the benefit of the masses.

New Vrindaban had no phone, and mail had to be fetched by a two-mile walk. In this, Prabhupāda said, New Vrindaban was like Vṛndāvana, India – both Vṛndāvanas lacked in modern amenities. This “difficulty,” however, coupled well with the Vaiṣṇava philosophy that modern amenities were not worth the trouble required to get them. A devotee, accepting whatever nature provides, spends his time and energy in spiritual life.

A Lot of Ground to Be Covered (17)

Lectures of the "paṇḍāl" Hare Krishna Festival at Cross Maidan – March 25 to April 4” in Bombay:

March 26 - Lecture Pandal at Cross Maidan - Bombay - https://vanisource.org/wiki/710326_-_Lecture_Pandal_at_Cross_Maidan_-_Bombay
March 31 - Lecture Pandal - Bombay - https://vanisource.org/wiki/710331_-_Lecture_Pandal_-_Bombay

Jet-Age Parivrājakācārya (18)

“There is no hope in Russia without Kṛṣṇa consciousness,” Prabhupāda said.

“I Will Build a Wonderful Temple for You” (19)

PRABHUPĀDA HAD POSTPONED the Māyāpur cornerstone-laying ceremony until Gaura-pūrṇimā (the appearance day of Lord Caitanya), February 29, 1972.

...

After the five-day festival, Prabhupāda left Māyāpur for Vṛndāvana, where he planned to hold another ground-breaking ceremony. The Māyāpur land was still completely undeveloped, and Prabhupāda urged his disciples in India to continue collecting the necessary funds.

"We are making a very gorgeous plan at Mayapur, and if you all together can give shape to this plan it will be unique in the whole world. It will be a world center for teaching spiritual life. Students from all over the world will come and we shall revolutionize the atheistic and communistic tendencies of rascal philosophers. So we must be responsible for this great task. Not for a single moment shall we be without ISKCON thoughts. That is my request to you all."

...

During Prabhupāda’s stay in Bombay, Hans Kielman, a young architect from Holland, had come to hear the lectures and had become interested in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Prabhupāda convinced Hans to become a devotee and to help build the Hare Kṛṣṇa city in Bombay. Under Prabhupāda’s direction, Hans at once began to make architectural drawings for the buildings.

[ In de NL vertalingen is deze architect genaamd Hans KEILman (i.p.v. KIELman).

En daarom vraag JIJ je nu af:

is deze "Hans Kielman" (later: Surabhi) familie van

"Henk Keilman" (Hari Krishna das), de - eveneens NEDERLANDSE! - auteur van publicatie "Intelligentie of Chaos" / "Intelligence Or Chaos – The Atheist Delusion" ?

Antwoord: dat lijkt onwaarschijnlijk, want Henk Keilman is geboren in 1953, m.a.w. te jong om in 1972 al een gediplomeerde architect te wezen. ]

WIE

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henk_Keilman

BOEK

https://www.facebook.com/bhaktivedantacollection/posts/pfbid02BqodtR1b3gU2GRGp28MPo3JjWXUTns5Zor3S1mK9qiS4H1rQaXo9LxtXyvFU1q3bl

https://www.facebook.com/bhaktivedantacollection/posts/pfbid026Z9EyKiSBiqsb5zUtj2sWgquXx3x3Vqo4Z7BbYUzN4AQrFiAknLQxPZCdC4koXEil

Developing Māyāpur (20)

Prabhupāda had immediately convinced his disciples with his forceful statements. “There are two misleading theories in the West.

One is that life comes from matter, and
the other is that there is no life after death – you can just enjoy this life.

They say everything is matter. So as this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement grows, the Communists will be curbed down. People say they are trying for unity, but they have no brains to see how this will achieve unity. They have formed a big complicated League of Nations and now United Nations, but they all fail. But this simple method of Ratha-yātrā – all over the world it is spreading. Jagannātha means ‘Lord of the universe.’ So Lord Jagannātha is now international God, through our ISKCON. Therefore, I want to go to the West and give them these things.”

Beginning the Temple of Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma (21)

Prabhupāda had received a letter from a major international travel agency requesting that he provide accommodations for tourists so that the ISKCON guesthouse could be included in official tours of spiritual India. People were always coming to India to tour the holy places; unfortunately most of the places were unauthorized or overrun by cheaters. ISKCON’s center, therefore, would be very important. Prabhupāda wrote,

"Have a European preaching center, and try to enlist all the tourists and hippies who come to Vrndavana.

Give them nice prasadam and
engage them in

chanting,
cleaning the temple, and
reading our books,

give them all facility for becoming devotees."

Let There Be a Temple (22)

His disciples’ failure to carry out his desires was his loss. In this way, he felt transcendental lamentation over their failure to open the Krishna-Balaram Mandir on Janmāṣṭamī day.

Prabhupāda’s disturbance, though transcendental, was nonetheless real; it was not feigned merely for instructing. Nor could the devotees cheaply “cheer up” their spiritual master. For Prabhupāda’s disciples to properly assist him, they would have to understand his transcendental mood and serve him accordingly. Prabhupāda wanted practical, down-to-earth service from his disciples. They should not expect to serve him sentimentally but should work hard. Devotional service was dynamic. Prabhupāda wanted his disciples to help him with his projects to serve his Guru Mahārāja – projects which, if successful, could save the world from misery.

...

Prabhupāda stood smiling before the tamāla tree, its venerable branches spread throughout one corner of the courtyard, and he recounted how there had been a discussion of cutting it down and he had prevented it. Tamāla trees are associated with the pastimes of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī and are very rare. In Vṛndāvana there were perhaps only three: one here, one at Seva-kuñja, and one in the courtyard of the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple. That the tamāla tree was growing so luxuriantly, Prabhupāda said, indicated that the devotees were performing genuine bhakti.

“Please Distribute Books” (23)

Vṛndāvana, India - April 20, 1975

Śrīla Prabhupāda installed the Deities for the grand opening of the Krishna-Balaram Mandir. Almost a thousand disciples were present, and the governor of Uttar Pradesh was the guest of honor. After years of hard endeavor, the grand opening was a climactic triumph for Śrīla Prabhupāda and his movement. While still standing at the altar after having offered the first ārati to Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma, Prabhupāda addressed the crowd, explaining that this was an international temple, where people from all over the world could come to worship and take shelter of Gaura-Nitāi, Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma, and Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.

Later that evening, Śrīla Prabhupāda sat in his room with a few G.B.C. men. The buttons on his kurtā open because of the heat, his legs and bare feet extended under the low table, he relaxed, and his men sat close around him in the dim light of the desk lamp. It was a milestone, he said, but still they had to go forward, not merely savor their success. Many things were still required to make the temple and guesthouse operative.

Śrīla Prabhupāda was thinking beyond Vṛndāvana. “This temple construction is so important,” he said, “that I’m willing to spend many lakhs to open a temple like this. And yet as important as it is, the book production is even more important.” This was a significant reaffirmation of the priority of book production; even while in the midst of this splendid temple opening, he was stressing that book production was more important.

...

While Śrīla Prabhupāda traveled from Vṛndāvana to Australia, Rāmeśvara and Rādhāvallabha worked in Los Angeles to establish the new BBT offices. Prabhupāda was still meditating on his completed Caitanya-caritāmṛta manuscript waiting to be published. From Australia he wrote,

The Caitanya-caritamrta is complete (12 parts) and only 3 parts are published, and now the 5th Canto is almost finished. So why these books are not being published? This is our first business. Immediately these pending books (17 in total) must all be published. Why the delay? The U.S. printer’s binding is better than Dai Nippon. So, some may be printed in the U.S. and some in Japan, but the pending books must be finished in a very short time. When I see so many books pending, it does not encourage me to translate. When I see books printed, I become encouraged to write more and more. We can talk this over more in Hawaii. Now you and Hansaduta expedite the publishing work. This is your business. And push on the selling. You request Tripurari Maharaja in this connection along with others. Now, Bhavananda Swami and Gargamuni Swami are there. They are also expert in pushing this on. By combined effort, publish as quickly as possible and immediately Caitanya-caritamrta should be done.

Preaching to America: Part 2 (24)

Toronto - August 7, 1975

Rāmeśvara also phoned from Los Angeles, pressing Harikeśa to ask Prabhupāda a list of last-minute editorial questions regarding the Fifth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The questions, however, concerning the Bhāgavatam’s explanation of the structure of the universe, Prabhupāda rejected as unintelligent. He ordered the BBT to simply print the books as they were.

