Homages Other Sources, VP2025
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept our humble obeisances at your lotus feet.
This is a time of uncertainty for your Back to Godhead magazine. For many years it has not had
the prominence in your movement that it had in ISKCON’s early decades. Many reasons account
for this, the main ones having to do with your dedicated disciples and granddisciples discovering
alternative, successful means to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Back to Godhead’s diminished role in preaching has resulted in financial challenges, even to the
point of threatening the magazine’s survival. A question naturally arises: Does BTG still have
a vital role to play in ISKCON? You wanted the magazine to be an outreach tool, but you also
wanted it to have subscribers who would read it regularly and gradually be trained in the philoso-
phy and practices of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Accomplishing these two purposes in the same maga-
zine has always been a challenge, and it seems that devotees are finding ways to accomplish one
or the other of them through means other than BTG.
Another of your purposes for BTG was that it would serve as a place for devotees to express
their understanding of the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. In addition to stressing the read-
ing of your books, you also stressed the importance of writing, so BTG was a natural place for the
publication of such writing. Now devotees have multiple ways to share their realizations.
Despite these realities, for many devotees, BTG was a vital part of their early years in ISKCON,
and they in particular feel that BTG must go on somehow or other. They have a devotional senti-
ment toward the magazine. They know how important it was to you. You referred to it as the
backbone of ISKCON, and they naturally feel uneasy about the prospect of its disappearance.
Those of us serving your magazine pray to you for signs how to proceed. Some reorganization
is taking place, and devotees are meeting regularly to work toward developing a strong digital
presence for BTG while keeping the magazine in print as well. Please bless and inspire us to make
decisions that align with your own desires in regard to your beloved Back to Godhead.
Hare Krsna,
Your servants at BTG
Homages Other Sources, VP2026
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept our humble obeisances at your lotus feet.
In an early letter to the editors of Back to Godhead, you wrote, “It is a very important thing, Back to Godhead. If our movement is going to be recognized as a scientific God conscious movement, then this Back to Godhead will be referred to as authorized scripture. Therefore, we have to prepare it in an authorized way. Nothing nonconclusive can be introduced in Back to Godhead. That should be our policy.”
These words continue to guide editorial decisions about what articles are suitable for publication in the magazine. The devotees who review the articles received from around the world consider fidelity to the teachings of sādhu-śāstra-guru the most important consideration, often summarizing their opinion with a simple “No objection.” That means the article is free of philosophical deviations.
One way BTG guards against apasiddhānta is to require whoever writes for it to have accepted the philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness as you presented it to us, having received it from the predecessor ācāryas in our line. An article by an “outsider looking in” may sometimes appear in the magazine, but care is taken to ensure that such articles contain no statements that might mislead readers about our philosophy.
Back to Godhead has a solid group of excellent writers who steadily contribute articles. Not only have they published many books, but their long experience in writing for BTG has made them sensitive to what is appropriate for the magazine.
Because BTG is your magazine, everyone involved in producing it strives to offer their service in a way that pleases you. We know that your satisfaction must be the overriding principle guiding our decisions in all areas related to publishing the magazine.
Since your glorious departure forty-nine years ago, the world has naturally changed in numerous ways, as has your movement, with many thousands of devotees now affiliated with an ever-increasing number of ISKCON temples around the world.
BTG has had to adapt to change over time. Many factors have combined to put BTG in a much different situation than it was in at its height in the 1970s. We servants of yours at BTG are determined to press on, but the future of your magazine is unclear. A small group of devotees have taken on the challenge of increasing appreciation for BTG, endeavoring to inspire more and more devotees in your worldwide movement to support it and distribute it. While they are having some success, including garnering testimonials from ISKCON leaders, much more progress is needed to ensure the longevity of Back to Godhead.
We pray that you guide us in our efforts to offer this service at your lotus feet. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Your servants at Back to Godhead
Homages Other Sources, VP2026
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept our most humble obeisances. All glories to you and your mercy and legacy.
Another year has passed without your vapuḥ, but your vāṇī remains clearer and more durable than ever. We here at the Bhaktivedanta Archives continue to conserve and preserve your teachings and legacy. Last year, we released VedaBase®25 along with VaniBase®25 to supplement the teachings and pastimes of those who sat at your feet from 1966 through 1977. These releases once again prove that your mercy continues to inspire the Vaiṣṇava community and those aspiring to be devotees now and into the future.
Another major milestone was achieved in 2025 with the commissioning of the new freezer/cooler for all the thousands of images captured of you, along with the historic pictures of ISKCON and artwork used in your publications.
Of course, we mourn the loss of our friend and colleague, and your loyal and committed disciple, Ekanātha Prabhu, who left us in February, but we take solace in knowing that you called him home and that he sits once again at your lotus feet.
