Prabhupada_’s message included and transcended the past, present and future – Disappearance day talk

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Lecture Summary

Celebrating the disappearance day of Srila Prabhupada, this lecture explores the deep spiritual potency of Krishna Katha through the Gopi Gita and examines how Prabhupada expertly bridged timeless spiritual wisdom with the modern world.

Main Points

• The Healing Power of Krishna Katha: Drawing from the Gopi Gita, glorifying Krishna acts as a divine elixir that reverses the flow of human consciousness, pulling it away from material cravings and toward spiritual connection.

• Essence-Seeking over Rigid Traditionalism: Prabhupada utilized timeless Vedic wisdom without trying to rigidly turn back the social clock, focusing instead on fanning the spark of spiritual inquisitiveness in every individual.

• Grounded Devotional Existentialism: Rather than lamenting past setbacks or insignificant present circumstances, Prabhupada fully accepted his reality and served Krishna wholeheartedly with whatever facilities were available.

• Optimism for the Future: Rejecting both utopian and dystopian extremes, Prabhupada trusted in Krishna’s heightened mercy during Kali Yuga and the boundless capacity for human consciousness to elevate.

• Empathetic and Sensitive Outreach: Successful preaching goes beyond speaking at people; it involves listening, understanding their current mindset, and helping them connect their everyday experiences with Krishna.

• Holding the Krishna Anchor: Spiritual resilience relies on holding tightly to the “Krishna anchor” through chanting, hearing, and service to stay grounded amidst the unpredictable waves of material life.

Key Takeaways

• Make peace with your past: Stop resenting past mistakes and instead integrate your accumulated life experience positively into your spiritual practice.

• Embrace the present: Accept your current life circumstances as an immediate opportunity to serve Krishna with whatever resources you have right now.

• Focus on the anchor, not the waves: Build spiritual strength by holding fast to Krishna rather than getting overwhelmed by personal conditionings or future uncertainties.

• Practice empathetic preaching: Approach outreach with patience and sensitivity, listening to others to see how Krishna is already working in their lives.

