Appreciating Prabhupada’s powerful practicality – PASS acronym
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Hare Krishna. Today it's our great fortune to be assembled here at the lotus feet of Shilpa Prabhupada in their lordships on the auspicious occasion of the 44th disappearance day of Shilpa Prabhupada. And I'll try to speak a little bit about his infinite glories and especially the contribution that he has made in our lives.
Just about a fortnight ago I was talking with His Holiness Giriraj Maharaj who is one of the foremost historians of Prabhupada in our movement. He has written several books about Prabhupada. He is writing a detailed history of how Prabhupada started the Iskcon temple in Juhu.
So he was telling me an incident when he was talking with one of his god brothers Shrutakirti Prabhu who has also written a very beautiful book about Prabhupada. And he said they were having a discussion together and a devotee asked Shrutakirti Prabhu what was the most, you knew Prabhupada so well, what was the quality of Shilpa Prabhupada that you found the most attractive. And Shrutakirti Prabhu replied, and Giriraj Maharaj said I was surprised when I heard this answer.
He said that I had never met any person as practical as Shilpa Prabhupada. Now you may say somebody is a very practical person, is that really a glorification? Everybody has to be practical. But what does it mean practical? So I was discussing with Maharaj and I contemplated Shilpa Prabhupada's life over the last few days and I will explain what we mean by practical.
Now Prabhupada saw the world with spiritual vision. When he came to America all alone at the age of 70 on the Jaladuta which is a cargo ship and he saw the American coastline, skyscraper buildings. At that time his first thought was not how prosperous America is.
But his thought was, My dear Lord, you must have some purpose because of which you have brought me here. Otherwise why would you bring me to this, Prabhupada used the word, Ugrasthane. Ugrasthane means this terrible place.
Now how many Indians coming to America will call America a terrible place? America is the stuff of dream of most Indians. When about 20-25 years ago I just completed my education and I wanted to come to, I was planning to come to America for my higher studies. But by Prabhupada's mercy I got the opportunity to do the higher studies.
The study of the Bhagavad Gita, Raj Vidya, Raj Mohiam. So then, but later, last few years I have been coming to America. So when I first came to America and I then went back to India, all my relatives who had never called me for the last 20 years, they called me and said, your life has become successful now.
So, most Indians have this idea that going to America means it's a big, big success in your life. So we are all Indians enamored by Americans, America broadly speaking. Prabhupada when he came, he saw that this is Ugrasthane.
What did he mean by Ugrasthane? He is seeing that the place was filled with godlessness. Rajas, tamo, gudaiyara, sabaiya, chana. He felt that the lower modes of rajas and tamas, which addict people to materialism were what was covering everyone.
So when Prabhupada came here, he came as a spiritual doctor. We are all troubled. Sometimes we realize that we are in distress.
But sometimes we don't even realize that we are in distress. It's like when a person drinks. When the person is a little drunk, they understand that I am drunk now.
And say I cannot drive the car. Maybe somebody else should drive the car. But when they are drunk a lot, and somebody says that you should not drive the car.
Over there I can't drive. If we are too much in illusion, we don't even realize we are in illusion. So like that, we are all at present, we are eternal spiritual beings.
But we are attached to temporary material things. And because of that, we experience various distresses. In today's world, we experience the distress primarily at the level of the mind.
And at the level of relationships. The mind and relationships trouble us enormously. Ultimately, we are souls who need to connect with Krishna.
So when we say Prabhupada is practical, what does that mean? It means, if there is a doctor who has to treat patients. There are some devotees in Mumbai, we have a devotee hall in hospital. And they do eye camps, free eye camps for cataract patients.
And they sometimes go to remote villages. Normally when you have to do treatment in a hospital, there is a standard protocol to follow. There are all the necessary tests that can be done.
There are all the instruments that are available. But when somebody, when it's an emergency, thousands and thousands of people are afflicted, and you have very limited resources, then being practical means getting the treatment done in whatever way works in that situation. So Prabhupada was practical in that sense.
He was practical in the sense that he had a mission to raise people's consciousness. The more we are caught in worldly consciousness, the more we become attached to temporary things, and the more we suffer when those temporary things go away from us. The more our consciousness rises upwards towards the eternal, the more we experience happiness, the more we experience stability in life.
So Prabhupada came to raise our consciousness from the deceased material level to the healthy spiritual level. And for that purpose, he was practical. In India, Prabhupada came from Vrindavan, where if we go to Vrindavan even now, and 40-50 years ago it was even better, even now we will hear the chants of Radhe Radhe Shyam Shyam, we will see so many temples, we will see a spiritual atmosphere in practically all directions.
And from that place, Prabhupada came. Prabhupada left Vrindavan, but he did not leave Vrindavan. He only externally left Vrindavan, internally he carried Vrindavan with him.