At Home in India (25)

Mauritius, October 24 1975

Śrīla Prabhupāda had said nothing since the (car) accident. Finally he spoke: “Asann api kleśa-da āsa dehaḥ.” And he translated: “As soon as you accept this material body, there are so many difficulties. We were sitting peacefully in the car, and the next moment – crash.” He talked briefly about the collision, and Brahmānanda Swami told how just before the accident Prabhupāda had braced himself with his cane, preventing perhaps more serious injuries.

“Get some resin and turmeric,” Prabhupāda said. “Mix it together with a bit of lye, and heat it.” Prabhupāda was again speaking – Bhāgavata philosophy and practical medical remedies. It remained a frightening event, however, and Prabhupāda asked the devotees to have kīrtana. Kṛṣṇa had saved them, he said. Considering that both cars had been destroyed, the injuries were negligible.

Prabhupāda sat like a battle hero, anointed in three places with the yellow poultice, while Harikeśa read aloud from Caitanya-caritāmṛta – “The Disappearance of Haridāsa Ṭhākura.”

Then Śrīla Prabhupāda began talking about the dangers of traveling, questioning the advisability of his extensive touring. His mission of translating Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and other Vaiṣṇava literature was too important for him to be risking his life traveling in automobiles. He had been considering a visit to Nairobi before returning to Bombay, but now he said he would cancel his visit. He said he had never wanted to leave Bombay, but because they had made so many arrangements in Africa, he had come. Perhaps the accident was a sign that he should go back to India.

The Lame Man and the Blind Man (26)

In November of 1975, Prabhupāda had written to one of the leading book distributors,

The BBT says that they are publishing at the speed of my translating and that you will distribute at the pace of publishing. That’s nice. But still I am ahead in my translation work. They owe me now the sixth canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam. I am working already on the seventh canto.

In recent months, however, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s literary output had been diminishing, mostly because of his involvement in management. His direct supervision of the construction in Bombay, his month-long managerial drive in Vṛndāvana, his struggle to heal a major ISKCON schism – such activities were not conducive to writing. In Māyāpur when the devotees had failed to control the slamming of doors, he had complained bitterly that this “heart-cracking” sound interrupted his meditative translating. He explained that he sometimes thought for two or three days about a single purport before actually writing it.

Actually, the word translating is incomplete in describing Śrīla Prabhupāda’s writing. Translating involved only the verses and synonyms, but Prabhupāda’s deepest meditations – what he referred to as his “personal ecstasies” – were his Bhaktivedanta purports. Composing the purports, as well as translating the verses, came best when he could think about them throughout the day, not just when he turned on his dictating machine at one A.M. He was translating the extremely grave and complex Vedic knowledge into a modern context, thus making it understandable to Western readers. And it was a great, demanding task.

To best speak to the people of the world through his Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam writings, Śrīla Prabhupāda required a very conducive situation. After the Māyāpur festival, therefore, he formulated an itinerary that, in about a month’s time, would bring him to Hawaii. There he expected to find an atmosphere beneficial for his literary work. His traveling secretary, Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami, wrote ahead to Hawaii shortly after the Māyāpur festival.

Hawaii

May 3, 1976

He had been in Honolulu about a week when he announced one morning, walking along Waikiki Beach, that he expected to finish that night the last purport to the Seventh Canto. When Hari-śauri expressed his happiness to hear this, Prabhupāda replied, “Oh, I can finish very quickly, but I have to present it for your understanding. It requires deep thought, very carefully, to present it for the common man.”

That night around nine, Prabhupāda called for Hari-śauri and said that he would not take his evening massage; he wanted the time for finishing the Seventh Canto. Shutting the door and returning to his desk he worked all night until five in the morning. At the end of the Seventh Canto, he dictated a closing remark.

— Completed on the night of Vaiśākhī-śuklā Ekādaśī, the tenth of May, 1976, in the temple of the Pañcatattva, New Navadvīpa (Honolulu), by the mercy of śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda. Thus we may happily chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare / Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.

Immediately Prabhupāda turned to the Eighth Canto, beginning with a prayer: “First of all, let me offer my humble, respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of my spiritual master, His Divine Grace Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Goswami Prabhupāda.” Prabhupāda explained that his spiritual master had instructed him at Rādhā-kuṇḍa in 1935 to stress book production more than temple construction. He had followed that instruction, beginning with his starting Back to Godhead magazine in 1944, and in 1958 he had begun Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. As soon as he had published three volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in India, he had started for the U.S. in August 1965.

I am continuously trying to publish books, as suggested by my spiritual master. Now, in this year, 1976, I have completed the Seventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and a summary of the Tenth Canto has already been published as Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Still, the Eighth Canto, Ninth Canto, Tenth Canto, Eleventh Canto and Twelfth Canto are yet to be published. On this occasion, therefore, I am praying to my spiritual master to give me strength to finish this work. I am neither a great scholar nor a great devotee; I am simply a humble servant of my spiritual master, and to the best of my ability I am trying to please him by publishing these books, with the cooperation of my disciples in America. Fortunately, scholars all over the world are appreciating these publications. Let us cooperatively publish more and more volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam just to please His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura.

Prabhupāda said he was making the Bhāgavatam understandable for the common man. This did not mean his writings were lacking in substance; they were pure substance. But in the essential spirit of the Bhāgavatam itself, Prabhupāda was omitting anything extraneous and distracting, selecting from the commentaries of the previous ācāryas whatever would best impel his readers to pure devotional service. At the beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the author, Śrīla Vyāsadeva, states that the Bhāgavatam excludes all materially motivated forms of religiosity and offers only pure devotional service. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is therefore called the ripened fruit of the tree of Vedic knowledge. And just as the Bhāgavatam is itself the most essential spiritual knowledge, so Śrīla Prabhupāda, in translating and commenting on the Bhāgavatam, utilized the same spirit of delivering the pure message, without any speculation or deviation.

According to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam: Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the source of all incarnations, the cause of all causes. And Prabhupāda revealed this conclusion on every page. Although some Sanskrit scholars disagreed with Prabhupāda’s emphasis on Kṛṣṇa, his “Kṛṣṇa-izing” of the Sanskrit was not whimsical but followed strictly the ancient tradition of paramparā. Overwhelmingly, those university scholars who seriously read Prabhupāda’s books appreciated the faithful quality of his paramparā rendering.

...

The Vedic literature mentions various spiritual paths and forms of yoga, and unless the commentator has realized the highest Vedic conclusion, he can easily miss the essential message of the Bhāgavatam. Indeed, impersonalist commentators have attempted to use the Bhāgavatam to support their speculations that the individual soul is in all respects one with the Supreme – even though this contradicts the purpose of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. As a commentator on the Vedic literature, Śrīla Prabhupāda was distinguished, even among Vaiṣṇava scholars, because of his being in disciplic succession from Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who is glorified as patita-pāvana, the savior of the most fallen. As a follower and empowered representative of Lord Caitanya, Śrīla Prabhupāda was faithfully and perfectly carrying on the tradition of rescuing fallen souls, bringing them back to their original Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Prabhupāda’s making Bhāgavatam’s message “available,” therefore, did not mean mere simplification. It meant urgently addressing the reader to give up the world of illusion and take to the eternal liberation of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Prabhupāda was making available to the average reader spiritual truth that had been hidden and unavailable, even to austere practitioners of yoga and learned brāhmaṇas proficient in Sanskrit. “Old wine in new bottles,” Prabhupāda called it.

The Vaiṣṇava’s arguments against impersonalism had been chalked out by Madhvācārya and Rāmānujācārya and later synthesized by Lord Caitanya into the philosophy of acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, “simultaneous oneness and difference.” These eternal truths had to be presented in every age, but in the traditional debates between the Vaiṣṇavas and the impersonalists, the authoritative basis had always been Vedic scripture.

Modern society, however, was so degraded that a preacher could no longer appeal to the authority of Vedic scripture – no one would accept it. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s writings, therefore, dealt with such theories as the origin of life by chance, Darwinian evolution, and chemical evolution. And he defeated them all with strong logic, establishing that life comes from life, not from dead matter. Prabhupāda had dedicated one of his first books, Easy Journey to Other Planets, to “the scientists of the world,” and had even adapted the Bhagavad-gītā verses quoted in that book into scientific jargon of “matter and antimatter.” Deftly he used both śāstra and logic to establish the Vedic conclusion.