Full Transcription

Hare Krishna Today we have assembled on the occasion of Krishna Prabhupada’s disappearance day. And this verse, which is in the most esoteric and lofty section of the Bhagavatam, paradoxically also describes Krishna Prabhupada’s movement mission. So contextually, this is in the Gopi Gita.
The Ras Panchadhyaya is like a five-part, five-act play. The first act, Gopis are called by Krishna. The second act, Gopis have Vishnu and Krishna and they are about to dance, but then Krishna disappears from them.
They search frantically for him. The third act, the Gopis sit around the banks of Yamuna, the place where they are at most intimate and sweet pastimes with Krishna, and they fervently call out to him. And then, outpouring of the desolate heart, shattered by separation from Krishna, is the Gopi Gita.
And this causes Krishna to appear in the next chapter. And then they have love and discussions about the nature of love. And in the last chapter, the Gopis perform their last dance with Krishna.
So, in the Gopi Gita, which is one of the sweetest poetic relations in the Bhagavad Gita tradition, and certainly in the Bhagavatam, each of these verses is actually spoken by Manman Gopi. And that’s why it’s a collective Gopya, who drew at the start. And each verse, while we seem to say various things, each one is actually a call to Krishna, please come back.
So, for example, the first verse, The implication there is Krishna, because you have appeared here, you have made Vraja fortunate, so fortunate, that even the goddess of fortune has come to stay over here. So when you have made Vraja so fortunate, how can you make us so unfortunate? Why? Because of your association. And that is all the more inappropriate, because we are not living in Vraja just for our own purposes.
Our whole life is devoted to you. So how can you make us so unfortunate? You cannot, Krishna. Therefore, please come back.
And each verse is actually a call for Krishna to return. Krishna, we know that you are not the son of Yashoda. You are the, actually, We understand that you are the indwelling Supersoul, residing in all the hearts.
That law is within, in the Satvatara mystic. And it says further that, This is not here. They are saying that you, so they are saying that each of these lines, yeah, we know you are not the son of Yashoda.
You are the Supersoul. If you are the Supersoul, then actually you can see what is in our hearts. We are not proud.
We long for your association. We cannot live without you. Therefore, please come back.
You know this material world is filled with people who have turned away from you. But you have descended to this material world to care for those people and their prayer of Brahmacharya. Therefore, we are also a part of the material world.
So please care for us and come back. Please rule with us. We are your friends, Krishna.
We are your men. And you are born in the Kshatriya family. Please protect us.
Please come back. So each of these prayers is an indirect way of calling Krishna back. And within that, this particular verse seems to be somewhat inappropriate.
In the sense of, it is just off. What is going on here? Why are they saying that? Suddenly it seems a lot like Krishna Katha. So, what is going on here? The Gopis are feeling utterly desolate in separation from Krishna.
And at the same time, while being separated from him, as the Gopis are hearing each other speak about Krishna, they are feeling Krishna’s presence in his absence through Krishna Katha. That is, each of the Gopis are singing something about Krishna, speaking something about Krishna. They are not just calling Krishna back.
They are describing some attributes of Krishna and using that glorification of Krishna to intensify their calling to Krishna. So at one level, the Gopis are responding to Krishna. We thought we became proud.
We thought each of us was special. True. We understand.
Each Gopi is singing. And every other Gopi has a great soul. Because the Gopis are out in the forest of Vrindavan and they are speaking about Krishna.
The Gopis are going mad in love for Krishna. They are speaking with everyone. They are asking the trees.
They are asking the Tulsi. They are asking the birds. Where is Krishna? So, as each of the Gopis is speaking about Krishna, that is providing relief to the afflicted hearts of all other Gopis.
So that is the meaning of that verse in that context. We are not proud. Every other Gopi is in the midst of the Guru.
The Gopis are speaking, this is nothing. I am a great soul. But don’t speak about Krishna.
I am a great soul. But then, the previous verse, Madhurya Yagira, Madhura Yagira, that Krishna, when we hear your words, then, Buddha Madhav Gaya, Pushkar Yaksha, then, even the wise and the wise and the sweet words that you speak. So Krishna, your words are the elixir of life.
So you please come and you speak to us. There are words about you, there are words about Krishna and words by Krishna. It says, your words are relieving us of this affliction that has come from the separation from you.
Tapta Jeevanam. Tapta Jeevanam. They are the Gopis are reading Tapta.
They are burning because they are separated from Krishna. So they are saying, Krishna you come and you speak words. If you are angry with us, you come and express your anger.
But don’t abandon us. Don’t reach out to us. So, they are formally calling out to Krishna.
And while they are doing this, many of the ones in the Bhagavatam, they apply at various levels. Like we have the Atmanam verse, which the Prabhupada commented and Mahatma Gandhi commented. There are dozens of these.
So 64, it has more chakras. So these words, of course, apply at the level of a spiritual source. That it is material existence that fills us with the fire.
The fire can be either the fire of craving or the fire of lamenting. We crave for the things we don’t have and that keeps us tormented. And we lament for the things which we feel we have lost, things that are not worth it.
And in that way, Taptaichi nemanam But, Tavakathamritam So normally there is fire. If somebody is a firefighter, they put water to extinguish fire. But this fire that is inside, it cannot be extinguished by water.
We need nectar for extinguishing it. And that nectar is Tavakathamritam. So this also applies to all those great souls who travel across the world and they share Krishnapata and they extinguish the fire.
Now the souls of the souls are not aware that this fire, what is the cause of this fire? Everybody starts feeling, well, I am dissatisfied. Not just dissatisfied, frustrated, that big things go wrong in our life. But we often think, okay, this person did this to me, or this went wrong.
We all think that there are some circumstantial causes towards this. And there are some causes maybe there, but beyond that, there is a nature of existence itself. And we need to raise our consciousness up.
So we want to understand that. But the great souls understand that. So Kavitiritam, the voice of Kaviti, they translate it.
Kavitiritam Kalmashapaham. What does it do? Kalmashapaham means anything that misdirects our consciousness of Krishna. Kalmashapaham, it is destroyed.
Shravanmangalam Shreemadatayam. When we hear, there is auspicious welcome. How? Shreemadatayam is filled with great power.
Atitam, it is translated by the great sages. Iditam is worship. It is worshipped and transmitted.
So the idea is, Krishna is right there with us, next door is in our heart. Krishna is here, we are here. But, Badhir Mukham, we are trying to be conscious.
Our consciousness is being caught and dragged toward worldly things. So Krishna confines us to two things. Kalmashapaham means the forces that are dragging our consciousness away from Krishna, those forces get minimised.
Those forces get eliminated. Kalmashapaham. And along with this could be greed, this could be jealousy, this could be anger, this could be craving.
All these forces just get destroyed. And this is actually the theme which will come at the end of the Gopita. When, what is the phalashukti of the Gopita? It says that, that karma is destroyed from the heart.
But it’s not just that. Shreemadat is a wafer. When we are high, and the driver is drunk or the driver is unconscious, and the driver doesn’t realise, it’s just coming close to a cliff, a wall of a cliff, a disaster.
So, we need to not just stop the car going off the cliff, we need to stop the car and reverse its direction. So, sometimes there are maybe a superhero movie, superman just descends and the car is going, and just comes down and uses a super chill ball and pushes the car back over itself. So, Krishnakatha is like the ultimate super power.
It not only stops or removes the forces So, it’s like the mountain slide is like this. So, there’s gravity just pulling the car downwards. So, it not only, Krishnakatha not only removes the forces that are dragging our consciousness toward worldly things, toward worldly pleasures, but Krishnakatha changes the momentum of the car of our consciousness.
That’s why it’s extraordinary power. Against the pull of the world, against the gravity, just like the gravity drives everything down in the world, because there’s a gravity in the material world which drags our consciousness towards worldly objects. But Krishnakatha counters that.
And that is how this powerful power, Shri Madarana, our consciousness becomes attracted towards Krishna. Now, the same consciousness is going rapidly towards worldly things, then it starts moving towards Krishna. And that is the power of the three souls to become transmitters of this power.
So, the foremost among such souls who transmitted the power of Krishnakatha was Krishna Prabhupada. Now, Krishna Prabhupada is a genius. We can understand him in different ways.
We can say, okay, he is found at the moment that we are part of. And that’s why we will actually glorify him. And yes, that is true.
