If Srila Prabhupada is an empowered acharya, then why did many of his empowered disciples leave Krishna consciousness after his departure?

From: Sri Chaitanya Chandra Prabhu

Why after SP left this planet many of his disciples went away. SP is an empowered acharya. if he is empowering someone then how can he leave KC. ?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
question from Sri Chaitanya Chandra Prabhu why after Srila Prabhupada left this planet many of his disciples went away Srila Prabhupada is an empowered Acharya if he is empowering someone then how can he leave Krishna consciousness answer we may have a misunderstanding about what empowerment means, empowerment essentially means the soul’s original desire being magnified and increased by Krishna and the Acharyas so that the desire of that particular soul can lead to glorious results that means let’s say Bhaktisanshu Thakur had the desire to preach Krishna consciousness in the west and Srila Prabhupada had that desire to fulfill Bhaktisanshu Thakur’s desire and then by the mercy of Srila Bhaktisanshu Thakur and the whole Gauriya Parampara Srila Prabhupada was empowered to transform people all over the world so empowerment is based on our own original desire if a person is empowered that does not mean that that person’s own individual free will doesn’t play a role we can ask why Srila Prabhupada was empowered and not as other god brothers were empowered Bhaktisanshu Thakur was an extraordinarily powerful Acharya and still it was only Srila Prabhupada who in a substantial way fulfilled his desire other disciples did some things but certainly nothing comparable with Srila Prabhupada was it a deficiency of Bhaktisanshu Thakur that he couldn’t empower his other disciples to some extent there are various reasons but one of them was they just didn’t feel that the west would be able to take up Krishna consciousness and so that sort of made their efforts half hearted so that means if their original desire was weak then the empowerment on that weak desire does not lead to any substantial effect so there has, even for a person to be empowered there has to be an original desire and those who keep that desire, they become, their desire becomes empowered or they get more talents, more capacities they get the right inspiration they connect with the right kind of people, they are there at the right place at the right time and wonderful things happen but the essential aspect of empowerment is one’s own individual desire and that free will is always there with everyone some people can choose to use their free will properly and to the extent an individual uses the free will properly to the extent that Acharya sees ok this person is rendering service to Krishna nicely, let me empower this person and that person will become empowered to do wonderful things but if later on that person somehow because of past conditioning or present carelessness succumbs to material desires and gives up the desire to serve Krishna then that empowerment will be no longer there so that’s why if not the deficiency of the Acharya although the world may see it as a blemish the world may think that so and so Guru’s disciple had these problems and that might reflect negatively on the Guru and that’s why the disciple should consider its responsibility that I should never behave in a way that will disgrace my spiritual master but at the same time actually anything that wrong that we do it is ultimately because of our own misuse of free will so that person can he leave Krishna consciousness if he has been earlier empowered by Srila Prabhupada, yes he can because he still has his free will and Krishna never takes away our free will from us if I was very touching in fact heart rending letter of Srila Prabhupada to one of the leaders whom Srila Prabhupada had given a lot of responsibilities and that person went away Srila Prabhupada said that I have just got this distressing news about you and I am feeling so forlorn and that is so touching, Prabhupada is not saying you have behaved abominably Prabhupada is saying I have just got this distressing news about you he is talking more not about what that person has done but how I am feeling and then he is saying and I am feeling so forlorn now forlorn is a very poetic word which indicates somebody who is left all alone on an island with nobody to talk with obviously Srila Prabhupada was not forlorn in a literal sense, he was a world Acharya with thousands of disciples but he was actually expressing that he had a heart to heart connection with this devotee and this devotee had somehow broken that connection, Prabhupada was telling the emotional effect of that misdemeanor of that devotee on on himself, on Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada goes on that letter and then finally he concludes in a very extraordinary way he says anyway Prabhupada says I had given you a wonderful opportunity to render glorious service in the mission of Lord Chaitanya but you have squandered that opportunity I am paraphrasing the letter here and then he concludes anyway the mission of Lord Chaitanya is bigger than you and bigger than me and to spread his mission all over the world Lord Chaitanya will send me the right souls if not you then somebody else so Srila Prabhupada here expresses both his determination to continue on with the mission and his conviction that the right souls will be sent to him Srila Prabhupada in his own times why are we talking about after Srila Prabhupada departed in his own times there were his disciples who had problems and Srila Prabhupada tried to encourage, inspire them to continue with their Krishna consciousness but he did not stop Srila Prabhupada was like a commander who was bent on victory and he knew some of his soldiers and some of his assistant commanders were weak and some of them would fall he would try