Prabhupāda’s writings also combatted the false teachings of bogus yogīs, gurus, and “incarnations,” who had appeared like a tidal wave of falsity in Kali-yuga, both in India and in the West. His writings criticized modern political institutions also, analyzing why monarchies fell, why democracy was also failing and how dictatorship would increasingly harass the citizens. The governments’ policies of abusive taxation and their propaganda to bring people to the cities to work in the factories, abandoning simple, agrarian life, were all discussed in light of the scriptures.

In his travels, Śrīla Prabhupāda had observed the rampant degradation of human society: sexual liberation, the latest fads in intoxication, and the vicious crimes of animal slaughter and meat-eating. A Bhagavad-gītā purport dealt specifically with the threat of nuclear holocaust.

Such people are considered the enemies of the world because ultimately they will invent or create something which will bring destruction to all. Indirectly, this verse anticipates the invention of nuclear weapons, of which the world is today very proud. At any moment war may take place, and these atomic weapons may create havoc. Such things are created solely for the destruction of the world and this is indicated here. Due to godlessness, such weapons are invented in human society; they are not meant for the peace and prosperity of the world.

Prabhupāda’s criticisms were strong and authoritative, befitting a true ācārya; his uncompromising spirit was appealing. He was not a timid scholar pointing out some obscure historical references. Yet underlying his writing, a humble tone of request spoke to the heart. As the servant of the servant of Kṛṣṇa, he asked everyone to please take up Kṛṣṇa consciousness and be restored to his original, constitutional position of eternity, bliss, and knowledge.

...

On the morning of Prabhupāda’s departure, a few devotees came to his room to make a last attempt, begging him not to travel. He said nothing, though he was obviously set on leaving. His servants were packing his bags and everything was ready to go. Nevertheless, even as he left his room and got on the elevator, a few men followed, still suggesting he not go.

“Prabhupāda, please reconsider,” said Rāmeśvara Swami. Śrīla Prabhupāda had remained jolly so far, despite his physical weakness, and despite his disciples’ pleading. But now his face changed.

“Don’t travel,” one devotee said. And another added, “Just stay. Sit down and rest.”

Prabhupāda turned, and his eyes were very deep. More than ever he seemed not of this material world. “I want the benediction to go on fighting for Kṛṣṇa,” he said, “just like Arjuna.”

Everyone remained silent, and the important instruction burned into their memories. The elevator opened on the main floor and hundreds of waiting devotees chanted and cheered as Śrīla Prabhupāda walked to his car.

Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and Fight (27)

Bombay - January 9, 1977

Suddenly Prabhupāda again began to speak: “There’s a very big conspiracy against us.”

“By the church?” guessed Dr. Patel.

“Not by the church,” said Prabhupāda.

“By the society?”

Prabhupāda uttered a thoughtful “Hmmm,” then added, “Now they are determined to cut down this movement.” He didn’t give any details, and neither Dr. Patel nor the others could fully draw out what was on his mind. Whatever it was, said Dr. Patel, no conspiracy against Kṛṣṇa consciousness could take place in India.

“I wanted to start this movement in India,” Prabhupāda replied. “I requested so many friends, ‘Give me just one son.’ But nobody agreed. They said, ‘Swamiji, what will be the benefit by this if I make my son a Vaiṣṇava or a brāhmaṇa?’ They do not give much importance to the movement. They are planning how to stop this movement in so many ways.”

Always a faithful Indophile, Dr. Patel replied, “The Americans are like that, always making propaganda.”

“There is good and bad in every place,” said Prabhupāda. “Kṛṣṇa says, manuṣyānāṁ sahasreṣu. Out of thousands of persons hardly anyone is interested in perfecting his life. This is Kali-yuga.”

They walked on, and Śrīla Prabhupāda said no more about it, speaking instead of materialistic household life, in which the chief pleasure is sex. Beyond this abominable sex pleasure, he said, was the full satisfaction of spiritual life.

...

When Śrīla Prabhupāda asked for news of ISKCON’s activities in the West, Rāmeśvara gave the latest details of how the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement in America was being attacked in the courts and press as a psychologically dangerous, brainwashing cult. Śrīla Prabhupāda was already aware of this; it was, in fact, the “conspiracy” he had referred to on his morning walk. An anticult movement was now aggressively active and lumping the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement in with other new movements. Śrīla Prabhupāda was well aware of the “deprogrammers’ ” kidnapping of devotees and intensively coercing them, and he had shown that he was not intimidated by the attack. He assured the devotees that Kṛṣṇa would protect them and that the outcome would ultimately be in their favor.

The most significant battle, one that had concerned Śrīla Prabhupāda for several months, was a legal case in New York where the temple president, Ādi-keśava Swami, was being charged with employing mind control to keep the devotees in the temple. The parents of two adult devotees had pressed charges after hired deprogrammers had failed to break the two devotees’ determination for Kṛṣṇa consciousness. In a spirit of anticult crusade, an assistant attorney general was prosecuting, using all legal and governmental facilities at his disposal. Although civil libertarians were outraged and assured the devotees that the opposition could never win, the implications of the case were fearful nevertheless. The case challenged the very right of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement to exist as a bona fide religion and challenged the right of adult devotees to remain in the movement against the wishes of their parents. Also at issue was whether members of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement were members by their own choosing or were being kept in the movement by psychological manipulation, “brainwashing.” When Śrīla Prabhupāda had first heard of this case, his reply in a letter from Vṛndāvana had been like a clarion call to battle against the forces of illusion.

Regarding the point about whether our movement is bona fide, you can use the following arguments. Bhagavad-gita has got so many editions. Our books are older than the Bible. In India there are millions of Kṛṣṇa temples. Let the judges and juries read our books and take the opinion of learned scholars and professors. Regarding the second point about the parents’ jurisdiction over their children, here are some suggestions. Do the parents like that their children become hippies? Why don’t they stop it? Do the parents like their children to become involved in prostitution and intoxication? Why don’t they stop this?

They are now feeling the weight of this movement. Formerly they thought, “These people come and go,” but now they see we are staying. Now we have set fire. It will go on. It cannot be stopped. You can bring big, big fire brigades but the fire will act. The brain-wash books are already there. Even if they stop externally, internally it will go on. Our first-class campaign is book distribution. Go house to house. The real fighting is now. Kṛṣṇa will give you all protection. So, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and fight.

Sitting with Śrīla Prabhupāda in Bombay, Rāmeśvara Swami informed him that a nationwide committee of professors and theologians had come to the defense of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the New York case and that many lawyers and psychologists were sympathetic.

“It is so much mercy from Kṛṣṇa,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda. “Kṛṣṇa wanted all these things to happen. Kṛṣṇa Himself became important when He killed so many demons, not simply by lying down in the lap of mother Yaśodā. When He was on the lap of mother Yaśodā, from that day He began to kill. Therefore Kṛṣṇa established that He was the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So even Kṛṣṇa was not exempted, what to speak of us. Prahlāda Mahārāja was not exempted. As soon as you speak of God, this opposition will come. Jesus Christ was crucified. They are so kind they have not crucified me or my men. But you have to expect all these things. Nityānanda Prabhu was personally injured. Haridāsa Ṭhākura was beaten in twenty-two bazaars. This task is like that.”

“They are getting everyone in America to ask the question, ‘What is Hare Kṛṣṇa?’ ” said Rāmeśvara.

“That is our gain,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda. “They are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.”

“We still have to work very hard to defeat them,” Rāmeśvara added. “Oh, yes,” said Prabhupāda. “That is necessary. You don’t sleep. Never did Kṛṣṇa say to Arjuna, ‘I am your friend. I am God. You sleep here. I’ll do everything.’ No! You must fight! That is wanted. Kṛṣṇa said, ‘You fight, and remember Me. Then I’ll do everything.’ This is an opportunity of remembering Kṛṣṇa always.”

Prabhupāda explained that the greatest shock for the materialists was that the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement strongly opposed illicit sex, meat-eating, and intoxication. To them, for a person to give up these things was so shocking that they could not accept it was happening because of a genuine spiritual experience. Referring to a previous case, Prabhupāda said, “In Germany they also accused that the old man is sitting in Los Angeles, and he has engaged all these boys in collecting money for him. They are thinking that way, that I have some mind control power, and I have engaged these men – they are getting the money and I am enjoying.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda recalled how, as early as 1969, when his temple in Los Angeles had purchased a few cars and the number of devotees had begun increasing, the neighbors had become envious. Prabhupāda said that he had invited them to also come and live in the Kṛṣṇa consciousness community, but that their reply had always been no. Prabhupāda said that the more the opposition created turmoil, the more Kṛṣṇa consciousness would become famous. He also reasoned that people were reacting to his very strong preaching.