And he came to the western world to create spiritual consciousness, to create Vrindavan consciousness. And this was his extraordinarily difficult mission. So he was practical in the sense that whatever was required for elevating people's consciousness, he did that.
So I will talk about how Prabhupada's spiritual practicality with an acronym. It was, when somebody is sick, you just have to make sure that the treatment gets done. So it is an acronym PASS.
And how Prabhupada helped us to pass, or is Prabhupada helping us to pass the spiritual tests that come in our life. Pass to raise our consciousness upwards. So P is presentation.
When Prabhupada came to the west, he came to a place where people knew nothing about Krishna. Except the few devotees who first became serious about Krishna Bhakti. Then in 1965-66, that time, they, Prabhupada was staying in lower east side with some of the western hippies who were becoming devotees.
And one day they decided to please Swamiji and they went to a nearby Indian store and they got various photos from there. And one of the photos was a photo of Hanumanji. Lifting a hill.
And Prabhupada saw that photo. It's very nice, Prabhupada said. And then, the devotees had no idea about these photos.
Where? They just knew they were from India. Something from India. So when they asked Prabhupada, what is this? So one of the devotees asked, Prabhupada, is that a cat? Is that a cat? Now in India, millions and millions of people worship Hanuman.
He is a great devotee of Ram. But Prabhupada had to go to people who had absolutely no knowledge of Krishna. And how did he actually do this remarkable job of breaking through the cultural, conceptual, educational, religious, philosophical, national barriers and get the message of Krishna across? That was his expertise in presentation.
Presentation means that, Prabhupada himself writes, that realization means we should be able to present the message in a way that is interesting to the audience. Otherwise it will not be relevant at all. So once a hippie came to Prabhupada and asked, Prabhupada had been talking about the spiritual world, how it is a place of eternal happiness.
And then he asked Prabhupada, Swami, what is the bliss of Vaikuntha like? And Prabhupada replied, it is like an ocean of LSD. An ocean of LSD. Now, if you consider about it objectively, LSD is a drug, it is in Tamoguna.
And Vaikuntha is in Shuddha Sattva. How can we compare LSD with the happiness of Vaikuntha? Now Prabhupada could have quoted the Brahma Samhita, Chintamani, Prakarasad, Ashokal, Pavruksha, Lakshavrutesh, he could have gone on quoting like that. But people would not have understood anything.
So the person who has just taken drugs and is coming down from the drugs, high, still high, that person, Prabhupada spoke in a language that that person could understand. Presentation means, at the point, the purpose is not just to get it right. The purpose is to get it across.
To get it across, to make the point clear. To help people understand how something is relevant to Krishna Bhakti. How something is relevant to people's lives.
So Prabhupada was so expert that he could present very complex concepts to people who had very basic preliminary understanding. And he presented in a way that it caught people. Yes, they understood it.
So once, many years later when the devotees were in Vrindavan, so this is the basic concept of, for a new person, how do you explain what is, what is the bliss of Vaikuntha. So for them, their only conception of happiness is the happiness of drugs. And, there is an ocean of happiness like that.
Yeah, I want to go there. I want to experience that. The point of describing the happiness of the spiritual world is to create a desire to go there.
To create a desire to spiritualize our consciousness. So Prabhupada was so expert that he would do that. The presentation of spirituality was such that he was able to connect with people wherever he went.
And it's not just with respect to new concepts, new concepts for new people. Even advanced concepts for devotees. Once there was a conflict among devotees, is there a difference, what is the difference between Krishna and Balaram? So, one devotee said that, he had read somewhere in Prabhupada's book that the only difference between Krishna and Balaram is in complexion.
Krishna is dark in complexion, Balaram is fair in complexion. But another devotee said, actually no. Krishna alone is the lord of Radhanani, Balaram is not.
What is the difference? No, no. The only difference is in complexion. So they all started having a debate.
And then they went to Tamal Krishna Maharaj. And Tamal Krishna Maharaj also said, we don't know. Both points make sense.
He said, let us go to Prabhupada. They went to Prabhupada. And they asked Prabhupada, Prabhupada, this devotee is saying that the only difference between Krishna and Balaram is in complexion.
So that's right. Prabhupada replied. But he is saying that only Krishna is the lord of Radharani, not Balaram.
That's right. Prabhupada said, but both of them can't be right. That's right.
But then what is right? That you decide. So, what does that mean? It means that we cannot simply apply material logic to transcendental subjects. There is a concept of inconceivability.
Now Prabhupada could have said, this is just simply a chint. But Prabhupada had an endearing way of presenting that, by which people could connect and people could appreciate. Prabhupada, he presented spiritual truths in such a way that wherever he was, to whoever he was talking, he was talking to Prabhupada.
At a philosophical level, Prabhupada told everyone, you are not the body, you are the soul. Everything, our caste, our gender, our nationality, these are all external designations. They are like the colors of the body that we are wearing.
