Śrīla Prabhupāda

Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā in chapter 4, 34. verse: ‘Entrust yourself to the guidance of a spiritual master to learn the truth. Ask him questions in a humble attitude and serve him. The self-realised soul can reveal insight/knowledge to you because he has seen the truth. In the first contact with the spiritual master, Śrīla Prabhupāda gives us an example. He says, ‘When I first went to see my Guru Mahārāj, he said about me, “This young man listens well. He does not go away. So I will accept him as a disciple.” – So that’s how I qualified, through this listening. And I asked questions when Guru Mahārāj spoke. Then I continued to listen. Sometimes I understood what was being said and sometimes I didn’t understand. But I stayed. Others came and went. But I stayed and kept listening.›

In 1933 Śrīla Prabhupāda received initiation (formal initiation) in Allahabad. He was chosen by his guru Mahārāj to bring Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the Western world. That was in 1936, just before Śrīla Bhakti-Siddhanta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Prabhupāda left this transient world.

The first great Ācārya to write about Kṛṣṇa consciousness and the teachings of Kṛṣṇa Caitanya in English at the turn of the century was Śrīla Bhaktivinode Ṭhākur, the father of Śrīla Bhakti-Siddhanta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Prabhupāda. Through the purity of his nature and through his salvific personality, which was completely anchored in transcendence, Śrīla Bhaktivinode Ṭhākur was able to re-introduce the teachings of Sri Kṛṣṇa Caitanya in their fullness.

Sri Kṛṣṇa, who appeared in India 500 years ago as Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, the golden avatāra of Kali-yuga, announced that Kṛṣṇa consciousness and the chanting of the holy names of God would be spread throughout the world. And so, for the first time, Śrīla Bhaktivinode Ṭhākur began to spread this teaching of Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, which was meant for all beings, beyond the borders of India. This task was continued by his son Śrīla Bhakti-Siddhanta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāj, who founded 64 temples of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in India, the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Math, and who also sent some of his disciples to the Western world for the first time. But it was only through Śrīla Prabhupāda, who came to America in 1965 at the age of 70, that Kṛṣṇa consciousness could find its ever-growing spread through its profound influence in the lives of countless people.

Our faculty of perception, dulled by meditation on sense objects, is powerless to recognise the spiritual master. We carry within us the distorted illusions of our so-called realisations with which we try to comprehend this world of appearances. If the spiritual master does not correspond to the image we have formed of a sage or saint, then we are inclined not to let him, the real saviour, through the narrow gates of our hearts. Śrī Gurudeva has not come to confirm our false sense of self, to hand us over to the handshake of hypocritical obeisance in laudatory recognition. Śrī Gurudeva has come to set us free from this disease of illusion of seeing ourselves as the centre of being and measuring everything by our own good.

We pay the pseudo-yogis and meditation jugglers, the false masters and idolised prophets the price of the soul, in cash and without hesitation, as long as they confirm us in our error, as long as they hand us the poison from golden cups, which tastes like nectar at the beginning, but very soon spreads devastatingly and completely robs us of the last remnants of vision. The guru’s medicine is often bitter, like the medicine that cures us of illness. The Guru tells us:

‘Don’t start with the small things in life, start with the greatest, with the source of all things, great and small. The Guru says:

‘Become humble, more humble than the straw in the alley. The real Guru is the epitome of humility. He is the grace of God made visible. Without him, there is no way that brings us back to God, back home.

We must try to rid ourselves of the crushing burden of our misconceptions. We must have the courage to admit our own inadequacy and total ignorance. We must have the intelligence to listen as Śrīla Prabhupāda has shown us by his own example. But to hear what is worth hearing. We need to hear the message of God from the mouth of the real guru. We need to ask questions. We need to keep listening. Whether we understand everything or not. Whether others come, whether others go. We must stay and keep listening.

Śrīla Prabhupāda speaks all the books into a dictaphone. The whole Bhagavad-gītā in its original version, as it is and as it is proclaimed and lived by great Ācāryas, by the guru-disciple succession (paramparā), the succession of spiritual masters, he translates it for us and explains it for us. And he has it translated for us into all the languages of the world, so that all may hear in order to attain the highest perfection of life. Śrīla Prabhupāda translates and explains for us the most important part of the Vedic scriptures, the Twelve Books of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the teachings of Kṛṣṇa Caitanya, Nectar of Loving Devotion (which is based on Śrīla Rupa Gosvāmī’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu. ) If we read only one book of this and hear through this book the real Ācārya, the self-realised great soul, if we ask questions and continue to hear, then real knowledge will be revealed to us, knowledge of ourselves, of this transient world, of the transcendental world, of the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead-Śrī Kṛṣṇa. We will stop sacrificing ourselves as slaves of our false material masters to the agony of stupidity – through death, birth, old age and disease in the ever-recurring cycle. The feverish search for broken glass will come to an end, for we will begin to recognise the bearer of the most precious gem, the real guru, and with him the life of imperishability and pure spiritual knowledge, the life of spiritual bliss and joy that increases for all eternity, for which we are all created.