Were Prabhupada’s early followers the eternal associates of Lord Chaitanya?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you.
So, Prabhupada also said that there are some people who some of his early followers they were already born in a limited family in India but by the laws of arrangement they were born in the west so that they could practice bhakti. You see, in bhakti there is always a very important component of subjectivity. So, subjectivity means what? Say, somebody, some very senior devotee has fallen sick then at that time they should think that I must have done so much sinful karma because of which I have got the sickness but others should not think I thought you were a great devotee but the fact that you have got such a disease means you must have done a lot of bad karma.
Now, the devotee should think at that time oh this is an opportunity to serve this Vaishnava. Let me do what I can to assist them. So, now what is the reality? That is not as important as what takes us towards the ultimate reality.
Now, what is the reality? Is it that a person is born because of getting diseases, advanced devotees getting diseases because of their own past karma, is it the spiritual master, is it the reaction from the karma of the disciples or whatever it is. It’s very difficult for us to know that and we can see that in the realm of bhakti, subjectivity, the subjective vision is actually considered higher than the objective vision. For example, when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is going to Vrindavan, at that time it is said that he saw every river as Jamuna, he saw every hill as Govardhan.
Now, every river is not Jamuna. Now, we say the conditioned soul has 4 defects, one of which is to commit mistakes. So now, Lord Chaitanya is Krishna, he is not conditioned, so is he committing a mistake by seeing every river to be Jamuna? No, he is not.
Why? Because at one level, he sees every river as Jamuna, but still he doesn’t stop there, he goes to Jamuna also, he keeps going ahead. So here, actually the objective reality is not as important as the subjective connection of the consciousness with Krishna. So, when he is seeing that every river is Jamuna, that is a testimony to how absorbed his consciousness is in Krishna and that is glorious.
So, we don’t focus on the apparent mistake that is there, we focus on the exaltedness of the absorption in Krishna. So, like that, there is a very important role for subjectivity in bhakti and subjectivity means that we adopt that vision which is anukula to bhakti or which is testimony to the greatness of bhakti. So, Ravindra Sourav Prabhu writes in one of his essays that one time Srila Prabhupada he told his disciples early days 1967 or 68 that all of you are eternal associates of Lord Chaitanya.
So, then he said we were thinking we were doing so many wrong activities and we had not even heard of Lord Chaitanya. So, were we really eternal associates? So, he said we asked Prabhupada. Prabhupada, are we really eternal associates of Lord Chaitanya? Prabhupada said yes.
And then he paused. He said everyone is. Everyone is ultimately an eternal associate of Lord Chaitanya.
So, what I mean by this is that we as say if we are devotees most of us have come in the second generation or we should not if we see Prabhupada’s disciples who have dedicated themselves for serving Krishna, even if they are born in apparently low family, we should see that they are special souls. it is good what Prabhupada says that by Krishna’s arrangement they were born in special place where they were born in particular place by which through his tireless efforts we have got the opportunity to practice Krishna Bhakti. It is because the first generation sacrificed so much that the second generation had the opportunity to practice Bhakti.
So, we should not think oh they were all sinful and somehow Prabhupada elevated them. Yes, some of them might have been but many of them were extraordinary souls. So, this vision is what we second generation devotees should adopt it.
By Krishna’s arrangement, it was arranged that some devotees, some souls were planted in the western world to assist the Prabhupada. At the same time, you know, those who were in that category, they don’t think like that. They don’t think like I was already a great soul, I was an eternal associate and I came here to assist Lord Krishna.
No, I was so fond of Prabhupada, you saved me. So, we have to adopt that vision which enhances our devotion. So, both are true in one sense but we should not adopt the vision that makes us proud or that makes us judgmental towards others.
We adopt the vision that enhances our devotion. Does that address your question?