Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s Appearance Day

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna.

We continue our discussion of His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Prabhupada. His Grace Chaitanya-candra Prabhu read the essay that our Srila Prabhupada delivered on behalf of the Gaudiya Matha in Bombay in 1936. He wanted to read the poem that Srila Prabhupada wrote but he did not have the text available. So I thought it appropriate to read the poem today and discuss it.

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

In this rendition the editors have given a little description of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura extracted from his praṇāma-mantras. There is a picture of him.

“His Divine Grace Om Viṣṇupāda Paramahamsa Parivrajakacarya Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Maharaja Prabhupada. His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati is the foremost devotee and scholar of the previous age, the spiritual master of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He is the ocean of transcendental mercy and the bestower of devotional service upon the fallen souls. He is the deliverer of devotional service, enriched with the conjugal love of Sri-Sri Radha and Krishna. He is the personified teachings of Lord Chaitanya. He never tolerates any statement against the teaching of devotional service as enunciated by Srila Rupa Gosvami.”

Now the poem. This poem was written by Srila Prabhupada in 1936 and he thought that it was lost because it was written so many years ago and he never kept any copy of it, but his disciples discovered it in perhaps the British museum in London, going through some old copies of the English publication The Harmonist which was a magazine brought out by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and his disciples in English. So forty years later in 1976 the poem was rediscovered and Srila Prabhupada commented on the first four verses of it on the occasion of his guru maharaja’s disappearance day that year.

POEM

Adore adore ye all
The happy day,
Blessed than heaven,
Sweeter than May.

COMMENT

As we know, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura wanted the message of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu delivered to the western countries and he asked many disciples to do it, but somehow of them Srila Prabhupada was the one who really took the instruction to heart and executed it. So even in 1936 he was thinking, not just in 1936, from the day he first met his guru maharaja in 1922, he was thinking of it, because at the very first meeting Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura had told Srila Prabhupada and his associates, Narendranath Malik and any others, that, “You are educated young men, you should preach the message of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in English in the western countries.” So Srila Prabhupada had it in his mind from the very first meeting although he never knew how he would do it, but he was thinking of it. So in the first half of this verse he says:

POEM (continued)

Adore adore ye all
The happy day,
Blessed than heaven,
Sweeter than May.

COMMENT

. . . because, as he explains it, he had heard that May is a very pleasant month in the western countries. In India, May is very hot, but Srila Prabhupada, although he was speaking on behalf of the members of the Gaudiya Matha, but he was thinking of the people in the West to whom he would have to present the message in due course, and with them in mind he said, “Sweeter than May.” He was comparing the happiness that people felt at the appearance of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura to the happiness that people in the western countries feel when May comes. May day. “April showers, green May flowers.” So Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura was the choicest of flowers that blossomed on the planet then.

POEM (continued)

When he appeared at Puri
The holy place,
My Lord and Master
His Divine Grace.

COMMENT

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s father was Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura and he was posted in a very high government position like magistrate in Jagannatha Puri. As the magistrate he was the superintendent of the Jagannatha temple in Puri. He sat at the head of the management board of the temple and he had a house just on the Grand Road in Jagannatha Puri where the Ratha-yatra takes place. So, as it happens during Ratha-yatra, by the will of the Lord, sometimes the chariot moves and sometimes it stops. Even during Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes it was the same, sometimes the cart would move forward and sometimes it would stop. It so happened that the chariot stopped in front of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s house and it stayed there for quite some time.

So Bhaktivinoda Thakura thought this is an opportunity and he indicated to his wife, Bhagavati-devi that she should bring the child forth to the chariot. He was only about six months old. So it is a very small child. So she brought forth the baby and the pujaris allowed her to bring the baby onto the chariot. She brought him close to the lotus feet of Lord Jagannatha and that little baby tried to stretch out his tiny arms to touch the lotus feet of Lord Jagannatha. Lord Jagannatha dropped one of His garlands on the baby, which was taken as a blessing, certainly as a blessing, but even more than a blessing Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura took it as a confirmation that this child was a pure soul that he has prayed for. 

When Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura appeared and preached, the movement of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had overall fallen into a very degraded condition. After Mahaprabhu left and His powerful immediate successors left, many unauthorized groups—Bhaktivinoda Thakura enumerated about thirteen of them—sprung up and they claimed to be followers of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu but they were really sense gratifiers. They came up with many false theories to justify their debauchery. 

So the condition was such that that name “Vaishnava,” the very name “Vaishnava” at least amongst the educated class, conjured up images of debauched people wearing the garb of Vaishnavas, but engaging in abominable activities.

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura fought hard to establish the true principles of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and to expose the false philosophies being propagated in the name of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, but these groups and their followers were very well established and entrenched, especially in Bengal. Bhaktivinoda Thakura was concerned who would continue his mission after he left. He prayed ardently to the Lord to send a personal associate as a son who could uphold the principles and continue this mission. So when Lord Jagannatha garland fell on the baby, encircled him, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura became jubilant because he felt this is an indication that this body has been sent by the Lord to continue the mission of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

There were many other incidents. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura was extraordinary in every respect but we can’t really discuss in detail now because of lack of time, but if anyone has the time and inclination and better yet a dictionary, I suggest that you read the book Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Vaibhava by our godbrother Bhakti Vikasa Swami because it gives a lot of wonderful information about His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura.

POEM (continued)

Oh! My Master
The evangelic angel.
Give us thy light,
Lite up thy candle.
Struggle for existence
A human race.
The only hope
His Divine Grace.

COMMENT

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura was an evangelic angel. Again angels are a word that we find in the English lexicon, but the idea is that he descended from above. He was angelic in the sense that he was the well-wisher of everyone. Like we talk about guardian angels, he was a guardian angel for the whole human race and he descended from the spiritual world—he is an eternal associate of Krishna, Radha and Krishna—into the dark world of maya. In a way Srila Prabhupada’s beautiful and profound essay, The Universal Teacher, is the purport to the poem. In the essay he explains the word “darkness,” what does it mean that the world is in darkness. He said it couldn’t possibly mean that they are in darkness about material matters because they have more information about material workings now than in the past. They have so many inventions that can do things that people could not do in the past by mechanical means or electronic means now. So what is that darkness? The darkness refers not to material knowledge but to spiritual knowledge that people are in darkness about matter and spirit and the controller of both. That is the simple definition of knowledge, to know the difference between matter and spirit and the controller of both. 

The leaders of society are in darkness and they want to keep the people in darkness. They don’t want the people to be enlightened. On the way the Dallas I was in the Los Angeles airport. As it was, the scheduled stopover was three hours and then further the flight was delayed by two more hours, and I thought, “How nice it would have been to meet the book distributors, Bhrgupati Prabhu, such a stalwart soldier in Lord Chaitanya’s army,” but alas after decades of struggle the airport was successful in banning the devotees from distributing books. Previously at intervals I used to hear an announcement, “Attention. There are solicitors in the airport. We want you to know that the Los Angeles does not necessarily approve of the solicitors and you are under no obligation to give to them.” So it was their effort to discourage people from taking books and giving contributions to the devotees but it was nice in the sense that it was a reminder that they are there at the airport. So being aware of the court decision I was sorry especially having so much time that I could have had in their association. And then finally I heard an announcement and I got happy that, “Attention. Attention. Do not leave your baggage unattended.” “Oh, it is still the same, they are not at the airport.” 

So the leaders of society, the people in power, they want to keep the people in darkness. They don’t want them to be spiritually enlightened. Consciously or unconsciously they probably understand that their whole demonic civilization will be destroyed if people are enlightened in spiritual knowledge. So:

POEM (continued)

Oh! My Master
The evangelic angel.
Give us thy light,
Lite up thy candle.
Struggle for existence
A human race.