We remain your unworthy yet committed servants here at
The Bhaktivedanta Archives
Homages Other Sources, VP2026
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept our most humble obeisances at your divine lotus feet. All glories to Your Divine Grace.
On this most auspicious day of your Vyāsa-pūjā, we – the servants at the Bhaktivedanta College in Budapest – wish to lay before you our gratitude, our reflections, and our prayers. Whatever modest service we are able to render in the field of education we render only because you yourself carried the message of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu across the world, and because you placed in our hands the books, the institutions, the standards, and the spiritual courage by which Kṛṣṇa consciousness may be presented in every sphere of human life.
You taught us that no education deserves its name if it leaves the most essential questions unanswered: Who am I? Am I this body or am I something more? What is the purpose of human life? What is my eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa? You observed that schools, colleges, and universities exist in every direction, yet the most fundamental learning of all – the knowledge that the living being is not the body but the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa – is nowhere to be found in their syllabi. You put it with your characteristic directness: “Modern education, there is no real knowledge. Real knowledge begins in the Bhagavad-gītā.” (Lecture on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.1.10, Honolulu, 11 May 1976).
These words are at once a warning and a summons. They remind us that a college bearing your name must never settle into being one more academic institution among many. We may keep our classrooms and lecture halls, our research projects and conferences, our administrative offices and accreditation files – but if these are not bound to your purpose, they remain hollow. Our real work is to help education become whole again: to reunite learning with the soul, knowledge with service, and intellectual cultivation with surrender to Kṛṣṇa.
Yet you did not turn your back on the universities. You urged your disciples to enter them, to speak with care and conviction, to quote your books and to explain their meaning in their own words. You wrote that universities are very important places, because there are people there who can appreciate our philosophy (Letter to Tulsi, Bombay, 9 November 1970). In this you taught us neither to fear the academic world nor to flatter it, but to enter it with purity, intelligence, humility, and courage.
This instruction is especially important for us today. Many devoted scholars serve within secular universities, and we honor their sincere effort. By your mercy, they carry something of your message into places where śāstra may otherwise not be heard. Yet we also see that such environments often have their own boundaries, expectations, and accepted ways of speaking. Devotee scholars may be asked to translate the conclusions of śāstra into secular categories, to soften their language, or to leave unspoken the very truths that give meaning to their scholarship. Sometimes the language of the academy opens doors; at other times, it quietly asks the servant of śāstra to stand at a distance from the full conclusions of the disciplic succession.
It is for this reason that we feel especially grateful that Bhaktivedanta College may exist as a small shelter for scholarship without spiritual compromise. Here, those who follow you are not forced to choose between intellectual seriousness and fidelity to your teachings. They are not asked to disguise their faith in śāstra in order to be taken seriously, nor to lay aside scholarly discipline in order to remain faithful. We pray that this institution may always remain a place where rigorous study, devotional conviction, and service to the guru-paramparā strengthen one another rather than compete.
You once observed that although every department of human knowledge is represented in the universities, there is generally no department for understanding “the science of God, Kṛṣṇa,” and that such a department must therefore be introduced (Letter to Jagadisa, Bombay, 26 November 1970). We see our college as a humble effort to serve that desire. We do not pretend to have fulfilled it; our limitations are clear to us. But we pray to remain faithful to the direction you set: that Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not pious sentiment but a complete educational movement, a science, and a culture capable of guiding human life toward its highest perfection.
By your grace, our teachers take part in numerous international conferences and scholarly forums. They engage the wider academic world in its own language, by its own methods, and within its accepted forms of reasoning. Our deeper prayer, however, is that through such engagement the message of the scriptures may travel without distortion. We have no wish to dilute your teachings in order to be accepted. We wish, rather, to present them with such thoughtfulness, responsibility, and clarity that intelligent people may begin to recognize their depth, their inner coherence, and their power to change a life.
In Hungary, where our college works, many people are searching for meaning, for identity, for wisdom, and for a way of living that reaches deeper than material success. Your books contain the answers. Your movement has demonstrated the practice. Your personal example showed how spiritual truth can be spoken with compassion, boldness, and intellectual force simultaneously. Our small service is to make these gifts accessible – through teaching, through research, through personal guidance, and through the formation of students who may one day carry Kṛṣṇa consciousness into their families, their professions, their communities, and whatever future service Kṛṣṇa entrusts to them.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, please bless us that we may never grow proud of education, scholarship, institutional standing, or academic accomplishment. Please bless us that we may remember always that real knowledge begins in surrender, that real learning culminates in service, and that the only true success is to please you and Śrī Kṛṣṇa.
Please bless Bhaktivedanta College that it may always remain your instrument. May it never become a place where śāstra is studied as a cultural artifact, a historical curiosity, or a philosophical exercise severed from devotion. May it remain a place where your books are honored as living guidance, where students learn not only to think clearly but to live purely, and where teachers speak with both scholarly responsibility and devotional courage.
