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 at your lotus feet. All glories to Your Divine Grace.
Though the passage of time deteriorates everything and everyone in this material world, this
same passage of time, over all these years since your blessed appearance and subsequent disap-
pearance, has not diminished the purity of your instructions, your spiritual legacy, or your gift of
devotional service to the world.
Throughout your lifetime you reminded us that your legacy will be based on how much we
can remember Kṛṣṇa and serve Him in pure devotional service. I pray at your lotus feet, Śrīla
Prabhupāda, that you gift me with your causeless mercy to be an unworthy but enthusiastic
instrument in your service.
This material world has become increasing complex, and the living entities are filled with,
among other things, disagreements, quarrel and strife. In this connection, Śrīla Prabhupāda, I am
reminded of an instruction from the avadhūta to Prahlāda Mahārāja in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.13.42.
This instruction gives me great inspiration and hope. The verse and your superexcellent transla-
tion of it read as follows:
nāhaṁ ninde na ca staumi
sva-bhāva-viṣamaṁ janam
eteṣāṁ śreya āśāse
utaikātmyaṁ mahātmani
Different people are of different mentalities. Therefore it is not my business either to
praise them or to blaspheme them. I only desire their welfare, hoping that they will
agree to become one with the Supersoul, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, as I reflect on your life in this world, I realize that you lived this verse on a
daily basis. Your deep compassion for humanity and all living entities was born from this highly
elevated mood of accepting diverse mentalities and not condemning or praising them for the sake
of the same. Instead, your instructions, your love, your chastisements and firmness in dealing
with all living entities arose from a deep desire for their spiritual welfare. Instead of criticizing the
living entities or finding fault with them, you served them by breaking open the treasure house of
the holy names and devotional service and distributing them freely to one and all, in every town
and village.
In an instructive purport to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.18.9, which so aptly describes you and your
sincere disciples, you wrote:
Prahlāda Mahārāja is a typical Vaiṣṇava. He prays not for himself but for all living
entities – the gentle, the envious, and the mischievous. He always thought of the
welfare of mischievous persons like his father, Hiraṇyakaśipu. Prahlāda Mahārāja did
not ask for anything for himself; rather, he prayed for the Lord to excuse his demoniac
father. This is the attitude of a Vaiṣṇava, who always thinks of the welfare of the entire
universe.
My humble prayer, Śrīla Prabhupāda, is to remain absorbed in your instructions and strictly
follow them. Please guide me through your books, your instructions, and the hallowed saṅga of
the devotees in ISKCON so that I may achieve this state of purity and true freedom from envy
that was your hallmark and that you lived by your example.
Your servant,
Devakīnandana Dāsa (MVG)
Singapore
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to Your Divine Grace.
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
“I offer my respectful obeisances unto His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda,
who is very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa, having taken shelter at His lotus feet.
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
“Our respectful obeisances are unto you, O spiritual master, servant of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī
Gosvāmī. You are kindly preaching the message of Lord Caitanyadeva and delivering the Western
countries, which are filled with impersonalism and voidism.”
The following well-known verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.1.10) sums up the unfortunate
condition of the people of Kali-yuga:
prāyeṇālpāyuṣaḥ sabhya
kalāv asmin yuge janāḥ
mandāḥ sumanda-matayo
manda-bhāgyā hy upadrutāḥ
O learned one, in this iron Age of Kali men almost always have but short lives. They
are quarrelsome, lazy, misguided, unlucky and, above all, always disturbed.
Your appearance in this world and your consequent spreading of Lord Caitanya’s saṅkīrtana
movement all over the world gave, and continues to give us an opportunity to live an eternal life
in Goloka Vrindavan. Your teachings and example guide us through the stormy waters of Kali-
yuga. Your association gives us the fortune required to accept the path of Kṛṣṇa consciousness as
given by Your Divine Grace. By sincerely trying to follow your example and teachings, we will be
able to overcome the disturbances of our own mind and of Kali-yuga in general. Your persistent
determination inspires us to push through our own lazy nature to serve guru and Gaurāṅga. Your
repeated requests that we cooperate with one another to push forward the saṅkīrtana movement of
Lord Caitanya helps us to overcome our quarrelsome habits. In short, everything about you and
what you have done for your spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, are the
guiding lights and inspiration for all your followers now and for many, many years into the future.