COMMENT

Everyone is struggling for existence. Actually if people surrender to Krishna and go back home, back to Godhead, there will be no struggle for existence. But in the material world there is hard struggle for existence. People are suffering. They have no time. So, Srila Prabhupada is praying to his spiritual master to bring light into this world of darkness.

POEM (continued)

Misled we are
All going astray,
Save us Lord
Our fervent pray.
Wonder thy ways
To turn our face
Adore thy feet
Your Divine Grace.

COMMENT

It is the same idea but here Srila Prabhupada suggests the truth both individually and collectively and it is certainly true both individually and collectively we are misled or many people are misled by false propaganda and information from or so-called information from political leaders, scientists, educational leaders, and practically everyone, and they are going astray. Even we as devotees are misled by our senses, by our minds, by deviant ideas in the guise of Krishna consciousness or mixed ideas about pure devotional service. We are also misled; we also have a tendency to go astray. So,

POEM (continued)

Wonder thy ways
To turn our face
Adore thy feet
Your Divine Grace.

He is praying to turn our face to the instructions of the pure devotee, the empowered acharya, the descent of an eternal associate of the Lord, away from the bewildering array of attractions and allurements—gross and subtle—of maya. To turn our face away from that to His Divine Grace.

POEM (continued)

Forgotten Krsna
We fallen souls,
Paying most heavy
The illusion’s toll.

COMMENT

Why are we fallen? Because we have forgotten Krishna. We all have eternal relationships with Krishna but we have forgotten our eternal relationships and fallen into material consciousness, into material existence kṛṣṇa bhuliya jīva bhoga vāñchā kare. As soon as the living entity forgets Krishna and wants to enjoy independent of Krishna he comes in the clutches of maya and is punished by her. So we have fallen into this miserable material world because we have forgotten Krishna. That is the only reason. The only method to bring us back to our proper position is to remember our eternal relationship with Krishna.

POEM (continued)

Forgotten Krsna
We fallen souls,
Paying most heavy
The illusion’s toll.

COMMENT

A toll is a tax. Just like sometimes you come to a toll bridge, so you have to pay the toll, you have to pay the price. What is the price that we are paying for forgetting Krishna and coming into illusion? The price that we are paying is very heavy and that is being punished by the material nature, the threefold miseries, having to suffer repeated birth, death, old age, and disease. The toll is that we are bound up hand and foot by material nature and being punished.

Srila Prabhupada, commenting on this stanza in 1976, said that people are actually paying taxes, very heavy taxes. At that time—I don’t the statistics now—more than half of the national budget went into defense, and that whole effort is based on illusion. It is based on the artificial demarcation of the planet into different national boundaries. And then even within nations there are wars, civil wars. So this is all illusion. Actually none of it belongs to any of us. All of it belongs to Krishna. So in effect we are fighting over stolen property. To finance that fight we have to pay heavy taxes, literal taxes. As Srila Prabhupada commented, when there is actually a war, they spend without limit. No limit. During the Clinton administration—he had been the president—the national budget was balanced and in fact the nation was saving money from taxes that they were collecting. But as soon as there was war—war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq—they were just spending like anything, then going billions and billions and billions of dollars into debt.

So, this is also part of the illusion’s toll that we work hard to get money in the hard struggle for existence and then out of the money we earn we have to give money to the government so that they can build up their arsenal of weapons to defend the nation against other aggressors or to take preemptive measures as aggressors.

POEM (continued)

Darkness around
All untrace.

COMMENT

So he is seeing people are in darkness, the darkness of ignorance, and they cannot trace who they are or where they are, where they are meant to go, or anything. It is all darkness, everything is in oblivion. 

POEM (continued)

The only hope
His Divine Grace.