But at the same time, our body is presently a part of our identity. So, Prabhupada was an expert. When you want to inspire people at that time, he told them.
The devotees were struggling to get various permissions. There were so many bureaucratic roadblocks for them. Bottlenecks were there.
They were getting disheartened. Prabhupada said, we will make a grand festival. We will do a pandal program and we will have 20,000 people come for the program.
At that time, the devotees didn't even have a temple. And barely a few dozen people would come to whatever structure they had. And the devotees said, it's very difficult.
And Prabhupada told them that, you are all Americans. And all over the world, Americans are known for doing something special. Doing extraordinary things.
And Prabhupada said, what is the use of you being Americans if you don't do something special for Krishna? Yes, yes, we have to do something special. And the devotees created such an amazing festival that was the first time in the history that the devotees used, there are these big helium balloons which can be used for promotion. So the devotees, above the CST station that was VT at that time, above VT, they released a balloon and on that balloon, they just wrote Hare Krishna.
At that time, in the 70s, there were not many skyscraper buildings. So practically, from various parts of Mumbai, they wanted, their aim was to get 20,000 people but actually for the Pandal Grove, 30,000 people came. So enormous success.
So Prabhupada presented spiritual knowledge but in a way it will inspire people to practice. Then when he was speaking to Indians, when Indians were coming to the temples, he told them that, this Bhagavad Gita is a knowledge from India. But, I have to get people from America.
So this is your knowledge. Study it and share it. The whole world will benefit from it.
At that time, still India was, in the 1970s, many people were still lamenting that India and Pakistan had got partitioned and India had lost a large part of its landmass to the world. And Prabhupada said, if you share the Bhagavad Gita's message with the world, he said, you are feeling sad that you have lost Pakistan? He said, the whole world will become Hindustan. The whole world will take up the essential verses of the Bhagavad Gita if you just present it.
So Prabhupada had that grand vision and he presented it in a way that could connect with people. And thousands and thousands of people came forward to ascension of Prabhupada in India and Prabhupada built magnificent temples in several major parts of India. So that is application.
So that is presentation. The second part I'll talk about is application. Application means there are timeless spiritual truths.
So going back to the medical metaphor, a doctor has to do what it takes to treat the patient. So presentation means sometimes a patient has got a very complicated disease. Now the doctor has to explain the disease in a way that makes sense to the patient so that the patient will start taking the treatment.
So if the doctor starts talking such complicated terms that the patient doesn't understand, the patient will be half-hearted about taking the treatment. But if the doctor presents things properly, okay, now I understand, this is like this, this is like this, this is what I need to know. Now application means how are spiritual principles to be applied in one's life.
How Prabhupada says, at one level he said that I have brought the Krishna consciousness, that I have not changed anything. What my spiritual master gave me, I am like a postman, simply delivering the postcard. Or I am giving you the wealth that Krishna has given you through the tradition.
At the same time, in his lectures which Prabhupada gave in Vrindavan on nectar of devotion, there Rupa Goswami says the operational principle in bhakti is somehow or the other fix the mind on Krishna. So this, when explaining this principle, Prabhupada said, I have practically invented the whole Krishna consciousness. Now on one side Prabhupada says I have not changed anything, another side he is saying I have practically invented everything.
Now what does it mean? He has not changed Krishna's instruction that you should fix the mind on him. But, what has he done? He has created means by which devotees could fix their mind on Krishna. Now before Prabhupada came to the west, there was no concept of book distribution in a big way that was there.
And Prabhupada came to the west and he wrote his books and he told the devotees to distribute these books. And the devotees had no idea how to distribute, whom to distribute. Because at that time Prabhupada was not that well known.
He said you go to book store, book store is not ready to stock the books much. And one day the devotees thought that, there is one devotee they were going from place to place to try to find out where to distribute books and the devotees had a big pile of books. What are you carrying? He said these are spiritual books.
They contain great wisdom. He looked at it, he opened a few pages. Hey, this is attractive.
The devotees said, would you like to have it? He said, yeah, sure. Then, it worked out in such a way that instead of paying for the gas, the person took the book. And the devotees thought, hey, this is a good idea.
newer and newer ways to distribute books. And Prabhupada engaged devotees. At that time the devotees who came there to his movement were very young, at the age of 20-25 and they had tremendous energy.
So what Prabhupada did was that he told them whichever part of, wherever you want, you go and distribute books. You share Krishna's message. In 1966, at the end, he got a stroke because of which his health was not recovering.
So he had to go to India. In 1968, when he came back, at that time, after 1968, the movement just expanded dramatically. So in 1968, when he came back, the devotees came to receive him in New York.
He came to the center. And at that time, in the room where Prabhupada was staying, there was a globe. All of you pick up one one country and go to that country and share Krishna bhakti over there and deliver that country.
Now most of these were 17, 18, 28, 25 year old young men. They had not even gone out of America till now. Just pick up one country and deliver.