“I condemn everyone,” he said, “that they are all dogs and hogs. And the United Nations I called a pack of barking dogs. It’s a fact. And in Chicago I said, ‘All women, you cannot have freedom.’ So I became a subject of great criticism.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda concluded his meeting with Rāmeśvara by saying that the devotees should be very alert and intelligently defend the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement; but they should also understand that a higher principle was operating This opposition indicated the genuineness of ISKCON. Even Kṛṣṇa Himself was sometimes the center of calamitous activities, such as when He fought with Kāliya and other enemies or when, as an infant, He fell into the Yamunā river.

“This is the beauty of Vṛndāvana,” said Prabhupāda. “When Kṛṣṇa entered the Yamunā to fight with Kāliya it was not at all good news for mother Yaśodā, Nanda, the friends and family. Not at all. Their life was lost. But still Kṛṣṇa was the center. This is Vṛndāvana. In everything Kṛṣṇa is in the center. So our situation is just like that. They are making bad propaganda against Kṛṣṇa – this is the opposition – but I am happy that Kṛṣṇa is the center. That’s all. This is the beauty of this movement. Although we are put into some difficulty, yet the center is Kṛṣṇa.”

...

In the afternoon, more devotees gathered in Prabhupāda’s small compartment, and he continued preaching, mostly in reply to points Rāmeśvara Swami raised.

“In regard to brainwashing,” said Rāmeśvara, “they claim that our lifestyle tends to take the devotee and isolate him from the world.”

“Yes,” said Prabhupāda, “we hate to mix with you. No gentleman tries to mix with loafers. Crows will not like to live with the ducks and white swans, and white swans will not like to live with the crows. That is natural division. Birds of the same feather flock together.”

Rāmeśvara: “They have a list of five or six conditions, and they say if all these conditions are present, then it is a suitable atmosphere for brainwashing. They say we are imposing those conditions on our members.”

Prabhupāda: “Yes. We are brainwashing from bad to good. That is our business. We are washing the brain from all rascaldom. Your brain is filled up with all rubbish things – meat-eating, illicit sex, gambling. So we are washing them. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam. Śṛṇvatāṁ sva-kathāḥ kṛṣṇaḥ puṇya-śravaṇa kīrtanaḥ hṛdy antaḥ-stho hy abhadrāṇi. Abhadrāṇi means ‘bad things.’ So the bad things should be washed. Don’t you cleanse your home? Don’t you cleanse your room? Is that brainwashing? So if you wash your room very clean, who blames you? But you are so rascal that you charge us, ‘Why are you washing away this garbage?’ We are washing out the garbage, and you are protesting. This is your intelligence. But intelligent men wash away the garbage. That is the law of civilization, to cleanse. That we are doing.

“According to Vedic civilization you are actually untouchable. Now we have come to touch you. Therefore wash – first you must wash. According to Indian civilization the dog is untouchable, but he is your best friend. So you are untouchable. Therefore, we have to wash your brain. Unless your brain is washed, you cannot understand Kṛṣṇa. Man is known by his company. You sleep with dog, you eat with dog, your best friend is dog, so what you are? You must be washed, scrubbed.”

Rāmeśvara: “But this is their argument, that the standard in America is that you become learned in different fields – science, music, art, and literature. This standard of culture and education is coming from the idea of the Renaissance in Europe. But in our Hare Kṛṣṇa movement we are isolating ourselves from these things and simply reading one set of literature – Kṛṣṇa.”

Prabhupāda: “This other is not culture. As soon as you change, that means it is not culture. It is mano-dharma, mental concoction. Yes, we want to stop your nonsense. That is our mission. Those who are intelligent, they have taken. And you also take.”

Rāmeśvara raised the objection that Kṛṣṇa conscious children are not prepared to go to public schools and universities, and Śrīla Prabhupāda replied that they were being saved.

“But what if they want to change later in their life?” asked Rāmeśvara.

“They have become Kṛṣṇa conscious from the very beginning,” Prabhupāda replied. “That is the perfection of life. They are perfect from the very beginning of their life. And you are going to school in the college, but you are becoming most uncivilized – like cats and dogs, becoming naked and having sex on the street. So what is the value of that education? Stop all these colleges and universities. As soon as they are stopped, it is better for human beings.”

Rāmeśvara: “They say that if we claim our members are gentlemen, they why is it that they go to the airport and bother so many people?”

Prabhupāda: “They are not bothering. They are educating. When a thief is advised, ‘Kindly do not become a thief,’ he takes it as botheration. But it is good advice.”

Rāmeśvara: “They say it is invasion of privacy. Every man has the right to think the way he wants.”

Prabhupāda: “Yes. Therefore I have got the right to think like this and sell books.”

Rāmeśvara: “So if I do not want to hear your philosophy, why do you impose it?”

Prabhupāda: “It is not imposing. It is good philosophy. We are canvassing: ‘Take it. You will be benefited.’ And they are being benefited. Those who are reading, they are being benefited. And why are you advertising – big, big signboards: ‘Please come and purchase’? Hmm? Why are you imposing your so-called goodness on us? Why you are doing?”

Back and forth the battle went, hour after hour, Rāmeśvara unleashing all the arguments against the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, and Śrīla Prabhupāda defeating them. Prabhupāda called the arguments “childish” and “foolish,” and he strongly criticized the materialistic demeanor from which they sprang. By śāstra and logic he proved that the nondevotee has no good qualities and is less than an animal because of his lack of God consciousness. Such a person, he said, was in no position to criticize, and such criticisms only showed ignorance of the real purpose of human life.

...

“Very often,” Rāmeśvara said, “they will say, ‘It is not religion that we are concerned with, but it is brainwashing and mind control. You are chanting so many hours a day… ’ ”

“What is it to you!” Prabhupāda interrupted sharply. “That is my business. Why do you bother yourself?”

Rāmeśvara: “But you are not giving these young people a chance to think when they chant for so many hours.”

Prabhupāda: “You are thieves. You are coming to kidnap. Why shall I give you a chance? They are chanting, but you are charging brainwash. You ask them don’t chant – that is your business. But that you cannot do.”

Rāmeśvara: “But they say that takes away freedom to think.”

Prabhupāda: “That is controversy. But you want to take his freedom, and still you are accusing us.”

Prabhupāda said that first there should be a test of what is genuine religion. “We say,” said Prabhupāda, “that the law given by God is religion. And it does not matter what name is given to God. If we say ‘Kṛṣṇa,’ that does not mean that He is not God. So before there is a challenge to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, there should be an assembly discussion and decision as to what is genuine religion. We say that God is one, and whatever He has given as law, that is religion.”

Rāmeśvara: “But the Christians say that according to the Bible, if God wanted us to believe in Kṛṣṇa, He would have told us on Mount Sinai, and He would have told us through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, ‘I am the only way.’ ”

Prabhupāda: “That’s all right. But Jesus Christ did not explain more to you because you are rascals. You cannot follow even his one instruction, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ It is not the foolishness of Jesus Christ. But because you are so rascal, you cannot understand him. Therefore he avoided you rascals. Because whatever he said, you cannot follow. So what you will understand? Therefore he stopped speaking.”

Rāmeśvara: “They also say that you are ruining family life.”

Prabhupāda: “That’s all right. We are entering Kṛṣṇa’s family.”

Hari-śauri: “But if you are actually followers of God, why are you breaking up the families? Shouldn’t you have love for everyone?”

Rāmeśvara: “One of the commandments is that one shall honor thy father and mother.”

Prabhupāda replied that a devotee loves his mother and father by teaching them Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Hari-śauri: “My mother testified to that. When I was at home she said I was impossible to live with. When she saw me afterwards, I was very nice.”

Prabhupāda: “Many. Hayagrīva’s father and mother also.”

Rāmeśvara: “My parents think like that too. I could have no relationship with them before, but now that I am a devotee, I actually want to help them.”

Prabhupāda: “There are so many fathers and mothers who appreciate. None of our disciples are disrespectful to mother and father. Why? I never said you become disrespectful to your father and mother. At Brahmānanda’s initiation, his mother was standing there and I instructed Brahmānanda, ‘Take the dust of your mother’s feet first, then you offer me obeisances.’ So first of all he offered his obeisances to his mother. I told him, ‘You have got good mother. Otherwise, how she has got a son like you?’ I always say like that. I never say disrespect. In a particular case, if the father and mother are demons, he must give up their association. But we never said break up the family.”