COMMENT

And that is true, the only hope was Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and he was such a powerful preacher. He gave every drop of energy he had to preach the message of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, to establish the proper understanding of it, and to expose everything against it. His life is exemplary. He just from the beginning was fearless. He had so many enemies. Of course he was not his enemy’s enemy, he was actually their well-wisher. He wanted them to be in line with spiritual knowledge as well, but they had vested interests. They were preying on people’s ignorance and they wanted people to remain in ignorance. 

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura was a fearless speaker of the truth. He did not compromise. At the time in especially Bengal and Orissa, there were smārta-brāhmaṇas. The whole religious culture especially Bengal and Orissa was ruled by smārta-brāhmaṇas who were very proper in all sorts of external details of religious performance. In fact the leading smārta, Raghunandana Acharya, he appeared about seventy-five years after Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates, and he wrote a book with smārta-viddhi which Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said was really taking principles from our vidhi, true Vaiṣṇava-viddhi, Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, and modifying them without the true spirit of śuddha-bhakti in a Smarta way. The idea was that people should not read Hari-bhakti-vilāsa, but they should read Raghunandana Thakura’s book. So, even Vaishnavas, they were guided by this smārta-viddhi, but there was no spirit of Krishna consciousness, absolutely no spirit of Krishna consciousness. It was all very external. 

And then another major influence was the caste Gosvamis, jāta-gosāi. As you know, the members of the Pancha-tattva at least Nityananda Prabhu, Advaita Prabhu, and Srivasa Pandita were married and had progeny. So the family members of these great personalities claimed to have a special position because they were in that family, vaṁśa. So there is Nityananda-vaṁśa, Advaita-vaṁśa, and so on. And they claimed that they had exclusive rights to give initiation as gurus. The people whom they initiated were designated also as members of that family, but not by logical members. So they were in that parivāra. So Nityananda-parivāra, Advaita-parivāra, and so on. And then those that did not marry like Gadadhara Pandita, their disciples, some of their disciplic descendants made seminal lines that were based on birth and not qualification. 

These two groups were, they were just so solidly entrenched and the common people had so much faith in them because they had been there for so long and were so dominant, that it was very hard to bring people to the real understanding of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mission as long they maintained their faith in these false so-called representatives of Mahaprabhu and Vedic culture.

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura began it but Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura really carried it forward. So all these groups, they became his enemies. There were many attempts on his life but he was fearless. He would not compromise. There were people who said that, “You should not criticize others. You should only speak positively what you want to say about your deity, about your philosophy, about your practices, but you shouldn’t say anything negative about others.” But Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said, “No, because in Kali-yuga people are so fallen and confused and the atmosphere is so pervaded by false ideas and wrong practices, that we have to be very clear. We have to be unambiguously clear what is true and what is false.”

There was one incident that involved our Srila Prabhupada that illustrates the same principle. Of course Srila Prabhupada was in every respect a true successor of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s mission, his mood and mission. So, Srila Prabhupada had a friend named Dr. Patel who would always walk with Srila Prabhupada on Juhu Beach. Dr. Patel had sentiments for different popular religious figures in India and he would often bring them up to Srila Prabhupada and they would. . . They had that sort of relationship where they would banter and discuss ideas back and forth.

One morning Dr. Patel brought up one of the revered spiritual figures of India and Srila Prabhupada began to criticize him. Dr. Patel took offense, “You cannot criticize him like that.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “I am not saying, Krishna is saying: na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ māyayāpahṛta-jñānā āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ. If you don’t surrender to Krishna you are duṣkṛtina, you are a miscreant and you come in one of four categories: mūḍha: fool rascal or ass; narādhama: lowest of mankind; māyayāpahṛta-jñānā: you may be very learned and intelligent but your knowledge is actually stolen by maya, or, in order words, you are in maya; and āsuraṁ bhāvam: you have the nature of a demon.”