Prabhupada sparked their imagination. And they had some of his lady disciples. And Prabhupada, one of the lady disciples asked Prabhupada, Prabhupada, what about us girls? Prabhupada said, we are not boys or girls.
We are souls. You also pick up one country. And Prabhupada's application of Krishna bhakti was so inspiring, so dynamic, he gave devotees inspiring challenges.
Okay, do this for Krishna. And actually, Prabhupada's disciples was high guru Prabhu. And one day Prabhupada came to him and told him, Prabhupada, we want to start a magazine.
So he said, okay. And you become the editor of the magazine. He said, I have done nothing except read a magazine till now.
Prabhupada said, no, you pray to Krishna, Krishna will guide you. And actually the devotees soon started the magazine. And even now the magazine is going on in dozens of languages, thousands and thousands of copies that are distributed all over the world.
So high guru Prabhu writes that when Prabhupada, Prabhupada was an English professor. So he had some English expertise. Prabhupada used it.
And when somebody was with Prabhupada, so high guru Prabhu writes that we got the faith just by being with Prabhupada that if we try to serve Krishna, Krishna will give us the intelligence, the facility, the wisdom. Whatever we need to serve him, Krishna will give it to us. That was Prabhupada's practicality.
In terms of applying the principle of Krishna bhakti. Once Prabhupada was asked, this international society for Krishna consciousness. He says, what does Krishna consciousness mean? How can we know whether we are Krishna conscious? Prabhupada could have given many different answers.
He could have said, oh, you should chant Hare Krishna regularly, you should worship Krishna, you should remember Krishna, remember Krishna's pastimes in Vrindavan. This is a profoundly practical definition. He said, when you come to the temple and when you look at the deities, if you feel the deities are asking you, what are you doing for me? What are you doing for me? If we feel Krishna asking us this question, then we are Krishna conscious.
Most people, when they come to the temple, they ask Krishna, what are you doing for me? I have this problem, I have made this prayer, I have done this, why is this not solved? Why is this desire not fulfilled? Now, it's good at least we come to the temple for any reason, but Krishna consciousness means we understand that each one of us has a personal relationship with Krishna. And that personal relationship with Krishna means that each one of us is meant to make our contribution in our service to Krishna. And then we will be inspired to serve Krishna.
So Prabhupada made Krishna bhakti so simple in a sense that you have to apply it. So there is one of our friends, he is in a traditional Vaishnava sampradaya, another Vaishnava sampradaya, and he told me that, you Hare Krishnas have got it all wrong. He said, when you refer to Krishna, there is no honorific, no Bhagwan Krishna, no Sri Krishna, and when you refer to Radha, there is Shri Radha Rani.
So why is it like this? He says, Krishna is God. So actually, what Prabhupada did was, Prabhupada wanted each one of us to develop a personal relationship with Krishna. That Krishna is our lord, but he is not like an overlord sitting high above.
Krishna is the lord inside our hearts. And we have a personal relationship with him. So Prabhupada in his books has revealed the position of Krishna.
He has applied a whole new term to explain the position of Krishna. And that term was, the supreme personality of Godhead. It's a power-packed term, wisdom-packed term.
So, that means there is God, but there is the head of the Gods. And that head is not just a figurehead, it's a person, the supreme personality of Godhead. So Prabhupada makes it very unambiguously clear.
There is no question of not acknowledging Krishna's supreme position, but the emphasis on developing a personal relationship with Krishna. And thus, Prabhupada while referring to Krishna, when he would talk about Krishna, devotees would feel, Krishna is just present with us. Krishna is so close to us.
Krishna is a lord whom we can access, whom we can connect with. So, in that application of Krishna Bhakti, Prabhupada made serving Krishna so practical. When Prabhupada said, I have practically invented the Krishna consciousness movement, what he meant was, that he has provided pathways for anyone, anywhere to serve Krishna.
When Prabhupada went to India, at that time, he found that Indians were not, at that time, so interested in becoming, following Krishna Bhakti very strictly, chanting a lot of Japa, following the regularity principles. Some of them were already following, but the strict Sadhana Bhakti, people were not ready to follow. So, then Prabhupada created a whole system for connecting them with Krishna.
And he called that the life membership program. Life membership program was that, the devotees would, the people would give some contribution, to help build the temples, to print the books, and they would get a set of Prabhupada's books, and they would get the facility to come and stay in Krishna's temples, across the world. And, he created the life membership program, so prestigious, so attractive, that I had gone to, when I was in Pune, I had gone to meet one very influential person, and he had got a nameplate, on the nameplate he had written his various degrees.
He has this degree from here, this degree from here, this degree from here, and one designation on the nameplate was, life member is gone. So, in 1970s, he did it in such a way, this is the international movement, spreading Krishna Bhakti across the world, and you can become a life member of this movement. So, Prabhupada, created a means by which, people could apply the principle of Krishna Bhakti, connect with Krishna, contribute something to Krishna's cause, from where they were.
