Philadelphia

Our dear God-brothers and God-sisters,

Today is the day we gather together and offer praise to our most beloved spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Svami Prabhupada, on the most auspicious anniversary of his appearance among us in this mortal world. We have the inconceivably good fortune to be counted among his servants. Certainly we ought to praise him with all the power at our command. He left his native land at the age of seventy and sailed to strange and alien shores-to America. And in the year he arrived we were lost in darkness, blundering without guidance through the dense woods of illusion, crying out for the unknown with no one to help us. And Prabhupada came with shining step to us, one by one, and suddenly the darkness vanished and all those dark and fearful years before seemed like a bad dream vanquished by sunrise and daybreak.

Srila Prabhupada was asked by a reporter if he considered himself the savior of the youth of America, and he replied with widening eyes: "Yes. Certainly!" And he pointed to his children sitting around him, saying that his movement had already saved them. "Just see he said, like a proud father, "bright faces…" And immediately all of their faces became very bright indeed.

We know that Srila Prabhupada is our savior. Every one of us has had the experience of seeing his former associates appearing as though they were living in another country, another planet; we saw how they were becoming more and more degraded by intoxicants, unrestricted sex-life and meat-eating, still struggling through the density of ignorance that had so miraculously been lifted from us when we first allowed the words of Srila Prabhupada to enter into our ears.

He alone has told us the truth as it is. He alone has not lied. From the beginning of our lives it was declared to us from all sides that we should become satisfied by improving the "quality of life," that is, by unlimitedly increasing sense gratification. And this was a lie. Then we heard on in our frustration that we could achieve the highest aim of life if we extinguished our individual existences by crashing into a spiritual fire or blowing out into a void, and that this could be had from any number of pushers of the ultimate pleasure. This was an even greater lie. The falsity of both left us suspended, baffled, trapped. Then Prabhupada came and showed us the way out, to the transcendental variegated realm of the unlimitedly increasing opulences and pastimes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead: our home. Only Prabhupada told us to become the most humble, and diagnosed the material disease for us as Mayavadi life, the living entity's desire to become God. And as this is the truth, all who heard were convinced.

Srila Prabhupada told us about Krsna. Void or impersonal philosophy is the wind that feeds the fire of material existence, and we are seeing this happening before our own eyes to the people of America. If the people are taught that God is void or impersonal, then their innate and unfulfilled propensity to relish the love of Krsna will send them searching among the perverted reflections of the degraded mundane sty. But Srila Prabhupada alone is delivering knowledge about Krsna. He alone is ceaselessly preaching the glories of the Lord. This can attract the longings of the people back to the Fountainhead of all spiritual rasas. This is the end of all knowledge and it is very, very rare. Krsna Himself declares it to be the most confidential knowledge, the most secret of all secrets. Great philosophers strain their minds for millions and millions of years through countless births before they can approach Krsna. Yet such is the mercy of the pure devotee of God, that he can easily deliver Krsna; and Prabhupada came and stood on the street corners, handing Him out like candy to anyone who would take Him.

Srila Prabhupada is eleventh in the line of disciplic succession from Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and by himself he has fulfilled the prophecy of the Lord: "My name will be glorified in every town and village in the world." There are some who take the wishes of God seriously. Such a one is His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Gosvami Maharaja Prabhupada, who told our spiritual master in 1922, on the occasion of their first meeting, to preach Krsna Consciousness in the English language and in the Western world. We have seen the crudely printed broadsheets that were the first issues of Back to Godhead, which Prabhupada began in 1944 and wrote, printed and distributed by himself. Our God-brothers who have read these early issues unanimously report the arousal of an intense feeling which bade them to fall at Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet and worship him endlessly. The English is not easy, often irregularly composed, unpolished and seemingly spelled out with the greatest difficulty. You could not see there any promise of a career in English letters. 'Sound advice' might have counseled the author to stick to what he knew best. And yet, he kept at it issue after issue. In 1954 he retired from family life and took residence in a room in the Radha-Damodara Temple at Vrndavana; a photograph shows the tiny, narrow monk's cell with its cracked, peeling walls and a few crudely-fashioned pieces of furniture where Prabhupada rendered into English three thick volumes of Srimad-Bhagavatam. Then he had it printed with great difficulty and went out distributing. In this way for twenty years he kept faith with the order of his Guru Maharaja in spite of all obstacles and frustration and with no hint of tangible success.

And who would have predicted it? Go and travel to any city in the world and you find Prabhupada's disciples there. He flies around the globe every year on a jet plane, and he lands to the glare of television lights and the questions of the press. Now look at his books: big, big volumes, how beautifully printed and bound they are, how richly illustrated, and explaining with such exquisite clarity the science of God in impeccable English. There's an ever-increasing flood of them coming off the press, and they are taken up in the universities as the definitive editions. Is there any other author in the world who can boast of his own great press, solely engaged in the publication of his works, and an amazingly enthused corps of expert salesmen, who sleep in trucks and work twelve hours a day without wages?

So now they tell Prabhupada that he has worked a miracle. "Well," he replied, "I'm not a magician. But there is one thing to my credit. I have not tried to take the position of God. I have always remained the servant." Because Prabhupada has made himself the lowest, the unresisting servant of his spiritual master, Krsna has empowered him with all facility, and raised him to be the highest. We must forever glorify Prabhupada for his causeless mercy in so perpetuating the sublime and miraculous institution of the Vaisnava guru. Without the person of the Vaisnava guru, we cannot approach the Supreme Absolute Truth. The two are inseparable. Krsna does not allow anyone to approach Him who has not become freed from all selfish tendencies for lording it over. No one can become free from lording it over unless he surrenders himself utterly to the lotus feet of the Vaisnava guru. One is lifted to the highest order of the Vaisnavas only when one can feel himself the lowest of all. This true humility can be found only by worshiping the lotus feet of Sri Gurudeva.

Let us therefore catch hold tightly to Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet and never let go. He will deliver all of us to Krsna. He is the dearmost of Krsna. We are standing tongue-tied and dumb-founded before the splendor of the transcendental majesty of Srila Prabhupada. We have not the words. And we know well that if whatever devotion we have for Srila Prabhupada were to perpetually increase a million-fold each day, it would not match the causeless mercy he has bestowed upon us; nor will all the service we can ever render now and in eternity be adequate recompense for his grace. All Glories, all glories to Srila Prabhupada! All Glories to Your Divine Grace!

Srila Prabhupada's worthless servants in Philadelphia,