But it is not just some sectarian rule or business in its own that sets you up. What Shri Prabhupada did can be appreciated both in specific terms as well as universal terms. So, we try to understand it.
Krishnakatha was eternally existing. And it is eternally going to exist. But the power of Krishnakatha is manifested through the right instruments.
It is not that anybody who speaks Krishnakatha will automatically have its effect. We can say, yes, at one level Krishnakatha has power. Yes, but Krishna’s message has to be presented in an appropriate way.
And that has two aspects to it. We often say purity is the force. But we often think of purity only because I have no desire other than the desire to serve Krishna.
But that’s not the only aspect of purity. So purity is, if I have a soul over here, this is Krishna. And I am transmitting Krishna to him.
So purity has two aspects to it. One is that I have no desire other than to serve Krishna. And the other is, I have no desire other than to benefit the person I am serving.
Sometimes we are speaking about Krishna but our thinking is, this person should become a devotee through me. And therefore, that will give credit to me. This person should receive me.
And that is the motive. And what happens is, that also becomes impurity. So we need to understand, connect with Krishna.
That is our purity which is required. But to connect with the world, we need sensitivity. We need to be aware of where people are coming from.
What is the opening in their consciousness through which Krishna can be brought into them. That is what expertise is required. There are many, there are not many, few as compared to material.
There are souls who are connected with Krishna. But not all souls who are connected with Krishna are able to connect others with Krishna. Because that requires not just the purity of one’s connection with Krishna but sensitivity to understand.
Sensitivity doesn’t just mean being softly. Sensitivity means awareness of where a person is coming from. What is their understanding? What are their conceptions? And how can Krishna be shared with them? So I will talk about this aspect of Shri Adi Prabhupada’s expertise in connecting, in making Krishna’s message accessible to people.
So I will talk about it both in more universal or global terms and then in individual terms also. There is another verse which talks about the potency of Krishna This verse comes in the 7th chapter of the 1st Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam. When we hear about Krishna When we hear about him Bhakti is manifested in the heart.
And what does that do? Shoka is lamentation. Moha is illusion. Bhaya is fear.
All these three are removed. So this verse which he personally explains is one of the foundational verses of the Bhagavatam. 1.4 to 6, these three chapters are the discussion between Narada Muni and Vyasadeva.
And during that discussion Narada Muni tells Vyasadeva He says that you go into Samadhi and remember the pastimes of the Lord. And then describe those pastimes. So that is exactly what Vyasadeva does at the start of the 7th chapter.
He sits down in meditation and gets a vision. And that vision is described in five verses. That vision is the genesis of the Srimad Bhagavatam.
He sees how all living beings are not in mental existence. And the way out of mental existence is through Shri Krishna Katha. The reservoir of Shri Krishna Katha is the Srimad Bhagavatam.
And therefore, he and his followers, Ramakrishna Akshay, they also went on to Bhagavatam in the post. So this verse says that when we are in mental existence, we encounter three phases of time. The past, present and future.
And at the material level of consciousness, our consciousness gets caught in one of these. And Shoka, Moka, Praya, these three emotions are associated with these three phases of time. That we look at the past and we feel, oh, that went wrong and this went wrong and I did this and I did that Shoka.
There is a limitation. For the future, there is craving but also there is fearing. There is ego, that ego, that ego, there is mind.
And there is, for the present, there is more. Now it’s interesting, there is more illusion, isn’t there always? But why specifically about the present? Because the idea is, we get consumed by, okay, this is my problem, this is how I will solve it. This is my desire, this is how I will do it.
And that way we get consumed. So what we think will make our situation better is often led by illusion. That’s why for the present it is said more.
So Shoka, Moka and Praya. And all these three says Krishna Katha will remove. Now how does it remove this? We understand that Krishna is in charge of the past.
Krishna wasn’t in charge of the past. Krishna is in charge of the present. And Krishna will be in charge of the future.
And if we just try to connect with him, if we just try to discern him, then Krishna will make the best out of all of that. So Krishna Katha is not just hearing some entertaining past that we are forgetting about the world. Sometimes, especially if people get entangled, this seems to be like mythology.
There are entertaining stories. Nowadays, due to the pandemic, everything was shut down. So one of the industries that surged the most was the escapist entertainment industry.
Netflix and others. This is Zoom because people have nothing to do. So people think that this is just escapist entertainment.
Well, yes and no. This is the material level of reality. Now, above this is the spiritual level.
Below this is the virtual or the imaginary level. We escape from the material world, but where are we escaping? Are we escaping from the imaginary world? Or are we escaping from the real world? So this is a higher reality that we go towards. But to go towards that, it is not just Krishna Katha.
It is Krishna Katha presented externally. Krishna Katha was there before the Srimad Bhagavatam also. But what Vyasadevi did was he presented it externally.
The Bhagavatam was there before also. What Srila Prabhupada did was he presented it externally. Dakshina.
And externalism is one of the characteristics of a great soul. So this is talked about in Bhagavad Gita also. And it is also wrong.
Chaitanya Chantamrutam. So basically, let’s look at these three phases of time and see how Prabhupada approached these three phases of time in his expert presentation of Krishna Katha. And how we can take that approach ourselves.
So generally we can say there are three kinds of people. There are traditionalists, there are existentialists, and there are utopianists. So traditionalists, they say everything in the past was so wonderful.
And they just compare the past with the present. The past was so deplorable. So at best, they are filled with emotional nostalgia.
The past was so wonderful. At worst, they are filled with complete condemnation of the present. So now Srila Prabhupada was… So let’s try the traditionalists.
Existentialists, existentialists have many different meanings. But from philosophical perspective, existentialism means that actually the meaning of existence is unknown. Therefore, all you can do is stop asking philosophical questions and just live the best way you can.
So at a practical level, this means just live in the present. We’ll talk about it. So this is existentialism.
Focus on the present. Forget the past. Just focus on the present.
That’s philosophical existentialism. And utopianists, those who think that the future is going to be wonderful. They may all have particular ideologies.
You follow this particular philosophy. You can live this way. You can live this way.
The past was bad. The present is bad. But the future will be wonderful.
Those are the utopianists. So now Srila Prabhupada, Prabhupada was… He was not looking for the past. He was not looking for the present.
He was not looking for the future. Prabhupada was looking for the future. So Prabhupada was neither a traditionalist, non-existentialist, nor a utopianist.
He was a transcendentalist. And as a transcendentalist, Prabhupada was Saradnani. Saradnani is the essence seeker.
So as contrasted with that, what is the opposite? Bhargava. Bhargava he would say is a burden carrier. So the burden carriers are those who just are burdened.
They could be burdened by the past. Oh, I did so many bad things. People did so many bad things.
The past is terrible. Or they could say the past was so wonderful but it’s all lost now. They can say the present is so terrible.
This is bad, this is bad, this is bad. They burden themselves. Oh, this is the future.
There are people who are alarmists. They say we are going to run out of fuel. This is going to happen.
That is going to happen. This is going to happen. That the world is going to come to an end.
This has been propagated since the beginning of time. They are just burdened by the future. There is the Christianity, which is a very big thing.
The world Christian organisation which has predicted the end of the world 21 times till now. And each time it doesn’t happen. Instead of being embarrassed they say Jesus is merciful.
Let’s give him one more chance. So if we just focus on the negatives of everything we can burden ourselves. And that is what is meant by a burden.
So essence seeker is one who sees the good. Good here means that which is utilisable in Krishna. From the past, the present and the future.
So in the talk of Prabhupada as an expert, Prabhupada expert, sensitive in transmitting Krishanatha, what he means is that if you look at that expertise, we all have a past, we are in the present and we all have a future. So Krishna Consciousness has to be present in a way that accommodates our past. We have come from a particular past.
