Prabhupada life-story 02 – From political activist to spiritual activist

Audio Podcast :

Video :

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
in our future sessions.
Thank you. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.
Welcome back to this series on the life story of His Divine Graciousness Bhaktivedanta Swamishla Prabhupada. In the first part we discussed about his auspicious appearance on the day following Krishna’s appearance on the day when Krishna’s appearance was celebrated as Nandotsav by his father Nanda Maharaj and how this indicated that he too would bring a celebration of Krishna bhakti all over the world and then we discussed about his devotional influences that he had and the devotional choices that he himself made. His father rejected the normal career trajectory of barristerhood so that his child would be his son would be protected from anti-devotional influences of the British culture and he trained his child to respect the sadhus who he would host and solicit their blessings so that he would become a great devotee of Yamati Radharani and further he trained Abhay to learn Mridanga in which he soon became expert.
Abhay on his part chose to ask for deities and himself performed the Kshatriya festival as a child and we came to the point where Abhay started studying in Scottish Church College at a time when Indian national independence movement was also gaining momentum. So we pick up the narrative from there in this session. If you see Indian history, the independence struggle had three main phases.
In the 1920s, early 1920s, there was what was called as the non-cooperation movement. 1930s was the civil disobedience movement. 1940s, this was 42 to 47 almost or till the Second World War started.
There was a quit India movement which eventually led to the Britishers leaving India. So Abhay was born in 1896 and by the time he was studying in college and he was graduating out of college, the Indian national movement had started taking gaining momentum and 1914 to 1919 roughly was the time of the First World War and Indians had actively supported the British in the First World War and they had hoped that in reciprocation, they would get more freedom, more rights but those hopes were disappointed and not only that the Britishers passed some oppressive legislations such as the Rowlatt Act which suppressed Indian freedoms and increased the discrimination against the Indians in the British administration. So at that time in the 1920s, the Indians arose in uprising against British rule.
This was also the time when Gandhiji came to the Indian forefront, started emerging and he saw that the British interest in India was not so much political as it was financial. They wanted to rule India so that they could make money and one of the ways they were making money was by taking the cloth, taking the cotton and the raw materials for the cloth from India and then taking it to Manchester and other places in Britain where the cloth mills would make them into cloth and then that would be brought back over here and sold to Indians and milk cloth was considered very prestigious and it was expensive, prohibitively expensive and Indians were in a sense being fleeced in this and Britain was making money. They were getting the raw materials very cheap and selling the finished products at a very high rate and to do this, the British had stopped, destroyed the local trade.
So, there had been Indian weavers who had been expert at making local cloth, especially in the Bengal area. At that time, Bengal had recently been partitioned into West Bengal and what is Bangladesh, but earlier it was all one continuous entity and in that part of the world, the weavers were expert. So, the British, in order to stop, to cripple the weaving industry, at one particular point, they just send the soldiers to the houses of thousands and thousands of weavers and all those soldiers went and cut off the thumbs of those weavers.
So, if the thumbs are cut off, then the weavers cannot weave and in this way, the strategy was to cripple the local Indian economy and make India more economically dependent on Britain and Gandhiji decided to counter that by inaugurating a non-cooperation movement in which he said that we will not accept British degrees and we will not accept British cloths, we will not cooperate with the government and instead we will use locally handmade cloth, it is called Khadi cloth. So, now the clothes that we wear often make statements about who we are, just like if somebody wears very fashionable, friendly clothes, then they send a particular image about themselves. If somebody is going for a conference or a very formal event, then they dress in a formal cloth, either a coat, a tie or whatever the appropriate dress for males or females, formal wear.
So, the clothes that we wear are not simply clothes, they send messages about who we are, what we identify with. So, at this time in the 1920s, for a young man, for a young person to wear Khadi was not just a sartorial choice, it was not just a preference of dress, it was a political statement. So, Abhay was so inspired and influenced by Gandhiji that he started wearing Khadi at that time and thus he publicly expressed his support for the cause of national independence.