Rāmeśvara: “I think we’ve used up all our arguments.”

Prabhupāda (still eager to argue): “First of all you said that we are depriving of food. Where is this?”

Rāmeśvara: “Yes, this is their argument, that we only let devotees eat twice a day. And there is no meat and very little protein.”

Prabhupāda: “That depends on him. If he likes to eat that kind of food, you have no right to force. Then you are turning to force. There are different persons, and they like different types of food. If he likes twice a day, why do you insist thrice? That is his choice.”

Rāmeśvara: “And sleeping only four or five hours – very little.”

Prabhupāda: “Yes, because it is a waste of time.”

Rāmeśvara: “But this makes his mind very weak.”

Prabhupāda: “You rascal! You have nothing to do – you sleep! Napoleon used to sleep for one hour, two hours – he was such a busy man. So they are so busy in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Every great man does not sleep very much. Sleeping is simply a waste of time. If he does not sleep more, it is a sign of greatness.”

When Rāmeśvara Swami argued that the opposition has psychologists to testify against us, Prabhupāda replied, “We have got our psychologists.”

After talking all afternoon and into the night, Prabhupāda told the devotees to rest. At ten P.M. he lay down, and Hari-śauri massaged his legs. “Actually,” Śrīla Prabhupāda concluded, “their arguments are not very sound. Therefore it is simply a plan of Kṛṣṇa’s to help give us some prominence. It will make us more well known.” Opposition, he said, was just an opportunity to preach. But to deal properly with the legal cases and other serious opposition, the devotees would have to know how to preach. And they would have to be spiritually strong. He was readying his men, speaking to them day and night on the twenty-four-hour train ride to Allahabad.

January 18, 1977

...

Again, Prabhupāda referred to the upcoming New York court case. “At least tell them to read our books,” he said. “This is our statement. Our defense is that you first of all read these books and then give your statement. Finish this, and then give your judgment. Give them all these eighty-four books!”

Śrīla Prabhupāda became excited by the thought of the judges and lawyers reading all his books. He was completely serious, and he insisted the devotees get the authorities to read the books as legal evidences. Śrīla Prabhupāda continued, “Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-dharmān parityajya, ‘Surrender to Me and give up all other religion.’ Now the question may arise, ‘Why we shall surrender?’ Then you can argue and go on for three years. The whole thing will come out: What is God? What is creation? What is your position? Why you should surrender? And so on, and so on, so on. What do you think?”

“Yes, we should introduce the books as much as possible,” said Satsvarūpa. “I’ll write a letter to New York and tell them to emphasize this.”

“Bring all these books in the court,” Prabhupāda said. “One time in Calcutta there was a big lawyer named Mr. Ghosh. So on one case he brought so many books for argument. The judges were friends, so they very mildly criticized him, ‘Oh, Mr. Ghosh, you have brought the whole library?’ ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Mr. Ghosh, ‘just to teach you law.’ ” Śrīla Prabhupāda laughed and repeated, “ ‘Yes, my lord, just to teach you law.’ ”

Prabhupāda wanted his disciples to apply the same logic in the New York case. If the judge objected and said, “Why have you brought so many books to bother me?” the devotees should reply, “You have to hear. It may take twelve years to hear, but you have to hear. This is the law.” It sounded difficult, but the devotees knew they would have to try. This was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s specific instruction for handling the case.

“We have to say,” said Prabhupāda, “we never tried to brainwash. We have done exactly according to śāstra, authority. Here is the evidence. We have not manufactured anything. So they must read all the books. I think you should take defense in that way.”

“Our defense statement is already written in your books,” said Hari-śauri. “Certain sections?” asked Satsvarūpa. “Or should we say that they have to read all the books?”

Prabhupāda shouted, “All! Line to line. Our defense is eighty-four volumes.”

“But they’ll say,” said Gurukṛpā Swami, “ ‘If we read all these books, we’ll become brainwashed too.’ ”

“That is my duty,” said Prabhupāda, “ – you are trying to brainwash me, and I am trying to brainwash you. This is going on. That is the tussle. It is wrestling. You are trying your strength. I am trying my strength. Otherwise, where is there fight? You have got right to not agree with me. I have got right to not agree with you. Now let us settle.”

...

Māyāpur - February 7, 1977

One morning just after breakfast, Prabhupāda was on his veranda looking out across the land of Māyāpur. Turning to Hari-śauri, he said, “Actually it does not matter even if I die immediately. I have given the basis for everything, and now if they simply manage things nicely and follow whatever programs I have begun, then everything will be successful.” Hari-śauri was disturbed to hear such statements, and he remained speechless. Then Prabhupāda added, “But still I would like to finish this Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.”

...

Almost two weeks later, while Śrīla Prabhupāda was still in Māyāpur, the news of the New York court decision appeared on the front page of The Times of India. On receiving it, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami immediately brought a copy to Prabhupāda in his room and, at Prabhupāda’s request, read it out loud.

HARE KRISHNA MOVEMENT IS BONA FIDE RELIGION

Washington, March 18

The Hare Krishna movement was called a “bona fide religion” yesterday by the New York High Court Justice who threw out two charges against the officials of the movement of “illegal imprisonment” and “attempted extortion.” The charge had been preferred by an angry parent that his son, as well as another disciple, had been held by the movement illegally and that they had been brainwashed. “The entire and basic issue before the court,” said the Justice in dismissing the charges, “is whether the two alleged victims in this case and the defendants will be allowed to practice the religion of their choice and this must be answered with a resounding affirmative.” Said Mr. Justice John Leahy, “the Hare Krishna movement is a bona fide religion with roots in India that go back thousands of years. It behooved Merril Kreshower and Edward Shapiro to follow the tenets of that faith and their inalienable right to do so will not be trampled upon. The separation of church and state must be maintained. We must remain a nation of laws, not of man. The presentment and indictment by the Grand Jury was in direct and blatant violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights.” The Justice said that it appeared to the court, “The people rest their case on an erroneous minor premise to arrive at a fallacious conclusion. The record is devoid of one specific allegation of a misrepresentation or any act of deception on the part of any defendant.” The Justice said, “The freedom of religion is not to be abridged because it is unconventional in beliefs and practices or because it is approved or disapproved by the mainstream of society or more conventional religions. Without this proliferation and freedom to follow the dictates of one’s own conscience in this search of approach to God, the freedom of religion will be a meaningless right as provided for in the constitution. In the attempt, be it direct, well intentioned or not, presents a clear and present danger to this most fundamental basis and eternally needed right of our citizens – freedom of religion.” The Hare Krishna movement has been under pressure from various groups and this judgment is expected to stop some of the harassment in which it has been subjected in recent months.

“My mission is now successful,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda. “In 1965 I went there. This is now recognized after twelve years. I was loitering in the street alone, carrying the books. Nobody cared.”

Svarūpa Dāmodara was present, and he spoke with Prabhupāda about the Bhaktivedanta Institute and about preaching in Manipur. And other matters came before Prabhupāda’s attention. But he kept coming back to the news from New York. “Our most auspicious sign is this,” said Prabhupāda, “ – ‘Hare Krishna Movement Is Bona Fide Religion.’ ”

...

Śrīla Prabhupāda continued declaring that Kṛṣṇa was the most wonderful and could do anything. That he was alive and still active, he said, attested to Kṛṣṇa’s being wonderful. “If Kṛṣṇa is not wonderful,” he said, “is it possible for me to do all these things? Who am I? We don’t want to become cheaply wonderful. We want to become really wonderful, by serving Kṛṣṇa. That is our mission. Kṛṣṇa is wonderful undoubtedly. Who can become more wonderful than Kṛṣṇa? Mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat. Always remember, Kṛṣṇa is wonderful. Don’t take Kṛṣṇa very slightly, like one of you. That is foolishness. Kṛṣṇa is wonderful always. He is the most wonderful person, and He can do anything wonderful.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda continued to make appreciative remarks about the judge’s decision. He said he had feared the case might have taken fourteen years, and yet it had not even taken fourteen hours. Kṛṣṇa was so wonderful.

“I Have Done My Part” (28)

When an American hippie had questioned him skeptically, Prabhupāda had replied, “You cannot understand, because you are crazy.” And when a lady had put forward materialistic welfare work as the highest good, Prabhupāda had replied, “Your compassion is as valuable as blowing on a boil to heal it.”