We cannot just deny that. We have come from a particular past. Krishna Consciousness has to integrate in our life in a way that our past gets positively concerned.
And then Krishna Consciousness affects our present and helps us create a better future. So that is the expertise of a devotee who is trying to share Krishna Bhakti. So let’s see how Prabhupada did that.
So basically, every stone is going on a journey. We can say every stone is going on a journey towards Krishna. Yes, but every stone has an individual journey towards Krishna.
And if a stone is going this way towards Krishna, we cannot suddenly attract the stone from here and you come here and go this way towards Krishna. The stone has a past. And that past has to be accepted and within that we are all trying to climb up a mountain.
So if I am climbing up a mountain this way, but somebody else is climbing up a mountain that way. Maybe they are two-thirds way up the mountain. At that time, I can’t just this is the way to go up the mountain, so I pull you down from there.
You come down here and start all over again. You understand where you are and from there, how you can go up. So this happens at an individual level and this also happens at a collective level.
So we could say among these three things, traditionalist, existentialist and utopianist. Because Prabhupada was a traditionalist. When? Yes and no.
So when we talk about the essence seeker, there is good in everything. Prabhupada put so much money that he can take. Good even from a gold even from a filthy place.
So like that, there is good everywhere. In the present, the past, present and future. So Prabhupada was definitely a traditionalist in the sense that Prabhupada recognised that in our infatuation with progress, with material progress, we have started looking in the past with derision, with condemnation.
And we cut ourselves off from much of the treasure trove of wisdom that is available in the past. That’s why Prabhupada commented extensively on the spiritual texts which went in the past. But Prabhupada didn’t think of the Bhagavatam as simply something which was meant for the past.
He saw that it was timeless. Yes, it was lived in the past. More frequently than in the past area.
But he understood that this was timeless. And that’s why Prabhupada’s focus was not on turning back the clock. The traditionalist, their solution to the problems of life is turn back the clock.
If we all would live the way we lived in the past, then everything would be beautiful. If tradition is taken to an extreme, that leads to fanaticism, that leads to extremism. To study on its own flow, we can’t come to that.
Every spiritual teacher, every in this tradition, has to recognise that the reality of today is not the same as the way the tradition was lived in the past or the originator. If we consider, say, today we have this extremist organisation ISIS. They had this, their idea is to live faithfully according to Islam’s teachings.
We have to live the way people lived in the 17th century. And that’s why when they would kill their enemies, they would put them in a cage and burn them alive. But then they would shoot them on a smartphone and transmit it everywhere.
So nobody can turn the clock back. So spiritual growth is not so much about turning the clock back as turning the compass on. What is the compass over here? Every soul has the innate potential to worship.
And the compass is, the soul is longing for something higher. Relativity is the highest reality. And right now our compass is misdirected.
We are directed towards so many things. We may think wealth is the highest thing, beauty is the highest thing, fame is the highest thing. We are all pursuing those things.
So turning the compass on means our compass gets directed towards us. So Shri Prabhupada, he drew from the Vedic texts. He committed in the Vedic texts.
But at the same time, Prabhupada was not focused on turning the clock back. So for example, one way in which the past and present are different is through science and technology. And Prabhupada didn’t condemn technology or the science and technology at that time.
He critiqued if these were used to propagate atheism. But he said that these can also be used in rational science. In fact, Prabhupada pioneered the principle of yukta-vairagya that everything can be used so the good from the present can be used for propagating, for connecting with the transient.
So that is how Prabhupada talked about the east east-west synthesis. He talked about how the east is the spirituality of India and the west is the technology of the west. So they are like the light man and the ling man.
The light man and the ling man. They both can come together and they can change the world. The ling man can be carried by the light man and the light man can show the world.
They both can be one. So when Prabhupada compared the west to a blind man, it was not a Buddha. It was not a saying that I am from India so India is good and the west is bad.
In the west also, spirituality was there everywhere in the world. But it is in fact a gradual progress. The west has lost its spiritual movements.
So that is what Prabhupada called it a blind man. And what is significant is that Prabhupada compared India to a ling man. What he meant was that through centuries of foreign subjugation and exploitation, India had not only lost its material prosperity but it also lost its confidence about its spirituality.
And because of that we have become incapable of both material and spiritual growth. The ling person cannot go in there. So in this, we talk about this metaphor, but the point is in this metaphor, it may seem that India is better than the west.
We are going to win. But Prabhupada talked about synthesis. So the way Prabhupada said the world will change is he did not say that the ling man will develop legs and move on.
He is not saying that India of today has to be changed back to the idyllic India of some utopian past or some past. He did not say that the world has to change back to the way the India of India was in the past. So Prabhupada is pantheistic.
Prabhupada recognised that we take the good from the past. But that does not mean everything from the past can be taken good. There are two reasons.
Because it may not be practical. And second is, it is not that see, we sometimes have the idea that if you can see the romantic side of the past, everything in the past was wonderful. Not necessarily.
Everything traditional is not spiritual. Even there were deviations within the tradition. For example, within the Indian tradition itself, the caste by birth, the idea of caste system was a deviation.
And Prabhupada did not accept that. Prabhupada opened the doors of spirituality for him. One of their friends, we were in Mayapur, once further.
No, we did not prefer Atyagraha festival. Then suddenly, every day he started coming here. So, wherever we could find some shelter, we were waiting for the rains to end.
So one of the devotees, at that time, he went to a building that happened to be Gauriyamma’s. Two of my friends. So there we saw that there was a building and some sanyasi came over there.
And then the sanyasi said, okay, Prasad. So he went and asked, can I serve some prasad? Then they asked him, are you initiated? He said, no. Now, if you are not initiated, you cannot serve prasad to a sanyasi.
Now, that is the standard of what we call conservative. Now, if you consider Krishna Prabhupada, what to speak of accepting prasad from somebody who is not initiated, Prabhupada served prasad to those who are not initiated. Now, he served prasad, he washed their plates.
This is, from a puritanical perspective, purity is emphasised or overemphasised even at the cost of others’ humanity. So, when Prabhupada came back to India, he became like, he lived in Vrindavan for some time, and when he brought two or three schools of devotees from the west, from America and UK to India, it was a great movement for Vrindavan. For the Bajawasis, Prabhupada lived like their hometown swami.
So, it’s like somebody lives in a small village, and from there, some young student who becomes a cricket champion or some type of hero. When they come back, it’s like a victory to everybody in the village is happy. Our person has become so great.
So, for the Bajawasis, it was like that. Now, our swami has become so great, he’s got foreign disciples. So, now, at that time, the government of Vrindavan itself, the panchayat that was there, they, in Vrindavana Mathura, they arranged a grand celebration to welcome Prabhupada.
And they asked other spiritual leaders also to come over there. So, they all came. Now, many of them were genuinely appreciative, but not all of them were.
So, one of them said, yes, Swamiji has made all these people do it. That’s great. Since Swamiji was a businessman in the past, so, because he was a businessman, he came in contact with all kinds of people.
As far as we are concerned, we were sanyasis from our childhood. We don’t interact with low-class people like this. So, it is like, there is damning by faint praise.
If praising, like if somebody invites us to their house of prasad, and how was the prasad? It was edible. It was edible. It is not a criticism, but it is a criticism.
So, edible is like the lowest level of prasad. So, there is damning by faint praise. So, this is like that.
Why? What happened is Prabhupada Prabhupada It was not because Prabhupada was a businessman that he was able to attract all kinds of people. It was because Prabhupada was compassionate. It was because Prabhupada, he did not stick to traditional standards of purity when it came to sharing Krishna’s message.
If Prabhupada had been looking for disqualifications, he could have seen so many disqualifications in the people who came to him. At that time, the hippies actually, if you look at western culture history, the hippies were a particular phenomenon. And it was not widespread.
