Srila Prabhupada was much more than the spiritual master of a few thousand disciples. He was truly a spiritual teacher for the millennium, because he revealed the pure spiritual path that humanity can follow for thousands of years to come.
While recently watching the evening news, I saw that almost the entire show was about killing and death: a murder, a rash of drug poisonings, a massacre of refugees by military forces, and a sampling of wars and preparations for war.
So God’s role in preventing a nuclear holocaust is not peripheral—it is crucial. Humankind, having created such a disastrous situation, should study God’s instructions in the revealed scriptures and try to understand how to rectify their mistakes.
Sesa dasa, my traveling companion, says that in this pleasant tropical clime people don’t watch the problems of world politics so closely. They tend to drift mildly in this climate, where you can pick ripe mangoes from the trees.
If you practice in dream that you are chanting Hare Krishna you are dancing in the temple you are seeing Lord Jagganath you are seeing Krishna you are talking with Swamiji or your friends, it is simply practice.
This Lord Krishna Blackish, plump Standing on the shoulders of His pals, His two hands around the covered bowl of butter hanging on ropes from the ceiling, has stolen my understanding.
Unemployment. Inflation. Recession. High interest rates. Mounting personal, national, and international debt. Depression. The litany of economic woes pours from television, radio, and printed page, and no one can seem to explain them, much less do anything about them.
Historically, men have chosen to sacrifice individual autonomy for the benefits of life within human society. Nations, communities, tribes, communes—all attest to the truth of John Donne’s famous adage: “No man is an island.”
In 1952 Srila Prabhupada began preaching Krsna consciousness in Jhansi. With the support of local doctors and businessmen, he began an organization—the League of Devotees—dedicated to spreading Krsna consciousness in India and abroad.
Observers of the Krsna Consciousness Society’s educational system often admire the joyfulness of the Society’s children, but they also sometimes criticize the devotees for teaching “only about Krsna.”
With World War II raging in Europe and the Far East, Srila Prabhupada launches BACK TO GODHEAD magazine and addresses the issues of the day from a Krsna conscious viewpoint.
Absolute is sentient, Thou hast proved, Impersonal calamity Thou hast removed. This gives us a life Anew and fresh. Worship Thy feet, Your Divine Grace.
Critics sometimes charge that Krsna consciousness is “brainwashing.” Supposedly it forces an otherwise free-thinking person to conform to such a degree that he loses his identity and becomes a “mindless robot”.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati was dedicated to using the printing press as the best medium for large-scale distribution of Krsna consciousness. He thought of the printing press as a brhat mrdanga, a big mrdanga.
The crash of a Boeing 737 jetliner in which 78 people died, raises the perennial question of why people feel compelled to travel so much. Domestically, Americans travel more than a trillion miles every year by air, rail, car, and bus, at a cost of $250 billion.
Abhay considered Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura his spiritual master from the time of their first meeting in 1922, but business and family commitments kept Abhay from participating full-time in Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati’s mission to spread Krsna consciousness.
From time to time God incarnates on earth to impart His instructions and enact His pastimes. One incarnation is Lord Ramacandra, who appeared in India millions of years ago as the ideal king. His purpose was to teach us perfect government—God-centered government.
Abhay wanted to have his own cart and to perform his own Ratha-yatra, and naturally he turned to his father for help. Gour Mohan agreed, but there were difficulties. When he took his son to several carpenter shops, he found that he could not afford to have a cart made.
Srila Prabhupada’s Krsna books directly tell us what God is like in His original, personal form and what He and His liberated associates are doing in the eternal, spiritual world.
Srila Prabhupada (then known as Abhay Charan De) was skeptical: he had seen too many “holymen” at his father’s house—professional beggars, ganja smokers, and the like. But this person was different . . .