Your prayer, Mārkine Bhāgavata Dharma, which you wrote upon your arrival in Boston on
September 17, 1965, beautifully illustrates the first line of your purport to Bhāgavatam 1.1.10: “The
devotees of the Lord are always anxious for the spiritual improvement of the general public.”
Though each and every verse is meaningful and touching, I only include verses 10–15 in this
offering to your Divine Grace.
10: How will I make them understand this message of Krsna consciousness? I am very
unfortunate, unqualified and the most fallen. Therefore, I am seeking Your benedic-
tion so that I can convince them, for I am powerless to do so on my own.
11: Somehow or other, O Lord, You have brought me here to speak about You. Now,
my Lord, it is up to You to make me a success or failure as You like.
12: O spiritual master of all the worlds! I can simply repeat Your message, so if You
like You can make my power of speaking suitable for their understanding.
13: Only by Your causeless mercy will my words become pure. I am sure that when this
transcendental message penetrates their hearts, they will certainly feel engladdened
and thus become liberated from all unhappy conditions of life.
14: O Lord, I am just like a puppet in Your hands. So, if You have brought me here to
dance, then make me dance, make me dance, O Lord, make me dance as You like.
15: I have no devotion, nor do I have any knowledge, but I have strong faith in the
holy name of Krsna. I have been designated as Bhaktivedanta, and now, if You like,
You can fulfill the real purport of Bhaktivedanta.
These verses reveal the appropriate mood we, your followers, should aim to have in order to
properly assist you in spreading the saṅkīrtana movement of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Your
humility, compassion, determination, and dependence on the Lord shine forth in this prayer. Your
example, mood, and qualities, as illustrated in this prayer, are the guiding lights that better illu-
minate the path of going back home, back to Godhead, whilst reminding us that we need to help
others do the same.
On this day of your appearance in this world, I aim to better and more sincerely remember you,
your wonderful qualities, and everything you have done for all of us and the whole world.
Praying to remain a servant at the lotus feet of Your Divine Grace and your followers.
Your humble servant,
Chandrasekhara Acharya Dāsa
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
I offer my humble obeisances to His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami 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
I remember seeing Śrīla Prabhupāda for the first time at the Paris temple in 1973. I had already
been second initiated. He was sitting on the vyāsāsana, chanting the Jaya Rādhā-Mādhava
prayer, and I was sitting right in front of him. The temple room was packed with devotees and
guests. The chanting became so intense that I felt a spontaneous urge to stand up and raise my
arms. There was a picture of Lord Kṛṣṇa on the wall, and it seemed to come alive. When I turned
around, I noticed groups of devotees staring at different pictures on the walls, and it appeared
they were having a similar experience. We strongly felt that Śrīla Prabhupāda was not alone; he
was accompanied by Lord Kṛṣṇa. He brought the spiritual world into our temporary world of
material reality.
We accompanied Śrīla Prabhupāda every day on his morning walks. I brought my notebook
and pen with me to capture every word he spoke. I wanted to write the words down exactly as he
said them, as I did not trust my memory. The way he articulated the philosophy was so perfect
that I wanted to preserve it for later study and memorization, without any alteration. The practi-
cal examples he gave, along with his anecdotes and humor, strengthened our faith in Kṛṣṇa con-
sciousness. He was the perfect example of a spiritual master who opens the eyes of his disciples
with the torchlight of transcendental knowledge.
These morning walks, which I later experienced in Germany, Sweden, and other countries,
were a great source of inspiration. The close association with Śrīla Prabhupāda – hearing from
him, seeing him, asking him questions – was priceless. On one of those morning walks he pointed
with his cane to a rain cloud and mentioned that it contained tons of water. Somehow, the water
was preserved in the cloud. A small bird, which weighs almost nothing compared to the water in
the cloud, will fall to the ground instantly when it stops flying. And when the water falls from the
cloud, it does so as small drops of rain or, in the wintertime, as snowflakes. “This is Kṛṣṇa,” Śrīla
Prabhupāda said, his eyes wide open. He filled our hearts with joy and hope, making us feel that
one day, we might be able to be with His Divine Grace in the spiritual world, assisting him in his
eternal service to Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s servant,
Bhaktivaibhava Swami
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept my humble obeisance. All glories to Your Divine Grace.