On this Vyāsa-pūjā day, we lay this institution, our studies, our teaching, our research, our shortcomings, and our hopes at your lotus feet. Please allow us to go on serving your educational mission without compromise, with humility, and with an ever-deepening dependence upon your mercy.
Your eternal servants at Bhaktivedanta College
(written by Gaurasundara Kṛpāmaya Dāsa)
Homages Other Sources, VP2025
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept my humble obeisances at your divine lotus feet. On this sacred Vyāsa-pūjā day,
all glories to you and your boundless mercy, which continually guides and nourishes our souls.
Those of us who serve at the Bhaktivedanta College are continually inspired by your profound
teachings and the immense spiritual educational legacy you left us. We are committed to contrib-
uting to this divine mission with deep respect and a strong sense of responsibility.
The essence of our educational endeavor is summed up in your 1974 letter to Acharya Prab-
hakar Mishra: “If we want perfect education, we must follow the principle of the Bhagavad-gita.
Such education will help the whole human society.” Despite its modest size, our college aims to
make a significant spiritual impact throughout the world. Guided by your instructions, we are
working with all our might to create a shining beacon of Vedic education that will illuminate the
path to Kṛṣṇa, not only for our students but for all souls entangled in material existence.
Our students’ spiritual resilience is just as important as their academic performance; thus we
are truly dedicated to both. Our curriculum helps us to equip them as messengers of this time-
less wisdom and nourish them with divine knowledge. By means of this, they represent the ideal
you so clearly expressed: “The result of material education is that the living entity forgets his own
identification […]. According to the Vedic education, one must realize his actual identity as brah-
man or the spirit soul.” (Letter to Hayagrīva Dāsa, 1970).
Our commitment to your teachings has also led us to forge international alliances with
esteemed institutions that respect and value the depth of our Vedic tradition. These partnerships
are not just academic – they are spiritual bridges, bringing together diverse cultures in a shared
quest for transcendental knowledge and understanding.
Your profound vision that human life is especially meant for spiritual education is the
cornerstone of our philosophy at Bhaktivedanta College. We see its transformative impact on the
lives of our students and, through them, on communities around the country. Parents from vari-
ous backgrounds entrust their children to us, drawn not by worldly accreditation but by the spiri-
tual sanctuary our college offers – free from the anxieties of material life, as envisioned in your
letter to Aniruddha Dāsa, March 7, 1972. I recently witnessed the joy of spiritual connection on
the faces of our students during a bhajana that took place during a break between classes. It was a
living testament to the impact of your teachings.
On this sacred day of Vyāsa-pūjā, I pray for your continued guidance and blessings so that we
may carry forward this sacred torch of knowledge, lighting the way for souls yearning for spiritual
emancipation. May our efforts here at the college always serve to glorify your divine mission and
bring us closer to fulfilling your dream of a spiritually enlightened society. May we always remain
faithful to your mission, spreading the light of Kṛṣṇa consciousness far and wide, and may our
efforts here at the college serve as a humble offering at your lotus feet.
Your eternal servants at the Bhaktivedanta College, Budapest, Hungary
(written by Gaurasundara Kṛpāmoya Dāsa)
Homages Other Sources, VP2025
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
We offer our respectful obeisances unto you.
We are thankful for all you’ve done for us: bringing Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the West, opening
schools and temples, writing books to tell us all about Kṛṣṇa, and spreading Lord Caitanya’s mis-
sion. We are grateful for the holy name, which you told us about. Without you, there would be no
gurukula, and our community of friends would not exist. We are thankful for our gurukula family –
devotee teachers, parents, and children all coming together to learn in an environment filled with
devotion.
We hope that we can please you. Therefore, we perform guru-pūjā to you every Monday, tulasī-
pūjā every Wednesday, and kīrtanas every day during our morning worship program. We have
faith lessons in each class, and study your books and teachings. We learn how to play harmonium
and mṛdaṅga, and we sometimes sing at the Manor. Recently, we performed at the Celebrating
Śrīla Prabhupāda day at the Manor. We performed a play about your disciple Amekalā Devī Dāsī,
and sang a song about your coming to the West. Many devotees appreciated it. We also celebrate
other festivals that you told us about: Snāna-yātrā, Ratha-yātrā, and appearance day festivals,
where we do abhiṣekas and hear about the different personalities. We also have a Śrīla Prabhupāda
week, where most of our lessons focus on you and what you have given us.
We hope that all the gurukula students continue to remember you and serve you always. You
have given us so much. We would like to become your instruments and serve your movement in
whatever ways we can. Please give us your blessings and mercy.
Your servant,
Venudhar, year 3, age 9
On behalf of the Hare Kṛṣṇa Primary School