to inspire them try to protect them, try to help them recover but if they were not willing Srila Prabhupada was not going to give up the battle so again the point which Srila Prabhupada is emphasizing in this letter is that he is telling that I had given you the opportunity to render wonderful service in the mission of Lord Chaitanya that means I had empowered you but you rejected the empowerment you have squandered this opportunity that means we may have a notion of empowerment as as a one time event that has an all time effect that means at one moment maybe the spiritual master touches the hand on the disciple’s head and the disciple gets empowered for all of life time its not like that there may be some special moments of mercy which might come in a disciple’s life but empowerment is a moment to moment event as long as we are using our free will properly to that time we are empowered and we may also say that along with the instruction comes the empowerment and at the same time we have to understand what is the instruction there may be one specific instruction to render a particular kind of service to start a new project but below that and foundations to that are many more vital instructions like always remembering Krishna and avoiding the sense objects and being careful against maya so if one neglects those instructions then the empowerment to follow those instructions is not there and that’s why this empowerment becomes like a foundationless superstructure so we should not think of empowerment as just being a one time event, it is a empowerment is a moment to moment endowment that comes when we choose to serve Krishna so if some devotee turns away from the service of Krishna then the earlier empowerment is lost hence the Prabhupada himself tells about this by giving the example of again become a mouse by yogi’s power a mouse had become a tiger or a lion whatever from that roaring lion that person was reduced in one moment to a squeaking mouse again same thing can happen to anyone and this rather than disturbing our faith should help us understand what is the core of the process of Krishna consciousness the core of the process of Krishna consciousness is our moment to moment choice and Ranjit Siru Prabhu has written a very beautiful letter a series of articles when there were difficulties in ISKCON and he says that many of the later devotees other devotees in ISKCON apart from the leaders they were also Prabhupada disciples they felt a little bitter that we were let down by some of our senior leaders so Ranjit Siru Prabhu writes a simple reply he says Shila Prabhupada did not play favorites with anyone those devotees who took up the maximum responsibility during his manifest presence with us those were the devotees that Shila Prabhupada empowered he either made them as GBC or he made them as future gurus so if we find that they were they were not up to the responsibilities that were entrusted to them then rather than blaming them we have to ask ourselves why was I no better who stopped me from becoming better than them if I had dedicated myself to Shila Prabhupada more then Shila Prabhupada would have empowered me and it’s not that Shila Prabhupada would have empowered me, Shila Prabhupada can empower me even now when Shila Prabhupada was asked who will be your successor Shila Prabhupada gave a reply which was very enigmatic in oneself he says whoever wants to be that means that the legacy that comes from the spiritual master to the disciple is not just some nomination letter to the GBC it is not the nomination letter that you become a guru actually the legacy that comes from the spiritual master to the disciple is the desire to serve and glorify Krishna so actually if you see Shila Prabhupada got no nomination from he was not made the head of any temple he did not get any funds he did not get any assistance for his preaching what Shila Prabhupada got from was the burning desire to glorify Krishna and Shila Prabhupada took that legacy and from that desire to glorify Krishna he created temples he wrote books and he made devotees so when Shila Prabhupada said that whoever wants to be my successor that person will be my successor that means that whoever accepts my legacy of cultivating and expanding the desire to glorify Krishna that person will get my blessings that person will be my successor and he will become empowered so all of us can take up that desire now and we can also continue on Shila Prabhupada’s vision so Shila Prabhupada was very clear himself about what was the essence of Krishna consciousness and whenever he saw that essence in devotees in his disciples he empowered them but they had their free will and if they somehow were not able to use it properly then they could not continue on you can hear that last lecture in the history of bodhivationalism the post Shila Prabhupada phase to get a broader understanding of what happened after Shila Prabhupada departed from the world but in general this is the underlying principle empowerment is based on our own desire and our desire is based on our free will and because our free will is something just to be exercised moment to moment so Shila Prabhupada’s empowerment is something which we have to receive moment to moment how much we have received empowerment in the past is wonderful but every moment is a fresh moment a fresh battle the past battles that we have won are to our credit to some extent in the sense that they make us practically see the benefit of using our free will properly the benefit that we get, the benefit that we are able to give to others but even after that it is up to us to use every moment properly to use our free will properly at every moment and to the extent we do that, to that extent we will be empowered anyone will be empowered whoever it may be whether it is Prabhupada disciple or grand disciple or great grand disciple