New York

Dear Srila Prabhupada,

With the morning sunshine streaming onto the veranda in Mayapur, you declared that place to be Vaikuntha. "Where else can one always hear Hare Krsna?" you said. When asked about your health, you said, "I am not feeling very well these days. Actually I am not fit to even be here." Yet actually you were the only one qualified to be there. The only intelligent man is one who considers his own material intelligence to be useless and submissively accepts that knowledge emanating from the Supreme Personality of Godhead through the via media of the parampara. You are completely transcendental yet display the humility befitting one of the countless fallen conditioned living entities embarrassingly caught in the material existence.

You criticize the scientists and educators who ever-so-humbly recommend themselves to be lords and masters of all knowledge, although they are devoid of the most basic understanding of the process of self-realization. You say that we do not even need to argue with them about any points of religion, since we can defeat them on the basis of the most simple principles of mechanical engineering. With all their wrenches, graphs, dials, and sophisticated modern equipment, they cannot meet your challenge to just repair a broken machine, namely, a dead body, so that it will get up and walk and speak again. In that way you challenge them and show that their knowledge is nothing but rascaldom and show that the real means of accepting knowledge is related directly by the perfect seer of all things, Lord Krsna.

You said that one should be like Sanatana Goswami and approach the Supreme Personality of Godhead in all humility, acknowledging one's own lack of realization of one's original spiritual identity.

apanara hitahita kichui na jani!
gramya-vyavahare panḍita, tai satya mani
krpa kari' yadi more kariyacha uddhara
apana-krpate kaha 'kartavya' amara
'ke ami', 'kene amaya jare tapa-traya'
iha nahi jani-'kemane hita haya'
'sadhya'-'sadhana'-tattva puchite na jani
krpa kari' saba tattva kaha ta' apani"

"I do not know what is beneficial for me and what is detrimental. Nonetheless, in ordinary dealings people consider me a learned scholar, and I am also thinking of myself as such. Out of Your causeless mercy, You have delivered me from the materialistic path. Now, by the same causeless mercy, please tell me what my duty is. Who am I? Why do the threefold miseries always give me trouble? If I do not know this, how can I be benefited? Actually I do not know how to inquire about the goal of life and process for obtaining it. Being merciful upon me, please explain all these truths." (Cc. Madhya-lila 20.100-103) Sanatana Gosvami was the most exalted devotee of Caitanya Mahaprabhu and was qualified by humility, knowledge, and purity. You are just like Sanatana in all these qualities, yet you possess even more bountiful mercy. When Caitanya Mahaprabhu ordered Candrasekhara to go outside his door and greet the devotee standing there and bring him in for an audience, Candrasekhara Acarya could not even recognize Sanatana as anything more than a "Muslim mendicant." But due to Sanatana's great devotion, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu seated him in an elevated place right next to Himself and embraced him, recognizing him as the greatest of all Vaisnavas present.

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is called maha-vadanya-avatara, the most merciful. You, the devotee of Lord Krsna, are more merciful than Krsna Himself. Although Sanatana Gosvami was qualified to some degree by his transcendental characteristics, we have no such qualification. We are refugees from a sinful world where animal slaughter is a way of life, speculation is an honored principle, illicit sex life is an economic convenience, and intoxication is the only solace. Yet somehow or other you are willing to give us shelter and take us into the association of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

We are so weak in our ability to execute the principles of bhakti-yoga that we are very easily influenced by the material energy, and therefore we are called marginal, or tatastha-sakti. We are like that uncertain area between the seawater and the dry sand on the beach, which is sometimes moistened or even drenched by the waves of the ocean of material existence, and which sometimes gleams in the bright midday sunlight of uncontaminated spiritual existence. We are affected by the demands and designs of materialistic persons and have the tendency to fall prey to their wiles-sometimes grossly and sometimes more subtly-by allowing ourselves to become influenced by the preaching of atheistic, demoniac scientists, politicians, and philosophers of the modern age. Although you are preaching only on the platform of perfect realization and can perfectly describe the sure means of escaping the pounding waves of material existence, we still become affected by the mundane intellectuals and scholars who try to rationalize everything and see this Krsna consciousness movement as just one more tiny eruption in the placid continuum of social awareness. But you, Srila Prabhupada, are able to discern the real truth and therefore, being uninfluenced by such rascals, always instruct us in the art of pure Krsna consciousness.

You purify our cluttered minds and filthy hearts-preaching like your Guru Maharaja, Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Lord Krsna Himself-on how to take up the bow on the battlefield and fight at the divine behest. When we might think to make concessions or accommodations to the social conventions of the material world, you encourage us to fight, to give up attachments to fathers, sons, mothers, cousin-brothers, and teachers in order to execute the will of the Supreme Lord. Although we want to cling to our material existence, you cut us away and instead put us in the association of Arjuna on the battlefield, kneeling before Lord Krsna, bearing His chastisement and taking up the fight. In material life there is nothing but degradation and ignominy, couched within birth, death, old age, and painful disease. But you are giving us the glory of the fight rather than the placid indolence found in dying old dogs.

According to Caitanya-caritamrta, the farther west one travels the more demoniac the people become. We are so far away from Mayapur and the abode of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, lost in the far reaches of the West, and therefore we are more demoniac than even the infamous Jagai and Madhai, who were so degraded as to even offend the most merciful Nityananda Prabhu. Yet still you are saving us and guiding us back to the spiritual world. No one could sing of your glories enough; no one can offer you enough homage. You have descended swanlike in the Western world, at ease even in the most hellish conditions provided by Krsna's most expert assistant, Mayadevi herself. Because you are never forgetful of Krsna, you give the only constructive knowledge and the only real help. Without you our lives are useless, tormented, and hopeless; but serving you, we can aspire for the spiritual world. Unlike Sanatana, who admitted his ignorance and begged for instruction in the science of the self (atma-vidya), we are interested only in showing our pitiful expertise in perfecting our material sense gratification. Yet still you gently chide us, entreating, "When will you let me set you free?"