So, S is systematization. Systematization means, when Prabhupada started the movement, he said, he told his young disciples, just a small handful, he said that, we will call our movement ISKCON. What is ISKCON? This is International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
At that time, there were barely a handful of maybe a dozen or couple of dozen of people who were coming for the program, and they were in a small storefront, in New York, not even a temple, just a small storefront. And, what is this? International Society. So, they were here, beyond the Lower East Side, in New York.
But, Prabhupada had a grand vision. So, when Prabhupada handed out, Prabhupada got a lawyer, and they handed out the papers for the devotees to become trustees. Now, Prabhupada himself couldn't become a trustee, because he was not an American citizen.
So, he started this movement, but he was not even a signatory in the movement. So, he got devotees to become trustees, and none of those devotees, they didn't even read the papers, and they didn't even know whether they were going to be trustees for one year, but they didn't even know whether for one year they will be practicing Krishna Bhakti or not also. But, Prabhupada started off like that.
But, his vision was grand. He wanted to create a movement, and his idea was, the movement will continue the mission that he had started. So, Prabhupada, for continuing the mission, broadly, he did many things.
He built temples, he wrote books, and he inspired people to become devotees. So, systematization means, he created systems by which people could practice Bhakti in any part of the world. In India, in around in 2006, around the 40th anniversary of ISKCON's establishment, the Times of India had written an article about ISKCON.
And there, they started an editorial piece, actually, written by the editor. I had called and met the editor also. Quite a nice person.
So, he's a Bengali. So, he wrote that. Now, he started the article by saying that, okay, what is India's biggest export commodity? What has India exported the most to the world? He said, is it software engineers? Is it Indians who speak English who can act as cheap labor across the world? He said, maybe, but if you go to Botswana, if you go to Bolivia, if you go to various African countries, you will not find any software engineers, you will not find any Indians speaking English.
But he says, you will find a Krishna temple over there. So, he said that, Krishna is India's biggest export commodity. And it is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, established by Bhaktivedanta Swami Sri Prabhupada, who has spread it across the world.
So, what Prabhupada did was, before Prabhupada, Indians, in general, knew about Krishna Bhakti. And western people, they knew about yoga. They knew about, something about Indian spirituality.
But Prabhupada created a pathway. How to practice Krishna Bhakti? You chant the holy name, associate with devotees, worship the deities, take Krishna Prasad, read the books. As I said, this is material consciousness, this is spiritual consciousness.
How do you rise from material consciousness to spiritual consciousness? Some people are spiritual, some people are not. Those who want to become spiritual, how to do that? So, Prabhupada provided a systematic pathway. You do this, this, this, this.
Then, by these practices, your spiritual consciousness will grow. By following these practices, not one, not two, but thousands and thousands of people have started practicing and started benefiting. Going back again to the medical metaphor, there might be some doctor who is very expert.
And doctor makes a treatment by which some disease which is very, very difficult to cure is cured. That is very good. But at the same time, that one doctor can't go to all the patients across the world.
So, he has to make the treatment understandable, applicable, universal, so that wherever a person is sick, that patient can take the treatment. That was what Srila Prabhupada did by systematizing or standardizing the practices of Krishna Bhakti. His idea was, when there are standard practices, then the standard practices alone don't take our consciousness upwards.
It is we who have to take our consciousness upwards. But these practices if you want to practice spirituality, don't practice spirituality in any organization, any institution. Just be spiritual by yourself.
There is a whole group of people who say we are SBNR, spiritual but not religious. We don't want to associate with any religious organization. And it is true, sometimes these organizations can become so self-obsessed.
So, there may be people with vested interests but he gave us a way to be religious and spiritual. The idea is, our spirituality is like a small drop. We are on the top of a mountain and this drop has to go to the ocean.
The ocean is Krishna. We want our consciousness to flow towards Krishna, to be united in love with Krishna. Now for one drop of water, for one trickle of water on top of a mountain is extremely difficult.
It might get dried, it might get blocked, it will never reach. But if many trickles of water come together and then they form a tributary of a river. Many tributaries come together and they form a river.
And that river, when it flows together, then that river can flow forcefully, firmly and forcefully towards the ocean. And if the river keeps flowing it becomes a bed for itself. And in that bed, the future trickles of water can flow very nicely, very smoothly.
Similarly, what Srila Prabhupada has given us, by systematizing Krishna Bhakti, he has provided us a river bed. Now the river bed alone does not take one to the ocean. The water has to flow through the river bed.
So each one of us, it is for us to spiritualize the whole process of Bhakti. Then it is like we are the drops and there is the ocean. How do we get there? Each of us has to find our own way.