Not only that, he had studied diligently during his Scottish Church college days to get a degree and he earned a degree, he passed the exams, but responding to the call of Gandhiji, he refused to go and take the degree. This is as strong a statement as one can make. The students study for years, decades, just so that they can have a degree and after doing all the studies, after passing the exams, then to not go and take a degree, that just indicates the courage of conviction that Abhay had and he was fully fledged to becoming, he was on the verge of becoming a full-fledged political activist, who not just for the sake of gaining political power, but with a dream of freeing India from the exploitative political rule of the Britishers.
And as his career was going in this direction, he also had to have a profession. So, he had a degree, he had education, but he did not have a degree. So, he could not go and take jobs and he did not want to take jobs in the British government.
So, he started doing his own business. His father was well connected in the circles of Kolkata and he himself, having studied in a prestigious college, was also well connected with people in his generation. So, with the support of some well-to-do businessmen, he decided to become a pharmaceutical agent and he would sell medicines, market medicines and he also decided to start his own plant at that time in a small way.
So, right now, he would work as a manager and along with that, he would also work towards making his own establishment. Now, for such a young person to be appointed a manager ruffled quite a few feathers in the Bose company where he worked. But he had the character and he exhibited the competence.
He had the trust of the owner and eventually one over most of the employees just by his sheer character and competence. So, his career was thus going in a particular way, professionally as well as socio-political. But then, one incident has changed the trajectory dramatically.
That incident happened in 1922 when Abhay was around 26. He met the great saint, Bhakt Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, the founder of the Gaudiya Math and the author of several books. Abhay had been in a culture where he had seen saints since childhood, seen sadhus, people who were in the renounced order, people who were supposed to be devoted to God since his childhood.
And many of these sadhus, they would receive the hospitality that was meant for the saintly, but they did not have the character of the saintly. Many of them would smoke, many of them would sometimes have immoral activities going on in the background and sometimes not even in the background. So, because of that, there was some cultural respect that Abhay offered to the sadhus, but he did not have any deep spiritual reverence for them.
And so, when he heard that this Bhakt Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur is a saint who is there in Kolkata and at Uttaradanga Junction, one of his friends in that area, he said, come, let us go and see this saint. He said, what is this? I have seen so many sadhus, I am not interested. So, his friend Naren said, no, he is a special saint, please come.
He said, no, I will not come. They were practically arguing on the streets. Naren was pulling him, come.
No, I will not come, come, I will not come. And finally, because his friend was so insistent, Abhay said, and Abhay came into the Gaudiya Math premises. There, he saw Bhakt Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur sitting erect with his back erect, majestic figure with Vaishna Tilak on his forehead and he was speaking to the guests over there.
He was giving what sadhus traditionally call a darshan and as he was giving darshan like this, out of cultural deference with years of training from his childhood, Abhay and his friend immediately offered their obeisances. And as he was sitting down, looking at things, understanding what was going on over there, suddenly the master, Bhakt Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, looked at Abhay and told him, you are a young man, well-educated, speaks English, why don’t you share the message of Lord Chaitanya, the message of spiritual love all over the world. Abhay was astounded.
He said, here he doesn’t even know this person, this is a first meeting and this person is handing a life mission to him. Now, Abhay, as seen from his choices of wearing khadi and not accepting his degree, was a man of great conviction. He had the courage of conviction behind him and naturally, he couldn’t let such a statement, such a bold statement go unchallenged.
So, he countered and he said, what is the use of spreading the message of Lord Chaitanya when we are not yet independent, when we are enslaved by another country, where do we have the respectability to share this message with anyone? He says, first we need political independence and then we can look at sharing the spiritual message of India. This was a challenge and Bhakt Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur accepted the challenge and they had a discussion. Bhakt Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that actually, the fundamental problem in the world is not a problem of who is ruling politically, the fundamental problem is a problem of consciousness.
As long as people are self-centered, as long as people’s consciousness is divorced from God, as long as we at our core remain driven by our lower desires, such as lust, anger, greed, till that time we cannot have any peace in society. It is only when we broadcast the message of love of God, by which people’s consciousness gets elevated, by which people experience sublime happiness within, by which people become free from their lower desires, by which they become inspired to act in a mood of selfless service, in a mood of contribution rather than exploitation. It is then and then alone that the world’s problems will be solved and this sharing the message of raising human consciousness is so urgent that it cannot wait for anything else.
This is the universal remedy for all problems. So, Abhay was astounded to hear this conviction spoken so forcefully. The opinion of this one saint contradicted what almost all of India at that time was saying.