...

Back in Vṛndāvana:

“Because they love you,” said Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, “I am sure they - all the G.B.C. men from all over the world - will all want to come and be with you.”

“Your love for me,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda, “will be shown by how much you cooperate to keep this institution together after I am gone.”

...

Satsvarūpa next asked about the BBT. “At present,” he said, “no translated works are to be published without your seeing and approving them. So the question is, is there any system for publishing works in the future, works that you may not see?”

“That we have to examine expertly,” Prabhupāda replied. He accepted the principle that future works could be translated from Sanskrit, but he cautioned, “But amongst my disciples, I don’t think there are many who can translate properly.”

“Therefore, Śrīla Prabhupāda,” said Kīrtanānanda Swami, “we think that you cannot leave us very soon.”

“I don’t want to,” said Prabhupāda, “but I am obliged. What can I do?”

“If you don’t want, then Kṛṣṇa won’t want,” said Kīrtanānanda.

Śrīla Prabhupāda went on to describe the special qualifications for translating Sanskrit Vaiṣṇava literature. It would take a realized soul, he said. “Otherwise, simply by imitating, A-B-C-D, it will not help. My purports are liked by people because it is presented as practical experience. It cannot be done unless one is realized.”

“It is not a matter of scholarship,” added Bhagavān.

“Lord Caitanya says,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda, “āmāra ājñāya guru. One who can understand the order of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, he can become guru. Or one who understands his guru’s order in paramparā, he can become guru. And therefore I shall select some of you.”

By repeating himself, Prabhupāda emphasized his point – he would select who would be guru. And he also repeated his other point: “So there is no question of changing G.B.C. Rather, one who is competent, he can be selected to add by the vote of G.B.C.”

“Of course, if someone falls away,” Tamāla Kṛṣṇa proposed, “just like in the past G.B.C. men have fallen down …”

“They should be replaced,” said Prabhupāda. “They must be all ideal ācārya. In the beginning we have done for working. But now we should be very cautious. Anyone who is deviating, he can be replaced.”

...

July was a good month for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s work on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. He continued dictating very early in the morning and in the afternoon, completing chapters Eight and Nine of the Tenth Canto. It was his great pleasure to do so. Working on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, he was completely transcendental to his physical condition, despite the accompanying heart palpitations and despite his faint voice and general weakness. Even to sit was difficult, and yet once he began working, nothing could stop him.

Speaking into the hand microphone of his dictating machine, oblivious to his bodily condition, Prabhupāda described patiently and methodically how Nanda Mahārāja’s family priest, Gargamuni, performed the name-giving ceremony for baby Kṛṣṇa. In his purports, Śrīla Prabhupāda often spoke from his personal experiences and realizations.

This is the mission of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and devotees also have the same mission. One who executes this mission of para-upakāra, performing welfare activities for people in general, is recognized by Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as being very, very dear to Him (na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya kṛttamaḥ). Similarly, Caitanya Mahāprabhu has advised this para-upakāra, and He has especially instructed the inhabitants of India. On the whole, the duty of a pure Vaiṣṇava devotee is to act for the welfare of others.

Sometimes sitting in the predawn open air on the second-floor veranda and sometimes in the humid heat of bright afternoon, Śrīla Prabhupāda worked, describing the limitless Vedic knowledge, just as his predecessors, the Gosvāmīs and Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, had done when worshiping Kṛṣṇa and Lord Caitanya while living in Vṛndāvana. Śrīla Prabhupāda, however, was the first great ācārya to make Kṛṣṇa conscious literature available to persons of all countries throughout the world, regardless of birth status or previous character. Even as he composed the latest chapters of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, thousands of young men and women were working on his behalf to preach the Vedic message to the world. His disciples were, in fact, keenly aware of how Śrīla Prabhupāda was producing the Tenth Canto purports in Vṛndāvana, and they prayed to Lord Kṛṣṇa that he be allowed to continue for many years, so that he could complete the entire Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

In explaining the infant pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa, Śrīla Prabhupāda described an entirely transcendental mode of consciousness, beyond material designations of babyhood or old age.

All these pastimes of Kṛṣṇa, and the great enjoyment exhibited by the mothers, are transcendental; nothing about them is material. They are described in Brahma-saṁhitā as ānanda-cinmaya-rasa. In the spiritual world there is anxiety, there is crying, and there are other feelings similar to those of the material world, but because the reality of these feelings is in the transcendental world, of which this world is only an imitation, mother Yaśodā and Rohiṇī enjoyed them transcendentally.

Śrīla Prabhupāda was now rendering a particularly sweet part of Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes, and with relish he described Kṛṣṇa’s stealing butter and feeding it to the monkeys and His showing the universal form to mother Yaśodā. In describing how the vision of Kṛṣṇa’s universal form was beyond mother Yaśodā’s comprehension, Śrīla Prabhupāda shed light on all incomprehensible situations – including his own.

She [mother Yaśodā] could do nothing but offer obeisances to the Lord. One should not try to understand the supreme cause by argument or reasoning. When we are beset by some problem for which we can find no reason, there is no alternative than to surrender to the Supreme Lord and offer Him our respectful obeisances. Then our position will be secure. This was the means adopted in this instance also by mother Yaśodā. Whatever happens, the original cause is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. When the immediate cause cannot be ascertained, let us simply offer our obeisances at the lotus feet of the Lord. Mother Yaśodā concluded that the wonderful things she saw in the mouth of her child were due to Him, although she could not clearly ascertain the cause.

Śrīla Prabhupāda made deep and joyful appreciations of the pure devotion of mother Yaśodā for baby Kṛṣṇa, and he described her as the emblem of all pure devotees of the Lord, especially the residents of Vṛndāvana, who love the Lord in spontaneous affection. “The pure devotees who inhabit Vṛndāvana,” he wrote, “do not possess any bodily conception.” Such pure devotees were fully dedicated to the service of the Lord in sublime affection, prema. This had been described by Lord Caitanya, he said, as the highest perfection of life, pure love in relationship with Kṛṣṇa. “And mother Yaśodā,” Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote, “appears to be the topmost of all the devotees to have attained this perfection.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda was concerned that what he wrote be published and distributed; it was his service to his Guru Mahārāja. And he received great satisfaction in hearing that book distribution was still expanding all over the world. Harikeśa Swami, the G.B.C. of Northern and Eastern Europe, reported that he was printing a very large quantity of books in thirteen languages. After hearing only the beginning of this report, Śrīla Prabhupāda exclaimed, “All the blessings of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Mahārāja on you! You are the most important grandson of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. Go on doing like this.”

Kṛṣṇa’s Great Soldier (29)

Śrīla Prabhupāda looked forward to traveling to America shortly after Janmāṣṭamī, which would fall on September 6, two weeks from the date of his arrival in England. “I want to live a little longer,” he said, “to make everything more perfect.”

“Will you do this by enthusing the devotees by staying with them,” asked Tamāla Kṛṣṇa, “or is there a specific program?”

“A specific program,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda. “I want to introduce varṇāśrama. At our Pennsylvania farm, the biggest problem of life is solved: food.”

At Home in Vṛndāvana (30)

When Harikeśa had received the call to come immediately to Vṛndāvana, he had been told to “expect the worst.” Immediately he contacted his printer, who was in the process of completing several books, and told him that he must have advance copies by the next day. So by the time he got on the plane for India, he had newly printed volumes of the Second Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in German, the Kṛṣṇa trilogy in German, and a Yugoslavian Śrī Īśopaniṣad. But when he arrived at Śrīla Prabhupāda’s door in Vṛndāvana, a devotee told him he could not bring the books to Śrīla Prabhupāda now. “Why not?” Harikeśa asked.

“This is not the kind of mood we are trying to create here,” the devotee explained.

“What? Are you crazy?” exclaimed Harikeśa. “Books are Prabhupāda’s life and soul!” He went in and showed Prabhupāda the seven new books. Immediately Prabhupāda took the first volume of the Kṛṣṇa trilogy and held it up, looking at the cover painting of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda began crying and reached out, trying to stroke Harikeśa’s head. Harikeśa reached out and held Śrīla Prabhupāda’s hand, thinking himself unworthy of being patted.

“He was rotting here, typewriting,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda, referring to when Harikeśa had been his secretary, just before going to preach in Europe. “I said, ‘You go.’ I had ten servants. You thought that I was degrading you by sending you away. No. Now you understand?”

“Yes, I understand,” said Harikeśa, sobbing.