But in the association of devotees, when we come together and practice Bhakti, the Bhagavatam says, when we come in the association of devotees and glorify Krishna, the whole process of Bhakti becomes so much more accessible and relishable. So Prabhupada has created a river bed in the desert of materialism that most of modern civilization has become. And herein, when we come to the temples, we practice Bhakti, we remember Krishna, we discuss about Krishna, we worship Krishna, and by this, the current of our consciousness keeps moving towards Krishna.
By systematizing the practices of Krishna Bhakti and opportunity from whatever consciousness we may be in, we can practice Krishna Bhakti. There are some souls who have extraordinary spiritual consciousness. They are like, not just a trickle, they alone are like a river.
They have such force that they will go from the top of the mountain to the ocean. Some of Shri Prabhupada's disciples were there. They are so devoted, they were so spiritually minded that they left their homes Some people have this extraordinary spiritual urge.
But most of us, we didn't go out searching for God. It is God's devotees who came out searching for us. They gave us a book here, they gave us something there.
And that's how we came to Krishna Bhakti. So, the systematized practice of Krishna Bhakti is meant to help us facilitate the flow of our consciousness towards Krishna. Of course, sometimes ulterior motives may come and then they may put a dam on the water.
And they want to take the water for their own purposes. So like that, it's always possible when there is a systematization, there is an organization, people with vested interests can come and they can try to use the resources for their own purposes. But if we are clearly aware that I am here to take my consciousness towards Krishna, then the riverbed And the last point I'll talk about is succession.
Succession means the greatness of a spiritual teacher is seen not just by how greatly spiritual they are, but how greatly they can make other people spiritual. Many times, when there are competitive exams, like in India there are IIT exams or IIT entrance JEE exam is there. Here there are competitive exams SIAT, SAT or whatever.
Then there are coaching classes. And in those coaching classes, what did they advertise? Oh, this student got into this IB league, this student got into this IIT, this got this JEE rank. And they want to attract, we have got such great results.
And they want to attract people to take up the practice or to join their coaching classes. Now usually such coaching classes, they may get great results, but what they do is they actually filter out so that they take the best students only. So what happens, if you take in the best students, obviously you'll get the best results.
If a coaching class were taking students who were dropouts from school, who were flunking in school, and then a coaching class makes them into toppers, makes them come number one, that is truly extraordinary. So Prabhupada, he was extraordinarily devoted to Krishna. But if we consider Prabhupada's movement in terms of religious history.
One of my friends is doing his PhD in the history of religious organizations. And he is telling me that in terms of religious history, if any organization was set up for failure by the founder, then it is gone. Why? Because in the history of religious organizations, there was no organization where the gap between the founder and the successors was so great.
Prabhupada was above 70, his disciples were just 20, 25, 30. And Prabhupada, then born and brought up in a very cultured, pure Vaishnava family, or to speak of devoting their life to Krishna, before they met Prabhupada or his followers. So, the sheer gap, culturally, spiritually, intellectually, religiously, philosophically, between the founder and the successors was so great that for the movement to survive is almost impossible.
In general, any organization, most organizations are founded by a charismatic founder. But 90% of the organizations don't survive for 5 to 10 years beyond the founder. After the founder departs, everything falls apart.
Because it's all personality centered. It's like a personality cult based on that person. Now, when Srila Prabhupada, he was asked, after you, who will succeed? Who will be your successor? And Prabhupada gave different answers at different times, and Prabhupada said, whoever wants to.
Who will succeed you? Whoever wants to take up the succession. Now, what does it mean, whoever wants to? In another conversation, Prabhupada once told Tamal Krishna Maharaj that I have inherited the legacy of my spiritual master. Now, what is the legacy of the spiritual master? Now, if you see, Bhaktiswami Thakur had 64 temples of Gaudiya Math and then he had 3 centers, one abroad, one in Dhaka, one in Montreal, one in Germany, and one in UK.
So, there are 67 centers. And when Bhaktiswami Thakur departed, the whole Gaudiya Math split apart. And Prabhupada did not get anything from the Gaudiya Math.
He did not get anything. He did not get any human resources, he did not get any financial support, he did not get any institutional backing. When Prabhupada came to America, he was utterly alone.
Then, what was it that Prabhupada got? As I said, I inherited the legacy of my spiritual master. The legacy of the spiritual master is not in terms of an institution or books or followers. The essential legacy of the spiritual master is the legacy of love.
The relationship between the spiritual master and disciple is based on love. Love for Krishna. The Guru loves Krishna, and the Guru inspires the disciple to love Krishna.
The Guru wants everyone to love Krishna, and the Guru inspires in the disciple the desire to encourage others to love Krishna. So, what Prabhupada got from his spiritual master was the desire to glorify Krishna. And that desire to glorify Krishna was so great with respect to Prabhupada that even at the age of 69, 70, Prabhupada was tireless.