The counterculture was widespread. With the counterculture, hippies were a relatively small population, but their influence was widespread because they were so radically opposed to what people thought the rest could be. So, in one sense, that people from India, those who are traditional, they consider the rest to be degraded.
But the hippies were considered degraded even by the rest. And Prabhupada influenced them. Prabhupada accepted them.
Prabhupada didn’t see everything that was going to be wrong. Prabhupada saw the one thing that was spiritual. That is, they were interested in who is intelligent.
Prabhupada focused on that. So, Prabhupada could have seen all the elaborate structure of social standards and ritual purity that was there in the past in India. The Nazis were neglected.
But Prabhupada looked at the tradition and all the social standards and the ritual purity, all that was meant for one purpose. That is, to fan the spark of Brahma Jijnasa. The spark of Brahma Jijnasa needs to be fanned till it becomes the flame of Krishna Brahma.
And everything else, the social structure, the ritual structure, all that is there is meant for that purpose. So, the social structure and the ritual systems, sometimes they may not be that applicable. Sometimes people do not need to follow those things.
From those perspectives, people may be a little bit squandered. But that spark of spiritual influence to someone, that is what Prabhupada managed to do. So, Prabhupada was a traditionalist in the sense that he took the spiritual wisdom that was widespread in the past.
But Prabhupada was not a traditionalist in the sense that he did not try to replicate all social structures and ritual systems. He took from those what was suitable, what was doable, those practises and he presented them. And that’s how the Sankranti of Krishna Now, this is a big subject.
But the point is that Prabhupada fell in a position that Prabhupada was able to attract people and transform people. That was because what he gained was challenging but it was not boring. It was not impossible.
It was inspiringly challenging. There are different kinds of challenges. Some challenges seem so difficult why should I do it? I can do it.
But some challenges, yes, it’s difficult but you can do it. So, Prabhupada tapped the adventurous spirit within his followers. Some of the challenges were difficult but he inspired them.
So, that was Prabhupada’s expertise. So, he was a transcendentalist who drew from the tradition to present, to transform people in the present. That is the past.
Now, for all of us also, we can look at our past, we can say, oh, I have done this in the past, I have this condition for the past. Or we can look at people. People have so many conditions.
And we can just become like it. So, Prabhupada may feel, oh, I came so late to Krishna Bhakti. If I had come younger, if I had borne Krishna Bhakti, I would have been so good.
Then, okay, all that is fine to think about. But I feel we need to know that Krishna has a plan for us. And whatever might be our past, Krishna can use that past to propel us forward in the present.
So, if we are in Krishna conscious, we need to make at least, we need to at least make peace with our past. We cannot be resenting it, lamenting it. No, there will be many things which are wrong, many things which we did wrong.
But about we did wrong, what wrongs others did to us, Krishna’s plan is working. So, make peace with the past. And if we make peace with the past, then we can seek what is good in the past.
So, we all have learned certain things from our past. Some wisdom we have learned, some experience we have, some expertise we have. We take that past and we build our bhakti using that past.
That’s what we can do. That’s what we can do. Then we come to the present.
So, those who focus only on the present, what are they called? Existentialists. So, existentialists have this mantra, live in the present. Well, at one level, it’s going to make sense.
We can get caught in the past, we can get caught in the future. In that sense, it is fine. But, we live in the present, but we live for something bigger than the present.
If you only live in the present, suppose somebody is terribly sick, in the present, the only sensation they have is pain. You tell them, live in the present. I don’t want to live only there.
So, we human beings long for something bigger than what the present offers us. At the same time, we say, live in the present. Say somebody is sick, they need to have the hope that somebody will help them.
By the same time, that treatment has to begin from the present. I cannot imagine my health is great. Okay, I have this level of a problem.
So, we need to accept the present, but at the same time, we cannot restrict ourselves to the present. So, same way, what did Prabhupada do? He went to the West. If you see, before that, his present was quite, from a material perspective, insignificant.
Prabhupada had tried for 30-40 years to share Krishna-Bhakti, and he had nothing to show. For us as devotees, we have been serving in a particular place, we have been preaching, some organisation, some management, and somehow we are transferred to some other place. We have to go to some other place.
Then, at one level, none of the services that we have done, we will carry them to the next place. So, we are starting from scratch. Not a scratch, because we have all that experience, we all have that history.
And, if you are a part of the same movement, that was in all your religious services in the past, then I am critical. You can start from a picture over here. All your religious services, you can pick up religious services here.
So, we build on our past, wherever we are. And, from Prabhupada’s perspective, he had been preaching for so long, been trying for 30-40 years, since he was in the government in 1922. But, at the end of it, when he went to America, what did he have to show for it? His followers, his institutional support, he didn’t give a home to give a lot of money and give a lot of Lakshmi to his Guru’s mission.
But, not to speak of giving Lakshmi to his Guru’s mission, he didn’t have much Lakshmi even for his own mission, what he was trying to do. So, he had nothing. But, he had what he needed.
That was the Srimad Bhagavatam. 1962, 1963, 1964, each of those years, Prabhupada worked extremely hard and published one volume of the Bhagavatam. At that time, the first characters published in three volumes.
And, Prabhupada completed that three volumes of the first Srimad Bhagavatam. At that time, he knew that now, I have the spiritual resources that to go to the West. And, Krishnadevaraya, at that time, Prabhupada would be generally speaking, what happens is our past affects our present.
And, when the person is a small child, what do you want to be in the future? Our ambitions are lofty. I want to be the President of America. I want to be the next Nobel laureate scientist.
I want to be this. I want to be the world’s greatest scientist. As we keep growing up, growing up, we start realising life is so tough.
And, as life keeps beating us down, beating us down, by the time you graduate, it will be nice if I get a job. Laughter So, generally, life’s setbacks and failures, they sort of beat our ambition down. Yes, you can say we are all unrealistic at times, and we need to be realistic.
But, Prabhupada, he was not just focused on material reality. You could say Prabhupada had tried so many things. Prabhupada had tried to start a magazine, but there were hardly any tickets.
Prabhupada tried to start the League of Devotees, but the place he was there, he was almost evicted from there. Prabhupada tried to work with his godbrothers, and they had a very parochial vision. They didn’t want him to expand at all.
Prabhupada tried to excel, to travel and give classes, but our Indians at that time seemed to be more pious than spiritual. So, almost everything he had tried, he failed at. But, Prabhupada’s vision, his ambition, instead of shrinking, expanded.
He had no success in India. They said, I’ll go to the West and I’ll teach you the best. It’s like, from a material perspective, a student can say, the student has not even been to the past high school.
I’ll get a PhD from Ireland. What are you thinking? Prabhupada was met with that kind of scepticism of, I want to go to the best. Most people didn’t take him seriously.
So, although Prabhupada’s present was, we could say, very discouragingly insignificant. But, Prabhupada did not let himself get reduced by that. He saw that Krishna has a plan.
That’s why, even when Prabhupada was all alone in America, he’s walking on the streets all day. He was neither insecure nor bitter. Repeated failure leads to these two things.
Insecure, maybe they don’t have what it takes to do things. They have not wanted. Or, bitter means, you can all think that you’re not wrong in our life.
There’s one atheist philosopher who was asked, do you believe in hell? He just thought that the atheist philosopher said, of course I believe in hell. He said, what is hell? Hell is other people. So, some people, they have bad experiences in a relationship, they just become bitter.
But, Prabhupada, although, from his past, there was so much, his present was so insignificant. He was an unknown swamis walking on the streets of New York. But, he was neither insecure nor bitter.
Prabhupada had that confidence. He said, there are temples, there are famous devotees only dying with the spirits of death. Even when Prabhupada was walking on the streets all alone, people wouldn’t meet him.
They wouldn’t let him on the streets of New York. When we say, Prabhupada is an existentialist, what that means is, in God’s eyes, Prabhupada is an existentialist. He accepted the present.