All of India was agitating for independence and Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur was saying, no, we need spiritual sharing, we need spiritual elevation of consciousness. Abhay and Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur discussed and argued, they had a slight debate, but then Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur not only won the argument, but won over Abhay and later when Abhay was departing after the interaction and he and his friends were talking, it emerged that Abhay had never been defeated in an argument till then. He was a very good polemic discusser, arguer and he would always win, but this particular time he was defeated, but he did not feel angered or irritated or humiliated.
He felt enraged. He felt that he had met a very nice saintly person and that he had learned much more about the purpose of life, about what is the most important contribution he could make in his life. As Abhay was departing, he started thinking of how he could assist this great saint in his mission.
The saint was clearly dedicated to the sharing the message of spiritual love for raising human consciousness, but Abhay at that time had just got married a few years before as was the traditional Indian culture at that time. Boys and girls would get married quite early and Abhay had got married a few years ago and he had also had a child. So, because of that he felt that he couldn’t just leave them.
He had family responsibilities and it would be unjust to leave his family for sharing, for assisting the mission of Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur. That saint who had mastered him in debate, Bhaktisiddhanta Sri Thakur, Abhay accepted that saint as his master, as a spiritual master after that very first interaction. Although formal initiation would take 10 years more, Abhay in his heart started thinking constantly, how can I serve my spiritual master? How can I assist him? What can I do for him? Abhay decided that he would try to earn as much money as possible.
An astrologer had foretold that Abhay might become one of the wealthiest persons in the country if his business went off well. So, he started working wholeheartedly to try to expand his business thinking that if he had abundant money then he could financially support his spiritual master’s mission. He felt as a householder that was what he could practically do for assisting that mission.
Now, thereafter, Abhay as he poured himself into his business, expanding to other places, he sometimes worked in Mumbai where he had a branch, where he had office. Sometimes he worked in Allahabad where he had office. He tried various things to expand his business.
And wherever he would go, he would meet disciples of Bhakti Sahasrat Thakur, the teachers of the Gaudiya Math. And in Mumbai, he helped them to build a temple. In Allahabad, he also helped them in various ways because he as a businessman would move in several elite circles.
He would introduce the sannyasis and brahmacharis of the Gaudiya Math, the renunciates of this mission to several elite circles where they would solicit support and carry forward his mission. In 1932, 10 years after the first meeting, although Abhay could not meet Bhakti Sahasrat Thakur many times, still he would hear from him and hear about him. He would read his books and he would read about the activities of Bhakti Sahasrat Thakur from his other disciples.
So, he heard that he had organized a festival over there, a parikrama. A parikrama is a pilgrimage, but it is a circular pilgrimage where one goes around a holy place. So, on that parikrama, in Vrindavan, Abhay managed his business in such a way that he could go there.
And he was at Koshi where there were two options for the Bhakti Sahasrat Thakur to speak or they could go on a pilgrimage to see a Shesha Sai temple. So, most people prefer to go and see the temple. Abhay thought, you know, what can I see? I want to hear from my spiritual master.
And he sat. And Bhakti Sahasrat Thakur kept speaking and speaking and speaking. And Abhay just sat and heard and heard and heard.
For hours upon hours, most of the guests left, many of the disciples left, only the inner circle of disciples remained. But Abhay sat there. Although many of the concepts and words that Bhakti Sahasrat Thakur used were very elevated and Abhay did not understand everything, but still he heard.
He loved to hear from his spiritual master. And his understanding of the fundamental truths of life, of the glory of Krishna, the glory of Lord Chaitanya, all this became deepened and enhanced. And his eagerness to hear was what immensely pleased the spiritual master.
Although nothing was spoken after that long session in which Abhay heard diligently. Appreciation of the master came out a month later. After the pilgrimage in Vrindavan, Abhay came to Allahabad for his business, continuing there.
And Bhakti Siddhant also came over there. And the leader of the Gaudiya Mutt, Atul Anand, he said that I will introduce you and we will recommend you for initiation. So, initiation is a major step forward in commitment and in advancement.
And this was a major step which would change further, which solidify further the trajectory of devotional focus that Abhay had adopted. How he was initiated and what happened thereafter, we will discuss in our next session. Thank you.
Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Welcome back