Dearest Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept my most humble obeisances at your lotus feet on this most auspicious day of your divine appearance.
During the last months of your presence in this world, Your Divine Grace shared with my spiritual master, His Holiness Bhakti Chāru Mahārāja, that ISKCON exists in the spiritual sky and that all sincere members of ISKCON will go back to that divine ISKCON when their allotted time in the material world is finished. You gave us a Kṛṣṇa conscious society, Kṛṣṇa conscious literature, association with Kṛṣṇa conscious personalities, and everything necessary for elevating the most fallen souls to the highest spiritual platform. Just as the holy name of the Lord is both a means and an end, so ISKCON is also a means and an end.
After fifty years or more of following the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, many of your sincere and dedicated followers have become pure-hearted. This does not mean that all these pure souls are on the same level. Even among pure devotees there are gradations of less and more advanced, as many light bulbs give light, but some give stronger light than others. Even if some ISKCON spiritual masters are not yet on the level of pure devotion, their disciples can advance swiftly toward the goal of life by the complete arrangements Your Divine Grace made in the form of ISKCON. You wrote in your purport to Upadeśāmṛta (5): “A neophyte Vaiṣṇava or a Vaiṣṇava situated on the intermediate platform can also accept disciples, but such disciples must be on the same platform, and it should be understood that they cannot advance very well toward the ultimate goal of life under his insufficient guidance.” However, you gave us ISKCON, a multiguru institution, in which disciples have the opportunity to receive proper training from many spiritually advanced personalities. Provided disciples, in harmony with their relationship with their own ISKCON guru, identify themselves as a śikṣā disciple of Your Divine Grace and simultaneously take shelter of other spiritual masters within ISKCON, they are bound to make advancement and approach the ultimate goal, even if their own dīkṣā-guru is not on the highest platform of devotion.
This divine arrangement enables all ISKCON members to easily practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness in this degraded Kali-yuga. No one has ever made such complete arrangements for spiritual elevation. This makes you the most magnanimous representative of the most magnanimous appearance of Lord Kṛṣṇa as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. We can never pay you back for this great gift. However, as core members of our society, it is our duty to use all these assets in your preaching mission, not only for attracting new people but also for ensuring the steady advancement of everyone already serving in ISKCON.
After practicing vaidhi-sādhana-bhakti for more than thirty-four years, I realize, as the end of the body comes nearer, the urgency to attain the mercy of Lord Caitanya. Our hope is that by pushing forward your mission we will get, somehow or other, your mercy, which is followed by the mercy of Lord Caitanya. To give others the opportunity to obtain that same mercy, there is a need not only to preach to make new devotees but also, as you told us, to “boil the milk.” This means that our preaching must have a clear purpose: to turn congregational members into committed devotees and prepare them for initiation, and to increase the commitment of the initiated devotees, turning them into core members dedicated to the spreading of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As such, they will become your instruments in the mission and recipients of your mercy.
Your Divine Grace used the metaphor of “boiling the milk” in letters to Rūpānuga (Honolulu, 9 May 1972) and Haṁsadūta (Los Angeles, 22 June 1972):
To Rūpānuga you wrote: “Now I want that we shall concentrate on making our devotees Kṛṣṇa conscious and ourselves becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious and not be so much concerned with expanding ourselves widely but without any spiritual content. Just like boiling the milk, it becomes thicker and sweeter. Now do like that, boil the milk.”
And to Haṁsadūta you wrote: “Now we have got so many students and so many temples, but I am fearful that if we expand too much in this way we shall become weakened and gradually the whole thing will become lost. Just like milk. We may thin it more and more with water … but in the end it will cease to be milk. Better to boil the milk very vigorously and make it thick and sweet.”
You explained that “boiling the milk” practically means that we should concentrate on training our devotees very thoroughly in the knowledge of Kṛṣṇa consciousness from our books, tapes, through discussions, and in so many ways.
In the 1960s and 1970s Your Divine Grace established a morning program surcharged with the five most potent items of devotional service. At that time most devotees lived in the temples. Today, ISKCON consists of all congregational members and only a minority of them attend the morning programs either in person or online. The morning program you established is essential for devotees to “boil the milk” and make spiritual advancement. Times have changed, and to prevent the milk becoming increasingly thinned with water, we require innovative systems based on the principles of your teachings to keep members regularly involved in activities that help them to make spiritual progress.
For many years I have been serving on a committee of the ISKCON Sannyāsa Ministry that is concerned with training sannyāsa candidates in organizing and developing such activities. These activities are meant to engage the congregational members by forming groups of like-minded devotees discussing your books on a regular basis and sharing their realizations of the spiritual techniques. The aim of these activities is to cultivate friendship, support one another in their sādhana, engage in service, and participate in your mission. In cooperation with temple authorities, sannyāsa candidates have started to engage small groups of devotees in many parts of the world. To be successful in this endeavor I pray to Your Divine Grace that you will bless us with a genuine understanding of your desire of how to make this endeavor successful and boil the milk. Our success in life depends on pleasing Your Divine Grace, who is the foremost representative of the previous ācāryas and very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Praying for your blessings, your insignificant servant eternally,
Bhakti Prabhāva Swami