The Great Soul Who Walks Among Us

Swamiji has said that what is important is sincerity. Not the rules and regulations, but sincerity. To the sincere devotee, Krishna from within the heart reveals, and everything is taken care of.

Swamiji has said that what is important is sincerity. Not the rules and regulations, but sincerity. To the sincere devotee, Krishna from within the heart reveals, and everything is taken care of.
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami once explained the transcendental situation of father-and-son: You have accepted me as father, so I have also accepted you as my dear and real son. This relationship of father and son on the spiritual platform is real and eternal.

Bhaktivedanta Swami was the inheritor of a revitalized Caitanyaite tradition as it came down from Bhaktivinoda and Bhaktisiddhanta. He was born in Calcutta in 1896 and received an English education at Scottish Churches’ College in Calcutta.

I’ll never forget the first night I went to see Prabhupad. Four of my friends were sufficiently interested to attend his “class.” When we began chanting the Hare Krishna Mantra for the first time that July night, I was reminded of the services of the monks up in Hardwar.
ISKCON Cinema has just released a documentary on the life of Srila Prabhupada. Titled Your Ever Well-Wisher, the film traces Srila Prabhupada’s life from his birth in Calcutta in 1896 to his passing away in Vrndavana in 1977.
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.

Just hearing that Swamiji was coming back to New York, the devotees, having felt separation from their Spiritual Master, were filled now with so much bliss. Their joyful shouts of “Haribol!” filled the temple at Kirtan.

With Krsna consciousness flourishing on New York’s Lower East Side, Srila Prabhupada felt he could entrust the New York center to his followers and expand the movement west.

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.

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.

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.

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.

At our first meeting I started arguing with him, sometimes foolishly, sometimes methodically and logically. The first epithet I received from him was “You are a mudha, a big fool.”

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 . . .

The temple at 26 2nd Ave was thriving, but now it was time to break new ground. The most fertile field was San Francisco’s Haight-Ashhurv, where the cultural revolution that had begun on the Lower East Side was about to explode with a mass migration of searching, frustrated young people.
In darkness have I traveled, In nescience was I born. For eons had I journeyed In existence forlorn, My knowledge had been covered, Forgetful. and blind, In different planes I’d hovered, But soon I lost my mind.

Since he started the public chanting of Hare Krsna in Washington Square Park, in the heart of Greenwich Village, Srila Prabhupada had been sending out small “parades” of devotees, chanting and playing hand cymbals through the streets of the Lower East Side.

Srila Prabhupada had come to San Francisco as the hippie movement was reaching its height. He found his small temple on Frederick Street, in the heart of the Haight-Ashbury district was becoming a spiritual haven for troubled, searching, and sometimes desperate young people.

San Francisco, 1967. Prabhupada’s temple had become an integral part of the youth scene in the Haight-Ashbury district. Now, unexpectedly, the Lord of the universe came to the temple through the agency of a local import store.