Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,

nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

Please accept my prostrated obeisances in the dust of your lotus feet. All glories to Your Divine
Grace.
In your second praṇāma-mantra we are informed that your mission is to preach the pure mes-
sage of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu to the world, which is infected with impersonalism and voidism.
Of course, the direct meaning of the mantra indicates the Western world. However, because the
whole world is infected with Western values, I can understand that your praṇāma-mantra implic-
itly refers to the entire world.
You taught that the philosophies of impersonalism and voidism are not only incorrect and
deviations from the true understanding of the Absolute Truth, but they also constitute offenses
against the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, being insurmountable stumbling blocks
on the path of self-realization.
You enabled us to understand and avoid the subtle manifestations of impersonalism and void-
ism, which often masquerade as bhakti. The sahajiyā tendency is a very insidious form of imper-
sonalism. You dealt very strongly with the tendency of neophyte devotees to consider themselves
more advanced than they actually are, and their consequent attempt to perform aspects of bhakti
that they did not have the right to perform.

Prabhupāda: First of all, anartha-nivṛtti. You are accustomed to so many bad habits.
First of all, try to rectify it, then talk of svarūpa. Where is your svarūpa? Simply wasting
time. A man is diseased, he’s thinking, “When I shall be cured I shall eat, go to this
hotel, I shall eat like this.” First of all, cure, then talk of eating this and that. Svarūpa …
When you are cured, that is svarūpa. So long you are not cured, what is the use of
talking svarūpa? First business is cure yourself. Anartha-nivṛtti. That is anartha-nivṛtti.
(Garden conversation, June 23, 1976, New Vrindavan)

In this connection, we should be careful about the so-called siddha-praṇālī. The siddha-praṇālī pro-
cess is followed by a class of men who are not very authorized and who have manufactured their
own way of devotional service. They imagine that they have become associates of the Lord simply
by thinking of themselves like that. This external behavior is not at all according to the regulative
principles. The so-called siddha-praṇālī process is followed by the prākṛta-sahajiyā, a pseudosect
of so-called Vaiṣṇavas. In the opinion of Rūpa Gosvāmī, such activities are simply disturbances
to the standard way of devotional service. (The Nectar of Devotion, “Eligibility for Spontaneous
Devotional Service”)

Prabhupāda: Yes. One has to come to that highest stage. It is not forbidden. That may
be ideal, but not for the neophytes. You must … One who does not know A-B-C-D,
what he will know about MA degrees? That they do not know. They think that they
have already passed MA degree. That is their fault.
Tamāl Krishna: There’s another statement, I saw them, where it says … it’s a quote,
that you can treat Kṛṣṇa as your lover and Kṛṣṇa will reciprocate.
Hari-śauri: And they underlined the two words “you can” treat Kṛṣṇa as your lover.
Like that. In this way they’re taking your quotes out of context.
Rāmeśvara: This is one of their main … the main ideas in their philosophy is that the
living entity can desire to have any relationship he wants with Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: That’s all right, he can desire. I already explained: first deserve, then
desire.
Tamāl Krishna and Rāmeśvara: Deserve, then desire. Oh.
Prabhupāda: You are rascal. How you can desire? You have no qualification. You
desire to high-court judge. What is this nonsense?
Rāmeśvara: But then they have an answer.
Prabhupāda: What is that answer?
Rāmeśvara: That “Let me just try it anyway, to keep my mind thinking …”
Prabhupāda: How you can try it? First of all be qualified, a big lawyer. Then you become high-court judge. Where is that qualification? You are after illicit sex and bīḍī
and you want to be associated with the gopīs.
Rāmeśvara: They say that “In ISKCON, we do not …”
Prabhupāda: Let them say all nonsense. They are disqualified. Sahajiyā bābājīs,
that’s all.

You are following in the footsteps of your spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī
Ṭhākura, who would brook no nonsense deviation. In a similar vein he wrote: “If one still has
unwanted material impediments (anarthas) present in their performance of devotional service
(sādhana), then rasa can never truly awaken. When the holy name of the Lord is chanted from the
platform of pure ecstatic emotions (bhāva), then the cheating mood born of pretentious devo-
tional mellows can never be present.”
I pray to always remember your words written on the appearance anniversary of your spiritual
master: “Personally, I have no hope of any direct service for the coming crores of births of the
sojourn of my life, but I am confident that some day or other I shall be delivered from this mire of
delusion in which I am at present so deeply sunk. Therefore let me with all earnestness pray at the
lotus feet of my divine master to allow me to suffer the lot for which I am destined due to my past
misdoings, but to let me have this power of recollections: that I am nothing but a tiny servant of
the Almighty Absolute Godhead, realized through the unflinching mercy of my divine master. Let
me therefore bow down at his lotus feet with all humility at my command.”
Before obtaining your shelter I had no conception of the difference between personalism,
impersonalism, and voidism, or the inherent danger of not being able to discriminate between
them. Your teachings have enabled me to avoid the spiritual suicide of accepting anything other
than pure personalism. I fully trust that if I always remain in your service and associate with your
servitors, I will be protected from this danger.
Thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, for sheltering me and always protecting me.

Your eternal servant,
Bir Krishna dāsa Goswami

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