So Dr. Patel could not accept Srila Prabhupada’s harsh criticism of the revered spiritual leader and he began to shout at Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada shouted back and they were shouting at each other. It was really horrifying. We were mortified. We didn’t know what to say. Dr. Patel, because he was a little intelligent, he was a doctor, he has been educated in London, but even though he was educated in London he remained strict, he remained a vegetarian and a teetotaler. So he had a certain power. He knew Sanskrit, he had read a lot of books, so he was a leader of his own group of cronies. But even they were trying to restrain him and they were saying, “Swamiji has a heart condition, please don’t argue with him like this.” But he just kept shouting at Prabhupada and Prabhupada kept shouting back. So finally they grabbed him, they put their arms around him, took him by the hand and led him away. It was a horrifying situation.

So then after that for the first time in years, from the beginning when Dr. Patel began to accompany Prabhupada on his walks, he stopped coming. Prabhupada also said, “All right, no more discussion on the morning walk. We will just read Kṛṣṇa book.”

One or two days passed, we were walking with Prabhupada and reading Kṛṣṇa book and no Dr. Patel, but then one morning as Dr. Patel describes it, it was just dawn, twilight, it was still quite dark, but a little light, and Dr. Patel was walking from one side of the beach, one direction, and Prabhupada was walking in the other direction, and one was near the ocean and one was further from the ocean, but as Dr. Patel describes it, something in his heart impelled him to go up to Prabhupada and he did and he bowed down and offered respect. There was some talk in Hindi and Dr. Patel said, “Prabhupada, I have been trained from my childhood to respect all the accredited saints of India.” And Prabhupada replied, “And my business is to say who is not a saint.” [laughter] 

So this, in the words of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati is the negative approach, meaning you don’t just speak positively about the truth, but you expose what is false. And then after that Srila Prabhupada proceeded in a very calm and compassionate way to explain to Dr. Patel why So-and-so cannot be accepted as a saint. That particular one. . . Dr. Patel had many favorites. Like he said, he had been trained from the very beginning to respect all the accredited saints in India. I don’t know what that means, accredited, who accredits them, the [vox populae?], the people who are misled by them? Who accredits them? This particular one was known as a devotee of Durga. In Bengal it is very common. Although they are impersonalists, ultimately they are impersonalists and they believe that you can worship any form especially this Pañca-upāsana, you can worship any form, but ultimately the goal is to go beyond all the forms to the impersonal oneness, but because that worship of Durga or Kali is so prominent in Bengal, they tend to be devotees of Durga or kama-śāktas. This one was although he was acclaimed to be god himself, but he worshiped Durga. So Prabhupada began to explain in a very calm and compassionate and congenial way that, “He is worshipping Durga and the Bhagavad-gītā says that those who worship demigods are actually worshiping Krishna, but avidhi-pūrvakam, in an improper way. Those who worship the demigods are less intelligent. So how could someone who is less intelligent according to the Bhagavad-gītā be considered a saint what to speak of an incarnation of god. He is already in the category of less intelligent. “

That was the way Prabhupada was and that is the way his guru maharaja was and that is the way Prabhupada was. 

Once I faced a similar challenge in Madras. I was the first devotee from ISKCON to go to Madras and I was preaching the way I heard Prabhupada preach. I didn’t think anything of it. I had always preached the way I heard Prabhupada preach. But in that particular atmosphere there was a reaction. I had never been to South India before and I found that they were very proud, especially the brahmans, they were very proud because they had never been conquered by the Muslims like in North India, and so they felt that they had kept their culture intact, they had never been polluted by the Muslim invaders. There was a history, Prabhupada even mentions it in Kṛṣṇa book, there is a history of debate between the Saivites and Vaishnavites in South India. So the so-called intellectuals, so-called jnanis, they thought, “What is this nonsense quarrelling, Shiva is supreme, Vishnu is supreme. God is one, He is impersonal, He comes in different shapes and forms, so why this silly debate over who is supreme?” So that was their attitude.