Most people in their childhood, their early youth, they are very ambitious. Somebody may say, if you ask a small child, what do you want to become? Say, I want to become an astronaut, I want to go to the moon, or I want to become an Olympic gold medalist, I want to start my own big multinational company, I want to become the president of America. When we are young, we have big big dreams.
But especially in today's competitive environment, when you start going to college, as life starts beating us up, this doesn't work, that doesn't work, that doesn't work. Many times, by the time people graduate, initially I want to become the president of America. By the time they graduate, it will be good if I can get a job.
So, life has a way that through its failures, as our dreams get beaten down, then what happens? We just start settling for small small things. If we look at Shri Prabhupada's life, his life, in one sense, was just a chronicle of failures. He, initially when he met his spiritual master, he felt that, now I am already married, I have started a business, so I will contribute to my spiritual master's mission by my financial support.
I will build a big business and offer a lot of money. But somehow, he worked very hard, but one time his factory caught fire, another time one of his assistants swindled and stole the money and ran away. Another time, the timing was not right and another person, competitor, took over all his contacts.
So, many things went wrong. He kept trying his business for 20-30 years but it never worked out. Then Prabhupada decided to focus on spirituality.
So, he started the magazine, Back to Godhead. He worked extremely hard. He, single-handedly, would, first of all, write the articles, then he would type the articles and then he would take the typewritten material himself to the printer.
He would get it printed and then he would check the proofs. First, he would take the printer, then he would personally go to the paper provider and Prabhupada would get the paper himself. All this he was doing in Delhi, in extreme heat in summer.
And then, after the magazine was printed, he would personally go house to house and distribute books, distribute the magazine house to house, shop to shop. And, while he was doing all this, nobody seemed to be interested. Nobody seemed to be interested.
One time, Prabhupada was walking along the… He was working as hard as possible. There is an interview of the printer to whom Prabhupada was getting printed. And he said, every day when Swamiji would come to my place, he would come around 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock and he would be there all day, watching the printing, how it was happening.
So, he said, I would ask Swamiji, did we have breakfast? He said, for that time, Prabhupada had so little money that he had to choose between money, whatever money he had, should he use it to buy his breakfast, buy something to cook his breakfast or should he use it to get paper to publish B.T.G. And Prabhupada preferred to get paper. So, then the printer would give him, arrange for some fruits or something for his breakfast. He said, Swamiji is a holy man, let me support him.
But, although Prabhupada was working so hard, he was sleeping as less as possible, eating as less as possible, working as hard as possible. He was walking on the streets of Delhi and one day, he was so exhausted and the heat was so great, he just had a sun stroke and fainted. The report of that year was such that, it was 1960s early.
So, the report of that year was that, several people died because of sun stroke on the streets of Delhi. So, Prabhupada was there. Fortunately, he just fell on the ground and nobody knew him over there.
But, nobody knew, but Krishna knew. And Krishna arranged that an old acquaintance of Prabhupada, whom he had known in Kolkata, that person had shifted to Delhi and that person was just walking, was going in his car and he saw, who is this person lying on the ground? And he looked and said, his face looks familiar. Oh, it is Abhay Babu.
And then, he picked him up to the hospital. And then, he took him to the hospital and in the hospital, they said that, Swamiji, you need to take rest. Prabhupada said, I have no time to take rest.
The next day, Prabhupada was back again distributing books, distributing back to God magazine. He worked so hard, but nothing worked. Then, he tried to, he wrote his own Bhagavad Gita commentary and he wrote the whole commentary and he was struggling, he didn't have money to print it.
So, he contacted various donors. He went from Kolkata to Jhansi to meet a donor, to North India to meet a donor. Finally, he got a donor and then he got the money to get to print the books.
When he came back home, he found that somebody had sold his Bhagavad Gita as ragdi, as garbage. He said, this is just random paper. Prabhupada was shattered, but still he persevered.
He tried to work with his God brothers to help them in their movement and the institutions that they had and they just were not ready to cooperate. They were running a magazine. Prabhupada said, I will be the editor of the magazine.
Let it be your magazine. But Prabhupada said, I have got sponsorship to expand the magazine. They just printed 500 copies.
Prabhupada said, we will print 5000 copies. And God brothers said, very politely said, we don't want to expand this. And he sent Prabhupada away.
He went back to his communities. He worked very hard. He had a grand inauguration.
In Jhansi, he started it. Some of the biggest, most influential luminaries from Jhansi came over there. And then, suddenly the same people whom he was supposed to work with, those very people turned against him.
And they formed a clique and the place which was going to be his international headquarters, Prabhupada was practically evicted from there. Prabhupada could have fought, but when Prabhupada came to America, he had nothing with him. He just had 40 rupees.
And at that time, in 1965, there were no Indians. So, 40 rupees, conversion was also not done so much. So, that was practically useless.