“Here is an intelligent boy, I thought,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda. “Why should he rot here, typewriting?” Prabhupāda looked at each book. “Printing and everything is first class,” he said. He asked how many had been printed, and Harikeśa replied, “One hundred twenty thousand Kṛṣṇa trilogies, sixty thousand Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Second Cantos, and ten thousand Īśopaniṣads.”

“Can you distribute that Īśopaniṣad?” Prabhupāda asked. Harikeśa assured him that they could definitely distribute the book in Yugoslavia.

“Then print more,” said Prabhupāda. They continued discussing book production. Books were indeed Śrīla Prabhupāda’s life and soul. From Harikeśa’s entering with the new books, Prabhupāda had felt a profound ecstasy that had spread to Harikeśa and all the devotees present. Everyone was keenly aware that what they were experiencing was transcendental, a special reciprocation with Śrīla Prabhupāda, and as long as they were sincere it would not die.

“Now you just have to become better,” said Harikeśa. “More healthy.”

“Healthy?” said Śrīla Prabhupāda. “I have nothing to do with this body.”

...

They kept returning to the unpleasant but unavoidable realization that Prabhupāda would very soon leave them. With Prabhupāda so clearly indicating that he had decided to definitely leave, the devotees were becoming despondent. At best, a solemn mood prevailed.

Then Śrīla Prabhupāda said they should consult Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja, a disciple of Prabhupāda’s sannyāsa-guru, for details on how to conduct the ceremony for a departed Vaiṣṇava. He also described where his samādhi should be located and asked that after his departure, a feast be served in all the main temples in Vṛndāvana, with ISKCON bearing the expense. On one level, everything seemed to go on as usual. The October weather was very pleasant. The gurukula boys were continuing with their routine, and the Deity worship went on as usual. But in front of the temple, workmen began clearing a space for Prabhupāda’s samādhi.

The Final Lesson (31)

Śrīla Prabhupāda had deferred the lessons in dying in favor of giving his disciples an unparalleled opportunity to serve him in pure and simple love. And he allowed this not only for a few, but for whoever came to Vṛndāvana. Many came, and all were allowed to enter Śrīla Prabhupāda’s room, massage his body, and sit with him as long as they liked, day and night, chanting the holy name for his pleasure. Śrīla Prabhupāda also recommenced his translating, and this was done openly. Whereas previously he had always worked in solitude, he now encouraged all devotees to come as he lay in bed dictating his Bhaktivedanta purports.

...

One day Prabhupāda’s sister Pisimā arrived unexpectedly, and Prabhupāda asked her to cook kicharī. At that time Kīrtanānanda was trying to put Prabhupāda on the road to recovery by gradually increasing his liquids, and Kīrtanānanda and the other devotees opposed the idea of his suddenly eating solid foods. But Śrīla Prabhupāda insisted.

“It doesn’t matter whether what she cooks does good to me or bad,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda. “She is a Vaiṣṇavī. It will be good for me.” He then began speaking in an extremely humble way. “Probably I became a little puffed up because of my opulence and success,” he said. “Now God has shattered that pride. If you don’t have your body, what is there to be puffed up about?”

Bhakti-caru Swami protested, “Śrīla Prabhupāda, whatever you have done, you have done for Kṛṣṇa.”

“That may be, but in this world, unknowingly you commit offenses.”

When Pisimā heard this, she exclaimed, “No, no, he never committed any offense.”

“You cannot ever commit offenses,” said Bhakti-caru. “You are God’s very dear one. How can you commit offenses?”

“I am a little temperamental,” said Śrīla Prabhupāda. “I used to use words like rascal and so on. I never compromised. They used to call it ‘A club in one hand and a Bhāgavatam in the other.’ That is how I preach. Anyway, make arrangements for my sister.”

There were also visits from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Godbrothers, and again Prabhupāda asked forgiveness for his offenses. One time, Niṣkiñcana Kṛṣṇadāsa Bābājī, Purī Mahārāja, Āśrama Mahārāja, Ānanda Prabhu, Puruṣottama Brahmacārī, and about twenty others came and sat next to Prabhupāda’s bed. He was resting when they arrived, and they joined the kīrtana until he awoke. When he saw them, he asked to be raised up. Sitting in the center of his bed with his Godbrothers all around, he addressed them.

“All over the world there is a beautiful field to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness,” he said. “I didn’t care whether I would be successful or not. People are willing to take. They are all taking also. If we preach together, the saying of Mahāprabhu, pṛthivīte, will come true. We have everything. Spread the holy name and distribute prasādam. There is a beautiful field. In Africa, in Russia, everywhere they’re accepting.”

When Prabhupāda began asking his Godbrothers to forgive him, they protested. “You are the eternal leader,” one of them asserted. “You rule over us, guide us, and chastise us.”

“Forgive all my offenses,” Prabhupāda repeated. “I became proud of all my opulence.”

“No,” said Purī Mahārāja, “you never became proud. When you started preaching, opulence and success followed you. That was the blessing of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Śrī Kṛṣṇa. There cannot be any question of your being offensive.”

When Śrīla Prabhupāda presented himself as mahā-patita, greatly fallen, Purī Mahārāja did not accept it. “You have saved millions of people around the world,” he said. “Therefore there is no question of offenses. But you should be called mahā-patita-pāvana [the great savior of the fallen].”

Prabhupāda’s disciples regarded Prabhupāda’s asking for his Godbrothers’ forgiveness as a manifestation of his humility. But they were also puzzled. Certainly Prabhupāda’s Godbrothers were sincere in saying Prabhupāda had committed no offense. Whatever he had done, he had done for Kṛṣṇa. But Śrīla Prabhupāda was also sincere in asking for forgiveness. That was the beautiful gem of his humility – to ask everyone for forgiveness.

For the purpose of preaching, displaying this gem had not always been the most effective way to spread the merciful teachings of Lord Kṛṣṇa in every town and village. But now it could be displayed. In London and now in Vṛndāvana, Prabhupāda was showing his disciples extra affection and gratitude, without the reprimands usually necessary in training disciples. This attitude of complete humility was a symptom of the highest stage of devotional life. Śrīla Prabhupāda had explained in his books that the madhyama-adhikārī, the second-class devotee, makes distinctions between the devotees, the innocent nondevotees, and the demons, whereas the mahā-bhāgavata, or first-class devotee, sees everyone – except himself – as a servant of God. Sometimes, however, the mahā-bhāgavata desires to come down from the first-class platform to the second-class platform, just to take up the most compassionate service of preaching Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Prabhupāda’s disciples had all read of the mahā-bhāgavata stage in the scriptures, and now they were seeing it fully displayed, as Prabhupāda referred to himself as the most fallen and asked for everyone’s forgiveness.

...

On November 14, 1977, at 7:30 P.M., in his room at the Krishna-Balaram Mandir in Vṛndāvana, Śrīla Prabhupāda gave his final instruction by leaving this mortal world and going back to Godhead.

His departure was exemplary, because his whole life was exemplary. His departure marked the completion of a lifetime of pure devotional service to Kṛṣṇa. A few days before the end, Śrīla Prabhupāda had said he was instructing as far as he could, and his secretary had added, “You are the inspiration.” “Yes,” Śrīla Prabhupāda had replied, “that I shall do until the last breathing.”

Prabhupāda’s “last breathing” was glorious, not because of any last-minute mystical demonstration, but because Śrīla Prabhupāda remained in perfect Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Like grandfather Bhīṣmadeva, he remained completely collected and noble and grave, teaching until the end. He was preaching that life comes from life, not from matter, and he was showing that one should preach with every breath he has. The many devotees who crowded the large room bore witness that up to the very end, Prabhupāda remained exactly the same. There was nothing suddenly incongruous with what he had previously shown and taught them. At the time of his departure, therefore, he was teaching how to die, by always depending on Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda’s passing away was peaceful. During the evening of November 14, the kavirāja asked him, “Is there anything you want?” and Prabhupāda replied faintly, kuch icchā nahīṁ: “I have no desire.” His passing away was in the perfect situation: in Vṛndāvana, with devotees. A few months previously, a young girl, the daughter of one of Prabhupāda’s disciples, had passed away in Vṛndāvana, and when Śrīla Prabhupāda had been asked if she went back to Godhead to personally associate with Kṛṣṇa, he had said, “Yes, anyone who leaves his body in Vṛndāvana is liberated.”