I came along and I was preaching just the way I heard Prabhupada preach, avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā, and there was a reaction, people did not like it, but they didn’t tell me directly. That is also part of the etiquette or polity. They didn’t tell me directly but I started hearing it from friends that there was an undercurrent of protest about the way I was preaching. Even very good friends who invited me in their homes—we had no center so I was staying at different people’s homes and who were supporting in every way—even they said, “Don’t criticize others. Don’t say anything negative about others. Just say positively what you want to say about your deity, your philosophy, your practices, but don’t say anything negative about others.” And I kept hearing it from all different sides so I thought, “Maybe Krishna is trying to tell me something, I have been doing something wrong.” 

It is a long story, I told it in the past and I won’t repeat it, but at the end of the whole thing I got a letter from Srila Prabhupada because I had written him about the situation, and he replied, “The fact is I’m the only one in India who is openly criticizing not only demigod worship and impersonalism but anything that falls short of complete surrender to Krishna. My guru maharaja never comprised in his preaching and I will never compromise in my preaching and similarly none of my disciples should compromise in their preaching. We must declare it boldly that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and all others are His servants. Unless they surrender to Krishna as the Supreme Godhead, all of their dreams for peace and prosperity will be frustrated.”

So I heard that and I understood Prabhupada’s mood and I understood his guru maharaja’s mood but I never really understood what Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura faced until I read that book. I really recommend everyone read the book. I will just mention the one incident. Part of this whole controversy with the caste Gosvamis related to the birthplace of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu because they had established temples in what we call the town of Navadvipa and they had their whole establishment—the temples and deities and donations—and so there was a big struggle to establish the actual birthplace which we actually know Bhaktivinoda Thakura discovered it in Mayapur and that was confirmed by his spiritual master, śikṣā-guru, Srila Jagannatha dasa Babaji Maharaja. He began to establish Lord Chaitanya in Mayapur and he personally went out to raise funds for it. 

But Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura took it much further and he established on a very large scale Navadvīpa-dhāma-parikramā. This had never been done before. There had been Vṛndāvana Vraja-maṇḍala—parikramā but there had never been Navadvipa parikramā on a huge scale. He took his party into Kāliya, in the town of Navadvipa which is a stronghold of the caste Gosvamis. The party was attacked. There were hooligans posted in different positions with stones and bricks and somebody came by in a fancy car, looked at the situation, gave a signal, and they all let loose with this volley of brickbats on the party. It was a terrible scene. They also came with sticks to beat them. The streets of Navadvipa were stained with the blood of the Vaishnavas. It was a terrible scene. And they wouldn’t stop. Fortunately by the grace of the Lord no one was killed, but some devotees suffered deep gushes and gashes and fractures and had to be taken to the hospital.

Their real intent was to kill Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura but one very adept disciple took him to one of the villager’s houses. Many of the devotees tried to take shelter in the villagers’ houses but the town’s people wouldn’t let them in. They kept their doors locked. They might have been afraid of the consequences if they did let them in. So this disciple, Vinode-Bihari, he was later initiated as a sannyasi as Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Maharaja, at first the townspeople didn’t want to open their doors, but he kept banging and finally they opened the door. He explained the situation. So he took his guru maharaja inside and he was wearing white and of course his guru maharaja was wearing saffron. So they exchanged their dress. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura emerged wearing white so the people who were really looking to kill him would not recognize him because he was wearing white and Vinode-Bihari wore his guru maharaja’s cloth which put him at a little risk. And then he escorted him back to Mayapur.

The result of this heinous attack was that when it came to light that actually the caste Gosvamis had paid these guṇḍās to attack the Vaishnavas, so the public sentiment turned against the caste Gosvamis and in favor of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and his party. When the news spread, educated people started to write articles of protest against what the caste Gosvamis had done, and so whatever apparent credibility the caste Gosvamis had was lost when they were exposed as being so low. But Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, although he could have, he refused to press charges. He said, “Actually they have done a yeoman’s service because otherwise how could we have been on the front page of all the newspapers in Bengal.” 