In fact, those same 40 rupees, which Prabhupada took with him to America, you know when Prabhupada spent those 40 rupees, when he came back in 1968 to India, he came by flight. And from the airport, to go to Delhi airport, that junction temple, he took a rickshaw. And for that rickshaw, he used those 40 rupees.
So, Prabhupada literally went with nothing. When he went to America, on the way to America, the only resource he had at that time, material resource he had was his own body. And that body collapsed.
The body collapsed in terms of, he got not one but two heart attacks. But Prabhupada persevered through it all. When he came to America, he was staying at a place and he had his own typewriter and he had a dictaphone.
And the generator broke into the house and stole the typewriter and dictaphone. Prabhupada left with nothing. Finally, he came to Lower East Side and he started staying with one hippie.
And this hippie, he was, he was seeming to become Prabhupada's disciple, but one day he went high on drugs and attacked Prabhupada. And Prabhupada had to flee for his life. This was the same person who in India had met the Prime Minister of India, the President of India, was respected as sannyasi in India and he was homeless on the streets in New York, not knowing where to go.
Why had Prabhupada done all this? Because he had that burning desire to glorify Krishna. And that was the legacy that he got from his spiritual master. And thus, Prabhupada travelled across the world and it was from that desire to glorify Krishna that all those obstacles were overcome.
So, I was saying that, for Prabhupada, so many failures he faced, but the failures did not decrease his ambition. He tried for 40 years to preach in India, it didn't work. And then he said, I will go to America.
And his sponsor, Sumati Mani said, Swamiji, you are so old and America is so cold. He said, how will you live there? So, Prabhupada said, no, I have my spiritual master's instruction to fulfill. So, Prabhupada's dreams did not become smaller, they became bigger.
And eventually, Krishna arranged for them to be fulfilled in an extraordinary way. 108 temples manifested, over 70 books manifested, over thousands and thousands of devotees all over the world manifested. And the whole Krishna consciousness movement started flooding the world.
So, that desire to glorify Krishna is Srila Prabhupada's greatest gift. And when we hear from Srila Prabhupada, when we read his books, when we come to his temples, when we associate with his devotees, it is that desire that we are meant to get. If we get that desire, then we all can become successors.
Successors, when Prabhupada says, anyone who wants can become a successor means, whoever takes this desire to glorify Krishna, acts on that desire, they will become my successors. They will share Krishna Bhakti. The Krishna Bhakti, sharing Krishna Bhakti doesn't depend on having some institutional post or some institutional power, it just depends on the desire to glorify Krishna.
I'll conclude with one last point, that Krishna has many, many people who glorify him. Prabhupada glorified Krishna in an extraordinarily unparalleled way. But, Krishna requires instruments in every generation.
The previous Acharyas have glorified Krishna in their generation. In our generation, it is our responsibility. It is we who will be used as instruments, if we want to be used.
If we want to be used, Krishna can use us in extraordinary ways. If we strive to serve Krishna in our own small way, then by Krishna's mercy, by Sri Prabhupada's mercy, whatever obstacles may have come, we'll find that the obstacles will come and the obstacles will be removed. And, we'll be able to glorify Krishna.
Actually, when Prabhupada went to America, his, you could say, his was a mission impossible. But, it is not, because he was with Krishna, he was devoted to Krishna, within a few years, or to speak of mission impossible, it was revealed to be mission unstoppable. Not mission impossible, but mission unstoppable.
Because it is Krishna's potency, which acts through our hearts, if we become instruments of Krishna. So, on this sacred day, we can pray to Sri Prabhupada, that he has given us the opportunity to pass the tests, to rise from material consciousness to spiritual consciousness. So, we can take this gift.
The process of Krishna Bhakti that Prabhupada has given us is like a medicine. And, we just need to take this medicine and share this medicine with others. Sometimes that medicine can taste bitter.
I feel like this tastes too bitter. I don't want to take it. But, if a child doesn't want to take a bitter medicine, but if the child comes to know that my mother, this medicine is so rare and so expensive, that my mother sold her own jewelry to get this medicine for me, then the taste of the remembrance of the love of the mother will overcome the bitterness of the taste of the medicine.
And, the child will take that medicine. Similarly, sometimes we may have so many difficulties. Our own mind and senses may create difficulties.
Sometimes, the people around us, there will be difficulties because of that. In the devotee association, sometimes the outer world. So, we may feel practicing Krishna Bhakti is bitter.
It's difficult. But, if we compare the sacrifices that Sri Prabhupada has done to give us the opportunity to practice Krishna Bhakti, then we feel what problems I have, they are insignificant. But, to give me the opportunity to practice Krishna Bhakti, as compared to that, such was his love.
If he did so much for me to give me the opportunity to practice Krishna Bhakti, just tolerating these difficulties, I can surely do that. So, we can pray to Prabhupada that he inspire us with the desire to glorify Krishna and thus march forward in our journey back to spiritual health and happiness. Vande Guru Paramparaam.