He lived in the present in the sense that in the present, whatever resources were available, he would use those resources. So, we know that in New York, around Janmashtami, 26th Avenue, that place which now we thought has that memorial place of Prabhupada, which we have over there. So, now I’m really trying to contact most of the people who lived in 1966.
I’m no longer alive, but those who are still, we’re contacting them, those who lived in the neighbourhood and trying to find out more. So, one thing that many people have found out is that Prabhupada would go for long walks. Now, we could say that Prabhupada had a habit of walking.
Yes, that is true. But, Prabhupada would go on walks for one more purpose. Not just for health.
Not for recreation. Because, for him, that was the way to publicise. When you want to publicise a programme, you take pamphlets, social media advertising.
Prabhupada did none of the funds for that. Prabhupada would just go out for a walk. And he was an unusual person.
Of course, New York, at least, specialises in delighting the unusual. Because everybody lives their own life. But still, even among those, Prabhupada is remarkably elite.
And the first serious followers that he got were not people who came for his programme. They were people who saw him in the streets. It was a very serious problem.
You can’t judge right now. The first who became serious at that time. That was Hyderabad Prabhupada.
So, what happened? Prabhupada was walking on the streets. And Hyderabad Prabhupada, there was a power pillar which is going around the road. And they were going to have drugs.
That was their way of becoming spiritual. So, LSD is a drug. And those people had re-Christian LSD.
They said, LSD is the league of spiritual discovery. So, if you take LSD, you will discover spirituality. So, he was going to take drugs.
And he was going along. And he looked. He saw somebody.
Who is this? He said, I have drugs. What is happening? And then, he passed away. And he waited.
He said, something is still there. Hallucination will go away. Something is still there.
Now, he was a serious spiritual seeker. He along with others had gone to India in search for a guru. But he had not been able to find anyone.
He said that those who seem to be enlightened didn’t know English. And those who knew English didn’t seem to be enlightened. So, he then came back from India disappointed.
And then, he waited. Now, he saw not only that Swamiji is walking, he is stopping and looking at him. So, Prabhupada was walking towards Swamiji.
So, somebody is interested. And then, he stopped. And he saw Prabhupada smiling at him.
So, he waited and he crossed the road. And then, he spoke to him. Swamiji asked him, and you? Prabhupada said, Prabhupada was not from India.
But he said, I have visited India. Prabhupada was smiling and talking with him. And everybody said, there is this big lorry going back on the road.
Prabhupada seemed to be rooted in something far beyond the Baba’s sight. He seemed to be sublimely peaceful, sublimely joyful. Even if Prabhupada, nobody had become an devotee by Prabhupada’s request, Prabhupada was still happy.
Why? Because he used to do the instruction of his spiritual master. So, if you see the Bhagavad Gita, the first line is, Krishna is very merciful to me. How? Now, you may say, if you think about the situation, what is the mercy? Prabhupada is all alone.
He has no money. He has no organisational support. He has… The people whom he is going to host, he doesn’t even know them.
He doesn’t know how they are going to receive him. He has just had two heart attacks. He had a severe bowel sickness.
When he came on the bus, when he was going to land, he doesn’t know whether he was left or right. But somebody said, where is the mercy? There is no mercy at all. But what is Prabhupada saying? Prabhupada is saying that my spiritual master has given me the instruction to share Krishna-Bhakti in the West.
Now, in my old age, Krishna has at least given me the opportunity to go to that institution. But there is no opportunity and necessity. Prabhupada saw just having that opportunity as mercy.
And Prabhupada was grateful for that. So, when he said, live in the present, like in the existential philosophy, that means that we need to accept our present wherever we are. Maybe we could do more outreach.
Maybe we could do more service if we had more facilities. But we accept the facilities we have. And we do what we can with what we have.
So one way to define surrender is acceptance. Acceptance is not passive. We accept what we have.
And when we surrender to Krishna, we serve Krishna with what we have now. Do what we can with what we have now. That is existentialism in the devotional sense.
Okay, right now in your programme only three people have come. Many of Prabhupada’s disciples have said whether Prabhupada was giving a pranayama darshan and 510 people were there or 5,000 people were there. Prabhupada would speak about Krishna with the same earnestness.
Yes, actually Prabhupada was happy 5,000 people would come. But Prabhupada was concerned about Krishna’s Guru and Krishna. And that’s why, sometimes we may feel like, okay, my service is so insignificant.
Does even lotus also come into the service? Who cares? Well, Krishna cares. So that is existentialism. Prabhupada’s head was high in the clouds but his feet never met the ground.
He was very realistic in terms of taking real steps from where we are to where we want to go. So Prabhupada wanted to build big temples. Prabhupada had that simple metaphor of shooting the rhino.
Now, of course, the rhino is an endangered species and shooting is considered bad. That’s why when that book was written, they changed the name to Chasing the Rhinos. Not Shooting Rhinos.
But Prabhupada said that, basically that if you try to shoot a rhino at that time, at least in the American culture, British culture, hunting was considered like a sport. So if you go and shoot a rhino, if you don’t, that, you know, it’s not possible. If you do, you have to do that mission.
So Prabhupada used that metaphor. Prabhupada was careful. He used that metaphor for the mandal programme that he would have planned.
Prabhupada said, make a mandal for 20,000 people. He said, 20,000 people? Prabhupada, in the structure that we have in Mumbai, 20 people are not coming? How many 20,000 people will come? Prabhupada said, you do it, people will come. And actually, basically, that was the biggest programme that the Rambois had.
It’s called the 1997 Cross-Mandan programme, where many of the Scots leaders were introduced to Prabhupada Krishna at that time. It’s called Subsequent Leaders. So anyway, Prabhupada had this grand vision.
But, it was, Prabhupada was very grounded in reality. When Prabhupada had to build a temple, say for example, a grand temple in Andaman, the first thing Prabhupada did was he started editing. When the temple was being constructed, he knew that in that holy place, there’s not much possibility for preaching and raising funds.
So Prabhupada said, it’s not that, we will just build it and we’ll depend on Krishna. Well, depending on Krishna also means depending on the intelligence that Krishna has given us. So Prabhupada created a real plan, that we have a residential facility for guests to come and stay, and as spiritual tourists, they’ll come and stay, and from that we get some revenue.
So, we accept the present, and we serve Krishna in the present. For most of us, we may ask, oh, my job is so demanding, I have so many responsibilities, my health is not good, I just don’t have time to serve Krishna. And okay, it will be true.
But if we are resenting our present, then we are not being Krishna conscious. Krishna’s plan is working towards even the present. So whatever facility we have, we use that in Krishna’s service.
Show Krishna our lovelessness. And that is what Sri Prabhupada did. Sri Prabhupada was existentialist, not in the philosophical sense, that you don’t look for the needy, because I exist.
Sri Prabhupada was philosophical. But his philosophy did not disconnect you from reality. He was in the reality, serve Krishna, accept the present as it is, live in the present, in the sense that whatever little facility I may have to serve Krishna, I’ll use it wholeheartedly.
I will put all, whatever I can in the present to serve Krishna. And there is something we all can learn in our spiritual lives. Even if you have a small service, let’s do it wholeheartedly.
Krishna is never so big that he will not have time to look at a small service. Krishna Maharishi never does a small service. We know the story of Lord Ram, where the monkeys were making big, big mountain, mountain rocks and mortars.
But when his Guru was just bringing a little bit of soil on his back, Lord Ram finished it. That is how a devotee accepts the present, cherishes the present as an opportunity for serving Krishna. And that brings us to the last point, that is the future.
There are those who are utopians, they think our future is going to be wonderful. All that we need is to make some changes. So there are now probably the most common brand of utopianism in today’s world is technology related.
Through the advancement of technology, we will create a utopia. And in that utopia, we will all be happy. So we have social media growing and then there is meta and they say that you don’t have to go and meet people.
You can be anywhere. You can experience the world, just through technology. When are we experiencing the world through technology? Are we actually experiencing technology through the world? That means, there is a branch of philosophy called trans-humanism.
Trans-humanism, they say, actually the starting part of the philosophy is very similar. There is only, there is deceit, there is death and there is birth. But they don’t think rebirth is a problem.
