3.2 Lift my vision from condemnation to compassion

bāsudeb-kathā ruci 

nahe se prasanna

For Vasudeva’s glories, they have no attraction

In the divine, they find no satisfaction

My dear Lord, this prayer reveals that Srila Prabhupada’s earlier description of America as ugra-sthāna—a terrible place—was not condemnation but compassion. His concern was never that America’s material progress was bad, but that it diverted people from the immense spiritual joy of remembering and loving you.

O source of all joy, that compassion arose from a joy he had known since childhood. As a toddler he would awaken each morning to the sound of his father’s ārati—the ringing bells becoming his first memory of the day. It was that joy which he celebrated when he organized the Ratha-yatra festival in his neighborhood as a child. It was that same joy which inspired him later to shift from being a political freedom fighter for India to becoming a spiritual missionary for India’s bhakti treasures.

O Lord who grants conviction, Srila Prabhupada is fully convinced that no joy even remotely compares with the joy of loving you. Grant me a fraction of his conviction, that I may accept the gift of divine love he offers and share it with others—not by guilting them for their ignorance, not by judging them for their blindness, but by gently guiding them toward your light.