Srila Prabhupada, you alone know Krsna's plans and what is within our hearts. We will wander aimlessly if we do not have your command. Please do with us as you will.

Your servants at ISKCON New York,

Adi Kesava Svami / Sudama Gosvami / Anjana dasa brahmacari / Agrahya dasa brahmacari / Ajitananda dasa brahmacari / Acarya Ratna dasa brahmacari / Asesa dasa brahmacari / Bhūdhara dasa brahmacari / Bhrgupati dasa brahmacari / Brhadbhanu dasa brahmacari / Bhaktivinoda dasa brahmacari / Bhaktijana dasa brahmacari / Baddha Hari dasa brahmacari / Bhūmipati dasa brahmacari / Bhūtavan dasa brahmacari / Dasaratha Suta dasa brahmacari / Dinasarana dasa brahmacari / Dravanaksa dasa brahmacari / Divya Lila dasa brahmacari / Girisrestha dasa brahmacari / Gajahanta dasa brahmacari / Ganapati dasa brahmacari / Gavam Guru dasa brahmacari / Hrsikesa dasa brahmacari / Hamsarūpa dasa brahmacari / Indriyesa dasa brahmacari / Jivadhara dasa brahmacari / Jnanaguhya dasa brahmacari / Kapindra dasa brahmacari / Kasirama dasa brahmacari / Kavidatta dasa brahmacari / Krsnatkirtana dasa brahmacari / Krtakrta dasa brahmacari / Lilapurusottama dasa brahmacari / Lokamahgala dasa brahmacari / Mayesvara dasa brahmacari / Nitai Gauracandra dasa brahmacari / Paravidha dasa brahmacari / Praghosa dasa brahmacari / Preraka dasa brahmacari / Pūrnamrta dasa brahmacari / Puskaraksa dasa brahmacari / Rajendranatha dasa brahmacari / Ragaputra dasa brahmacari / Raghupati dasa brahmacari / Romapada dasa brahmacari / Rohini Suta dasa brahmacari / Romabhadra dasa brahmacari / Subuddhi dasa brahmacari / Sadacara dasa brahmacari / Sanki dasa brahmacari / Sanjaya dasa brahmacari / Sarvabhauma dasa brahmacari / Sanatana Dharma dasa brahmacari / Trilokesvara dasa brahmacari / Urjasvat dasa brahmacari / Visvatomukha dasa brahmacari / Vipra dasa brahmacari / Virendra dasa brahmacari / Visnu Gada dasa brahmacari / Vyasaputra dasa brahmacari / Varūthapa dasa brahmacari / Vaisaseka dasa brahmacari / Vakresvara Pandita dasa brahmacari / Vidyabhūsana dasa brahmacari / Yadugahguli dasa brahmacari / Adarsi dasa adhikari / Antima dasa adhikari / Hari dasa adhikari / Jaya Gaurasundara dasa adhikari / Krsna Caitanya dasa adhikari / Lohitaksa dasa adhikari / Nayanabhirama dasa adhikari / Nanda Kisora dasa adhikari / Prahlada Priya dasa adhikari / Puru dasa adhikari / Prajapati dasa adhikari / SriRama dasa adhikari / Traidasa dasa adhikari / Vrndavana dasa adhikari / Vrndavanacandra dasa adhikari / Yogesvara dasa adhikari / Bhakta Andrew / Bhakta Angelo / Bhakta Bob / Bhakta Carlos / Bhakta Eddie / Bhakta Joe / Bhakta Joel / Bhakta Lewis / Bhakta Lewis / Bhakta Leroy / Bhakta Lance / Bhakta Lou / Bhakta Matt / Bhakta Maha Mike / Bhakta Michael / Bhakta Napolean / Bhakta Paul / Bhakta Rich / Bhakta Scott / Bhakta Walter Sr. / Bhakta Walter Jr. / Peter Hawkins / Alarka-devi dasi / Jambavati-devi dasi / Jahnavi-devi dasi / Lokadevi-devi dasi / Merumala-devi dasi / Nitya-devi dasi / Pramada-devi dasi / Pūrnasakti-devi dasi / Ramadevi dasi / Revati-devi dasi / Rasajna-devi dasi / Sravaniya-devi dasi / Satarūpa-devi dasi / Lilasmrti-devi dasi / Syamagha-devi dasi / Vrajamanḍala-devi dasi / Jyotirmayee-devi dasi / Niranjana-devi dasi / Acyutapriya-devi dasi / Īsa-devi dasi / Kamalatika-devi dasi / Mitravrtti-devi dasi / Silavati-devi dasi / Hari Nama-devi dasi / Bhaktin Autumn / Bhaktin Beth / Bhaktin Doris / Bhaktin Elli / Bhaktin Kathy / Bhaktin Maureen / Bhaktin Sheila / Bhaktin Teri / Bhaktin Cheryl / Bhaktin Joyce / Bhaktin Nancy / Cintamani / Nimai Madhava / Caitanya Priya / Tamala / Kunti / Nimai Sarana / Srimad-Bhagavatam / Badarayana

Puerto Rico

Apūrva dasa adhikari / Laksmi Nrsimhadeva dasa brahmacari / Purusartha dasa brahmacari / Yamunapriya dasa brahmacari / Kamalini-devi dasi / Mūrtivandya-devi das / Nanda-devi dasi

Link to this page: https://prabhupadabooks.com/svp/vyasa-puja-homages/new-york/new-york-1