But the idea is that he was fearless and tireless. He just would not stop. He said that by his preaching if he arouses opposition he will feel very enlivened and he will preach again with a thousand times more vigor. He had that spirit. He was just. . . I don’t even know what words to use to describe him but he was fearless and he just did not stop. 

Even later he became aware that within his own institution there were difficulties because some of his own leading disciples were becoming materially distracted. They were using the facility of the Matha for their own comfort and gratification. They were enjoying not just the physical facilities of the Matha, but even you could say the opportunities for preaching because they had so much respect and so much prestige and so much adulation and so much worship, They started to enjoy it. They wanted to enjoy it. So Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura responded, he made rules, the vehicles of the Matha could only be used for preaching, and he tried to curb their tendencies to use the facilities of the Matha for their own sense gratification and he preached very strongly about pure devotional service, śuddha-bhakti, and he even submitted anonymous articles to his publications. He had a Bengali publication called The Gaudiya and his English one called The Harmonist. He had many. He had six different regular publications. So he really tried his best to rectify the situation and purify his errant disciples, but he didn’t feel successful in that regard. But he still kept preaching, he still kept travelling, opening new centers, meeting dignitaries, publishing books. He just did not stop. Although he did comment he had much more to do but that because of the way his disciples had become mundane and were quarrelling amongst themselves he left early. 

But he didn’t stop. This is my main point, he didn’t stop. He just used every ounce of his energy to preach. At the end his disciples brought the most renowned doctors in Calcutta to treat him and they were advising him that, “You have to stop speaking so much. You have to rest more.” And he responded by preaching to them that, “What is the purpose of human life and this body is temporary and the soul is eternal and our real relationship is with Krishna and if you can’t speak hari-kathā what is the use of living in the body. You may as well move on.”

Our Srila Prabhupada commented that he came, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura came on the order of the Supreme to do some business, and when his business was finished he left to do the same business in some other place. 

So, we beg him, we fall at his feet and beg him for his mercy that he can enlighten us with pure devotional service, śuddha-bhakti, free us from anarthas and ignorance (avidya) and empower us to serve our spiritual masters in his line and to catch that very special gift that he came to give, in general terms śuddha-bhakti, but in specific, vraja-bhakti, mādhuryojjvala-premāḍhya-śrī-rūpānuga-bhaktida, that special gift that he came to give in the line of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in service to Radha and Krishna in Vrindavan. On our own we have no strength or power to do anything. We can only fall at his feet, roll in the dust of his feet, and beg for his mercy. Hare Krishna.

Are there any questions or comments?

Devotee: Will you finish the rest of the poem tomorrow Maharaja?

Giriraj Swami: That is a very good question. This is a very superficial way to follow in Srila Prabhupada’s footsteps but when he discussed the poem he only got up to the verse that I just read, but he did say he would continue the next day and I didn’t search to see if there was a continuation of the discussion. I am leaving very early tomorrow morning. I couldn’t help it but my flight is such that I think I have to leave at five in the morning but that is a worthy suggestion. I can read the last four verses and if there is something, we can always discuss.

POEM (concluded)

Message of Service
Thou hast brought.
A healthful life
As Caitanya wrought.
Unknown to all
It is full of brace.
That is your gift
Your Divine Grace.

Absolute is sentient
Thou hast proved
Impersonal calamity
Thou hast moved.
This gives us a life
Anew and fresh,
Worship thy feet
Your Divine Grace.

Had you not come
Who has told
The message of Krsna
Forceful and bold.
That is your right
You have the mace.
Save me a fallen
Your Divine Grace.

The line of service
As drawn by you
Is pleasing and healthy
Like morning dew.
The oldest of all
But in new dress
Miracle done
Your Divine Grace.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura ki jaya!
Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!
Gaura-bhakta-vrnda ki jaya!
Nitai-Gaura—premānande Hari-Haribol!

Thank you all for listening and encouraging me. Hare Krishna.