They think birth itself is a problem. That means, for them, birth is a problem, the solution is abortion. So, they say that all these problems will be solved.
Ageing, it is stupid. Genetology is advancing. It is death.
We just find out which genes cause ageing in the body and we just turn off that gene and then you will never grow again. So, there are such grandiose promises that go on, but at a material level. There are researchers who are more candid and they say that as far as, for example, the World Genetic Association put out a note, they said we have no technology, mechanism, pills or anything that can reverse, slow or stop the ageing process.
All that we can do is cover it up. We have wrinkles, we can use something to just remove the wrinkles for some time. That is enough.
So, the idea that the future is going to be wonderful, that is utopianist. Now, we can go to the opposite side and somebody can say, this is Kali Yuga. Kabaddi Yagyeshwale are eating, I am not a part of this Kali Yuga.
The future is going to be dreadful. And Prabhupada would have no idea how to remove it. Prabhupada was not in a world.
Why? Because although in the cosmic cycle things will be going downward but human consciousness always has a potential to go upwards. In fact, when the social climate or the cultural climate is going downward, Krishna actually becomes more merciful and provides more facilities for the elevation of consciousness. Just like there is a natural disaster, charitable people will always give charity.
There is a natural disaster, charitable people will give more charity at that time. So like that, in Kali Yuga, Krishna actually becomes more merciful. And Prabhupada focused not on the darkness of Kali Yuga but on the mercifulness of Krishna.
And it was because of that that hope that the future can be better than the present, it was because of that that Prabhupada travelled in his old age on from India to the west to fulfil Mahaprabhu’s prophecy. There are some people who said Some people said, actually at that time, people didn’t know what Kuthri was. So Kuthri meant India only.
And Bhaktsarjahpur preached all over India so the prophecy was already known. But no. Prabhupada had that confidence.
So Prabhupada had that confidence in the future that it will be better than the present. Prabhupada was asked what will determine the future of Krishnaprasad Yuga? Prabhupada said, it depends on the devotees. What do you mean it depends on the devotees? At one level we can say that it is Mahaprabhu’s prophecy going to fulfil but it needs devotees to take responsibility.
The law acts in the world through human instruments. Through human instruments. There have been many great previous Acharyas.
They are profoundly learned but those previous Acharyas are not going to come in the present to preach in the present. It is each generation of devotees has to take the responsibility. In this generation Prabhupada took the responsibility.
In the subsequent generation Prabhupada decided to take the responsibility. Many people thought that Swamiji, Dr. Swamiji, his group is so atarvohi, it is not going to last. Then there were problems after that.
Prabhupada brought it part and part. But the movement has only survived, it has expanded. So by 158, now there are only 600, 700 temples across the world.
There are so many other centres which are spreading Krishna Consciousness in different ways. So our movement is showing with resilience and it is moving forward. So every devotee needs to have that hope and that confidence that the future will be better than the present.
And actually no matter how dark and metabolistic the world becomes, there are opportunities for sharing. This is why Prabhupada appreciated this movement. Many of the things which have become quite influential in the West, say for example, Hinduism has become very widespread in the West.
If you look at its history, this is complex, but Prabhupada was one of the first spiritual teachers who came from the East, not just from India, but even Buddhist leaders. He was the first teacher from India who went to the West and emphasised vegetarianism as a spiritual community of essential value. At that time, people used to think that being a vegetarian means you have to be eating vegetables.
That was their idea. But Prabhupada’s discovery was such a delightful discovery that Swamiji’s knowledge of recipes was as vast as his knowledge of shlokas. So Prabhupada actually pioneered that.
If you look at the 1960s, Prabhupada was one of the first persons who talked about this in Buddhism. Now, in the context of spiritual teaching, and now the environmental consciousness has been very much expressed across the world, that is actually talking about what Sri Prabhupada talked about. So Sri Prabhupada saw these things and he talked about these things.
So in today’s world, if you look at the environmental movement, the vegan movement, the yoga movement, the mindfulness movement, all these are indicators of Satmaraj. All these are indicators that people are looking for something higher. And that’s why we have a much more social and Christian movement.
And if a devotee is not a utopianist in the sense that, in the future all problems will be solved. But in the future, there will be opportunities to share Christianity. And there will be better opportunities than what I have in the present.
I use my opportunities in the present, and look forward to better opportunities in the future. For ourselves also, we have many conditioners, and it’s fighting against those conditioners as well as simply coming back. All my life I will just keep fighting against those conditioners.
Are these ever going to go away? And people become pessimistic or disheartened about the past. But we need to know that Krishna is with us always. And yes, our conditionings are strong, but Krishna is stronger.
And if you just hold on to Krishna, sometimes we focus too much on whether I am able to give up my conditionings or not. Instead of focussing on that, we focus on connecting with Krishna. If we keep holding on to Krishna, that hold becomes stronger and stronger for us.
That we are in an ocean, and waves come sometimes. Sometimes a giant wave comes, and we get swept away. We can’t know what kind of waves will come in the future.
But if Krishna is like the panchayat of an anchor, and I am marching on a giant but he always stays there. Sadhguraman Samadhi Jai Ram, Brahma Bhoomi Aayegam Forty-Twenty Verses. Just hold on to me, you will go beyond the waves.
So what we do is, Krishna is the anchor. And we try to hold on to Krishna as tightly as we can. By chanting, by hearing, by doing Seva, by coming in Satsang.
Just learn to hold on to Krishna. If we learn to do that more and more, no matter what wave comes in the future, that wave may shake us, that wave may sweep us, if we hold on to the anchor, we will not be completely swept away. And even if we are swept away, Krishna is like an anchor that extends throughout the ocean.
No matter where we get swept away, Krishna anchors us to there. So if we just focus on developing the habit of holding on to the Krishna anchor, then we will not be swept away. And even if we are swept away, we will just be able to come back and hold on to that Krishna anchor.
So if we focus, but it only has always to be driven by that hope, by that faith, by that positivity, then yes, the future will be brighter than the past. Not necessarily in the way that I would expect it, but according to Krishna’s way. Prabhupada in the later part of his life said that the success that he got, it exceeded even his own expectations.
So Krishna has a plan for every one of us. Krishna wants a far better future for us than what we ourselves can envision. And in that sense, a devotee is not a starry eyed utopianist who just thinks that everything is going to be fine.
But a devotee is a utopianist who knows that everything will be wonderful with Krishna. So let me focus on staying connected with Krishna, and no matter what happens in the life and future, with Krishna, everything will be all right. Because of Krishna.
That Prabhupada shared Krishna Katha, and not just Krishna Katha. He said this Krishna pastime, that Krishna pastime, that Krishna pastime. Prabhupada told Krishna pastimes, but more than the pastimes, what Prabhupada knew was the wisdom of Krishna Bhakti, in a way that could address the distresses of life.
That could show people how to take the essence from the past, take the essence from the present, and look at the essence of the future. And that was the Messiah of Irahi, and by his blessings, by the auspiciousness of his disappearance, we can pray that he bestows his mercy on us, that we can also be essence seekers. Not just essence seekers, but also essence sharers.
If we can also carry on this practical legacy that Krishna provided us, according to our small capacity, we take it forward. And we relish that Prabhupada’s mercy, and we help others relish that mercy. And through that, we can, what happens is, this consciousness is going towards matter, it stops going towards worldly things, and it starts reversing course, and going towards Krishna.
So as summarise, I spoke today about how this verse seems to be out of place in the Gopi Gita, where Gopila and Krishna come back. But how is this verse connected to that thing? Krishna, if you think we are proud, no, we are not. There was no such thing about him.
It’s a great source. Gopila, the other Gopis are speaking about Krishna. But also Aniruddha, and Bhagavatam at the universal level, those who share Krishna’s message, they are great source, because they stop the descent of human consciousness towards self-destruction and mental infatuation, and they reverse the flow of human consciousness so that it goes towards Krishna.