Of course, “Vṛndāvana” also means the state of pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As Advaita Ācārya had said of Lord Caitanya, “Wherever You are is Vṛndāvana.” And this was also true of Śrīla Prabhupāda. Had Śrīla Prabhupāda passed away in London, New York, or Moscow, therefore, his destination would have been the same. As Lord Kṛṣṇa states in the Bhagavad-gītā, “One who is always thinking of Me, surely he attains to Me.” But because Vṛndāvana-dhāma is the quintessential realm of Kṛṣṇa consciousness within the universe, the ideal place for departure from this world, so it was yet another exemplary feature of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s life that he went back to Godhead with Vṛndāvana as his last junction.

Those Vaiṣṇavas who had taken the vow never to risk leaving Vṛndāvana could see that Śrīla Prabhupāda, after sacrificing everything – including the benefit of residing in Vṛndāvana – to deliver fallen souls in the most godforsaken locations of the world, had returned to the holy land of Vṛndāvana and from there had departed for the original abode of Lord Kṛṣṇa in the spiritual sky. As stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, “Anyone who executes service in Vṛndāvana certainly goes back to home, back to Godhead, after giving up his body.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s departure was also perfect because he was chanting and hearing the holy names of God. Thus the Supreme Personality of Godhead was present at Śrīla Prabhupāda’s passing just as He was at the celebrated passing away of Bhīṣmadeva, who said, “Despite His being equally kind to everyone, He has graciously come before me while I am ending my life, for I am His unflinching servitor.” As Lord Kṛṣṇa came before Bhīṣmadeva, assuring him and everyone else that Bhīṣma was returning back to Godhead on leaving his body, so the Lord in His incarnation of namāvatāra, the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, was present for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s departure.

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s life had been dedicated to spreading the holy name to every town and village, and for a month he had been surrounding himself with the holy name. For his passing away, he especially wanted to fill the room with devotees chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa fulfilled that wish. Śrīla Prabhupāda, therefore, departed under the most favorable circumstances possible – in the most sacred place, Vṛndāvana, surrounded by Vaiṣṇavas chanting the holy name.

An ideal spiritual teacher (ācārya) always acts in such a way that others may follow his example. As Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam states, these great souls who cross over the ocean of birth and death by taking shelter of the “boat” of the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa miraculously leave the boat on this side for others to use. And Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disappearance, by its perfect example, affords all conditioned souls the means for meeting the greatest of all dangers. An auspicious death is not merely a matter of psychological adjustment, so that one may die without regret or without becoming unduly upset. The real point is that at the time of death the soul must leave the body and take his next birth. Only the Kṛṣṇa conscious soul can leave this world of birth and death and attain an eternal, blissful life in the spiritual world. Therefore one’s life is tested at death.

Death means the soul cannot stand to live in the body anymore. Whatever the material cause may be, the situation has become unbearable for the soul. And leaving the body causes great distress. The śāstras, therefore, advise us to get free from the cycle of repeated birth and death. Meeting an inauspicious death and being dragged down to a lower birth is the most fearful thing for the living being. So fearful is it that we may try to ignore death altogether. Death is painful because the eternal spirit soul is placed in a most unnatural situation: although he is eternal and should not have to die, he is forced to die because of his connection with the material body. At death, the eternal soul is forced to leave the body for a destination he knows not. Thus he is full of fear and suffering. The pain and fear are usually overwhelming, and one thinks only of material attachments or bodily pain. Therefore King Kulaśekhara prayed, and Prabhupāda often quoted, “Please let me pass away, not in some prolonged contemplation of my bodily death, but just while I’m chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. If I can meditate on You and then pass from this body, that will be perfection.”

Over the last months of his life in this world, Śrīla Prabhupāda taught how it is possible to meet death step by step in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. In his last days, he told one of his sannyāsīs, “Don’t think this isn’t going to happen to you.” Prabhupāda came into this world, on Kṛṣṇa’s request, to teach us how to live a pure life of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and that includes how to finally pass away from this world to attain eternal life. Prabhupāda underwent death in a way that was perfect and glorious, and at the same time in a way which we can all follow. When we have to go, we can cling to the memory of how a great soul left his body – always thinking of Kṛṣṇa, surrounding himself with the medicine of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, always desiring to hear about Kṛṣṇa, and practicing detachment from the misery of the material condition. This last lesson was one of the most wonderful and important instructions Śrīla Prabhupāda gave us. He taught

by his life,
by his books, and
at the end by his dying.

Education in how to die is meant especially for the human being. An animal dies, and a human being also dies; but a human being is supposed to understand the process of going back to the spiritual world at the time of death. Remaining always fixed and undisturbed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, Śrīla Prabhupāda expertly taught the process. His passing away, therefore, was a perfect lesson, and one that can be faithfully followed.

While there was nothing lamentable for Śrīla Prabhupāda in his departing from the world and going back to Godhead, it was certainly lamentable for his followers and for the people of the whole world, who became bereft of the presence of their greatest well-wisher and benefactor. Śrīla Prabhupāda had written in a Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam purport, “When the mortal body of the spiritual master expires, the disciple should cry exactly like the queen cries when the king leaves his body.” At the departure of his own spiritual master, Śrīla Prabhupāda had written, “On that day, O my Master, I made a cry of grief; I was not able to tolerate the absence of you, my guru.” And so on November 14, 1977, as the powerful news spread around the world, those who knew and loved Śrīla Prabhupāda were gripped by a fearful, unrestricted grief. They saw everything around them in the overwhelming atmosphere of separation from Śrīla Prabhupāda. They turned for solace to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books.

However, the disciples and the spiritual master are never separated, because the spiritual master always keeps company with the disciple, as long as the disciple follows the instructions of the spiritual master. This is called the association of vāṇī. Physical presence is called vapuḥ.

As long as the spiritual master is physically present, the disciple should serve the physical body of the spiritual master, and
when the spiritual master is no longer physically existing, the disciples should serve the instructions of the spiritual master.

Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciples were already carrying out his instructions, but now they would have to do so without the vapuḥ, without the opportunity of regularly seeing and being with him. At first this was very difficult for them to face, but those who were sincere soon realized that Śrīla Prabhupāda had, upon his departure, given them the greatest gift of all: service in separation.

Service in separation is the highest realization and ecstasy. This was the teaching of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, in regard to Lord Kṛṣṇa and His foremost devotees, the gopīs of Vṛndāvana. When Kṛṣṇa left His beloved gopīs and went to Mathurā, never to return to them in Vṛndāvana, the gopīs (and all the other residents of Vṛndāvana) wept piteously in separation. They so much loved Kṛṣṇa that they could not live without Him, and to maintain their lives they began to constantly remember and discuss His name, fame, form, and entourage. By constantly remembering Him in love and by anticipating His return to Vṛndāvana, they achieved an ecstasy of union in separation, which Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava scholars declare to be superior even to the ecstasy the gopīs felt in Kṛṣṇa’s presence. Because Kṛṣṇa is absolute, even remembering Him or chanting His name puts the devotee into direct contact with Him. But because there is simultaneously a feeling of separation from Him, there is an added dimension of inconceivable, simultaneous union and separation. This is the epitome of Kṛṣṇa conscious realization.

Prabhupāda’s followers knew this principle of service in separation, technically known as vipralambha-sevā, but to most devotees it was a theoretical realization. Before one can feel intense loving separation from Kṛṣṇa, one must first feel intense attraction to Him. But for the conditioned soul who has forgotten and abandoned Kṛṣṇa and has come to the material world under the spell of māyā, illusion – for him, “separation” from Kṛṣṇa is based on complete ignorance and forgetfulness.

In coming to spiritual life, a neophyte first begins to awaken to the very existence of God, as he overcomes atheistic misconceptions. Next, he comes gradually, through practice, to take up a relationship of service to Kṛṣṇa, through serving the spiritual master. Intense love of Kṛṣṇa in separation is the most advanced stage and cannot possibly be realized in full by the neophyte. Thus service in separation had remained a theoretical teaching to many of Prabhupāda’s followers.

But when Śrīla Prabhupāda departed from the world and left his disciples to carry on his mission, they immediately realized union with him in separation. He was gone, but he was still very much present.

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https://bbt.org/book/your-ever-well-wisher

http://www.sdglegacy.com/books/your-ever-well-wisher-one-volume-abridged-srila-prabhupada-lilamrta/

(1)

https://vedabase.io/en/library/spl/

(2)

https://vedabase.io/en/library/spl/1/12/

(3)

https://vedabase.io/en/library/spl/1/14/

(4)

https://vedabase.io/en/library/spl/1/15/

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