Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Your Divine Grace on this most auspicious
occasion of Śrī Vyāsa-pūjā.
When asked, “What is justice?” the common responses include being treated impartially, equal-
ity before the law, fairness, and moral and legal righteousness. To be impartial means that one has
to act objectively, without fear or favor. Likewise, fairness incorporates the notion that the arbiter
is unbiased.
The Justice Ministry strongly advocates for such principles to be incorporated in decision
making when dealing with complaints. We live in the age of quarrel and hypocrisy and must
therefore be more mindful of our actions, both our words and our deeds, especially recognizing
how they impact the lives of others.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, you gave us a wealth of knowledge and instructions, but mostly you
demonstrated through your dealings how an ideal leader should treat those who serve within
ISKCON. On October 4, 1975, in a room conversation in Mauritius, you said, “You have to spend
or waste gallons of blood before you can convert a person to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is so difficult
task.” Much effort is invested in preaching and making devotees. We must be careful, then, how
we treat the devotees.
Vaiṣṇava-aparādha, offending devotees, is described by Caitanya Mahāprabhu as the “mad
elephant offense.” In your purport to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.1.5 you state, “When a mad elephant
enters a beautiful garden, it destroys everything, leaving a barren field. Similarly, the power
of vaiṣṇava-aparādha is so great that even an advanced devotee becomes almost devoid of his
spiritual assets if he commits it. Since Kṛṣṇa consciousness is eternal, it cannot be destroyed alto-
gether, but advancement may be checked for the time being. Thus vaiṣṇava-aparādha is one kind
of impediment to devotional service.”
We therefore need to educate our devotee community about avoiding vaiṣṇava-aparādha com-
mitted in any manner whatsoever. Let alone the hurt and pain it causes another devotee, it also
impedes one’s own spiritual progress. Moreover, Lord Kṛṣṇa never forgives one who offends His
devotee.
If we conduct ourselves in a circumspect manner, always guarded against committing offenses
toward devotees, then we will not have so much conflict and complaining in our community.
By establishing ISKCON, you created the spiritual world on this planet, but because we are
in the material world, as diseased conditioned souls, we enter ISKCON like patients entering a
hospital. While you have administered the cure in the form of the holy names and strict adherence
to the regulative principles, some patients are bringing with them many lifetimes of conditioning
and therefore create some disturbances to others.
You took hippies and made them into devotees; you did not discriminate who was eligible to
become a devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa and who was not. That is how mercifully you blessed everyone.
Despite all the physical hardships you experienced when you first arrived in New York, you toler-
ated and taught, training the new devotees in every aspect of life, including cleanliness, cooking,
Deity worship, and a host of other services. It is because of how lovingly you cared for them
that to this day your sincere disciples continue to fulfill your mission relentlessly. You said that
Kṛṣṇa is more eager for us to return to Him than we are to go. He is like a loving father, ready to
embrace His wayward children. But, in fact, Śrīla Prabhupāda, you have fulfilled this role in our
lives.
The only way we can repay this eternal debt is by cooperating with one another, serving your
mission and exemplifying the kind of conduct you would expect us, as your representatives, to
demonstrate.
We pray to be able to serve your ISKCON in a manner that pleases you, and we take this
opportunity to express our deep gratitude for your giving us shelter at your lotus feet. May your
glories be spread all over the three worlds!
Champakalatā Devī Dāsī, ISKCON Minister of Justice
One behalf of your servants at ISKCON’s Ministry of Justice

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