And that requires a special purpose. It’s not just Krishna Katha. Purity means we connect with Krishna in our hearts, but also we need to connect with the world in a way that what we are speaking is accessible, intelligent, sensitive, and expertise.
We’ll talk about that expertise for Prabhupada in terms of how we look at the past, present, and future. So, with respect to the past, we can have lamentation, shock, and with respect to the present, we may have illusion. And in the future, we may have fear.
We can have various negative emotions. We’ll talk about transit in those. Prabhupada was a traditionalist in the sense that he knew that there was much wisdom from the past that could be used.
And he knew that there are practises from the past which could be applied to him. But Prabhupada was not a traditionalist in the sense that he didn’t try to turn back the clock. His focus was not simply on recreating the entire social structure or the entire system of ritual practises.
His focus was on looking at all those things that are meant for fanning the spark of spiritual inquisitiveness from the Jigyasa and even the flame of Krishnapuri. And Prabhupada did what was necessary, what was suitable. Prabhupada did not look at the disqualifications of his audience.
He looked at the spiritual interest that he had in that time. So, Prabhupada was a transcendentalist who, as an essence seeker, took what was relevant from the past. Prabhupada was not an existentialist in the sense that he didn’t ever say, okay, just live in the present because we don’t have any answer for the purpose of life.
Just make the best life you can in the present. No. Prabhupada taught philosophy but at the same time, Prabhupada was an existentialist in the sense that he accepted the present.
Even when his present was insignificant, he had nothing to show for that. He thought he was an opportunist. Still, Prabhupada was not either bitter nor insecure.
He wholeheartedly served Krishna. He says that. His lack of success did not kill his dreams.
In fact, his dreams became bigger. His success became bigger. He wanted to go to the West.
And Prabhupada had his head high in the sky but his feet on the ground. So, for all of us, also, we accept our present. We serve Krishna with what we do, what we can and with what we have.
And Prabhupada saw Krishna’s mercy. Just having the opportunity to come to America, he will get more blessings. Because Prabhupada’s positivity saw Krishna’s mercy.
Not the inadequacy of the situation. And then lastly, Prabhupada was not a Utopian citizen that in the future, everything will be wonderful. But, he didn’t see that neither was he a Dystopian.
He saw that the human consciousness can move upward. And Krishna’s mercy is especially available for every human conscious in the Kali Yuga. And he focused on that.
And that’s why I’m here today. Because Krishna has given me success far more than what he would have anticipated. So, similarly for all of us, in our outreach and our outreach, you can say, we accept our past.
And we see what is good from the past. And not resent whatever conditionings or conditioning we might be in. And that’s what we do for others.
And in our present, even the smaller service we are doing, we do it wholeheartedly. Doing that, it is significant in Krishna’s eyes. And for the future, we don’t become disheartened thinking my conditionings are not good enough for me.
Or I’m not having much opportunities in the world. In the world, there are opportunities for Krishna Prakriti, otherwise it lies in the distance. And if we just hold on to the hand of Krishna, that is the best protection from whatever future attacks of temptation or tribulation that may come in our way.
In that way, everybody will always be hopeful that with Krishna, my future is going to be wonderful. And it’s very normal to pray to Prabhupada to share his seva, his mood of being a seeker and share Shloka-prabhu-bhate Do we have time for one question? Yes? Talking about sharing Krishna conscious service and being able to relate I was reading a moment, assuming that two devotees are there, both are very destructive. Assuming that two personalities are almost, they have the same level of love and compassion.
How sometimes do we see that one devotee is able to connect with another’s problems and give the right messages to the people at the right time, while the other person is not able to do that despite the same intentions. How do we improve that? It is not in us. Okay.
So how do we improve our ability to, say, present Krishna Bhakti in an accessible way for people? So two things. First is that we need to not just speak to people. I mean certainly not speak at people.
But we speak with people. Speak with means we hear from them also. Prabhupada went to America.
The person who had to go to space, Prabhupada stayed with him. She said he passed away. There are some articles about her that are published.
So she said one thing very interesting. Suddenly he was so interested in everything western. How the vacuum cleaner works, how the fridge works, how the subway works.
Now did Prabhupada go to America to learn how the vacuum cleaner works? No. Prabhupada was trying to understand how the American mind works. And so Prabhupada was observing and learning.
So it is important that we also hear from people. It is not that we only hear and don’t speak at all. In the name of empathy, we may not give any list of it all.
But when we are hearing, it is not just this happened in the library, that happened at night. We try to see that how is Krishna acting in this person’s life. That person has come to meet us.
We are interacting with that person right now. That means Krishna has some plan in his power. That’s how they come to have connection with the devotee.
We need to say they are not like devotees. But we are trying to practise what we can share with others. So we see, try to see how Krishna is acting in everyone’s life.
What insight does Krishna give us? What wisdom does Krishna give us? It is not saying that simply how they are not acting in relationship with Krishna. All they are eating meat, they are drinking wine, they are doing this, they are doing that. We see how Krishna is acting.
And then we try to see, okay this is how Krishna is living. How can I assist Krishna in doing that? See this person has an interest in music. This person has an interest in mind and consciousness.
Okay then, we try to offer some. We say Krishna wisdom can be put in mind and consciousness. So essentially, when we say we hear from others, what it means is, if we try to understand this is where their consciousness is.
So, rather than thinking of how can I get Krishna into their consciousness. That’s important. Sometimes people are not ready for their direct Krishna into their consciousness.
So, what we can do is, we can turn and see how, what is there in their consciousness can be connected with Krishna. It’s a different approach, but it’s an important approach. There are some people who are ready for Krishna and they can just take Krishna into their consciousness.
But for others, what is in their consciousness? How can we connect that? How can we build Krishna, link that with Krishna? So, if we think from that perspective, then it’s relatively easier to find something. Krishna bhakti is very, very multifaceted. If you look at the stories of how I came to Krishna consciousness.
It’s extraordinary because every devotee’s story is quite distinct. It’s like preparation for bhakti that is happening in people’s life. We call it pre-bhakti.
You could say like pre-bhakti it is. That Krishna can be preparing for bhakti in many, many different ways. So, for example, you may say, I thought about drugs and steel, spiritual discovery.
So, yeah. Drugs are important. I’m not a Sikh.
I certainly don’t recommend taking drugs. But for many people, when they take drugs, and there, these psychedelic drugs, what I want to do is, they give an altered state of consciousness. And that’s what is people’s first experience.
And maybe what I experience in my day-to-day life is not the full reality. Maybe there’s more to reality than what I’m experiencing in my recovering state of consciousness. And that opens people to spiritual knowledge.
So, rather than saying, oh, this person is doing drugs. No, this person has that. There are other states of reality also.
So, if we think of that Krishna is preparing everybody, head and heart, for bhakti. That is what Krishna is doing for everyone. Then when we are hearing from them, we are observing them, that actually makes us Krishna conscious.
Sometimes we think our Krishna consciousness means that we see how Krishna unconscious everyone is. This person is atheistic. This person is materialistic.
This person is this. But we see that. And then we can find out.
So, it requires patience. It requires time. But most importantly, it requires understanding that Krishna is acting in everyone’s life.
So, sometimes we say contemporary outreach. Contemporary outreach means we take Krishna’s message and present it to the contemporary times. But that’s only one understanding of contemporary.
Another understanding is Krishna is time. And whatever is happening in contemporary times, it is Krishna acting as time. So, becoming sensitive in our outreach doesn’t just mean thinking that, okay, how can I make Krishna’s message sensitively present to people.
It is also understanding how Krishna is acting through time. So, when we look at the world and its events, when we look at Krishna consciousness, it is Krishna who is acting, Krishna who is teaching. The early back-to-quarters that Prabhupada wrote, Prabhupada would take newspaper headlines and he would present a false image of Krishna.
So, we see Krishna acting in the world also. That’s what we can find out. Thank you.
Thank you very much.