Thank you for engaging me in the service of the Lord by your causeless mercy. I am one of the
most fallen persons, but I am trying my best to please the Vaiṣṇavas and the guru-paramparā.
By your causeless mercy, now people from around the world are accepting Kṛṣṇa conscious-
ness. Your Divine Grace is empowered by Lord Kṛṣṇa to deliver the people of the whole universe.
By your mercy, preaching programs among tribal people are going on very nicely. Recently, we
celebrated a tribal convention at Māyāpur, where more than two thousand tribal people partici-
pated. More and more tribal people are supporting our endeavors.
Book distribution in Māyāpur is increasing more and more every year. This year ISKCON
Māyāpur’s saṅkīrtana division remitted eleven crores of rupees to the BBT. Your Divine Grace
ordered His Holiness Jayapatāka Swami Mahārāja, “I am giving you the kingdom of God. You
develop it.” His Holiness has worked tirelessly to follow your order, and Māyāpur has developed
a lot from what it was when Your Divine Grace left this world. You have given many orders to my
Guru Mahārāja, His Holiness Jayapatāka Swami Mahārāja. I am trying my best to help him fulfill
your orders.
Please bless me so I can serve Your Divine Grace eternally under the supervision of your dear
disciple and my spiritual master, His Holiness Jayapatāka Swami Mahārāja.
Thank you so much, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Your servant,
Bhakti Puruṣottama Swami
My dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to your Divine Grace.
It is only by your divine grace that I am still living in this same body and that I continue to live
this amazing life of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Where would I be without you? I hate to think, but it
would absolutely certainly be somewhere not nice at all, to say the least.
Mukunda Mahārāja tells us that one day, in a meeting with you, you became deeply absorbed
in remembrance of your own spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, and tears
flowed down your cheeks. “My spiritual master,” you said, and your voice, he says, choked to
gravel. “My spiritual master,” you said, “he was no ordinary spiritual master.” You paused again
and then whispered falteringly, “He saved me.”
I have sometimes thought of this amazing transcendental happening and wondered what
exactly you meant when you said “He saved me.” You were born in a family of devotees and your
father was a pure devotee. What was there to be saved from? But this is how you felt, and we
respect that, and it is another deep expression of yours that we relish and appreciate.
On the other hand, someone like me was definitely saved. Sometimes people talk of a fate
worse than death. They feel that death is the end and there’s nothing beyond it. Everything is just
finished, and they feel this is the greatest disaster possible. But we know that there is a fate worse
than death, and that is to go to the hellish planets and suffer untold miseries for all the terrible
sinful activities we have performed. This was certainly the case in regards to me, and you literally
saved me from it.
I remember sitting in front of the very large photo of you seated on a vyāsāsana in your lounge
at the Bury Place temple in Central London. It was January 1973, and I had recently moved into
the temple. I was gradually realizing more vividly how you had saved me from hellish existence.
The realization overwhelmed me, and tears came from my eyes. I couldn’t understand why you
had done that for someone as degraded as me, and the feeling of having received causeless mercy
swept me away to another realm.
But this is you. You are a savior, and all owe you an incalculable debt. You were no ordinary
spiritual master, and you saved us from fates worse than death.
Now our time is running out. Have we done enough to reciprocate with you for the inestimable
gifts you have given us? Is it possible to reciprocate sufficiently? Of course not, but let us try our
best in these last few years we have left to do something – as much as we can – to show you our
gratitude.
My prayer on this most sacred day is that Lord Kṛṣṇa gives me more intelligence so I can
appreciate you more and more and reciprocate more and more. Let that be my meditation and the
foundation of my life.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, I thank you again and again for saving me. May your glories be spread
throughout the three worlds. You deserve it.
Your humble and lowly servant,
Bhakti Caitanya Swami
