How to Properly Understand and Present the Bhagavad-gita

Giriraj Swami: So, we welcome you to today’s Bhagavad-gītā class. His Grace Tukaram Prabhu is in Houston for a meeting and I am here. Before he left I discussed with him how we could spend our time together and I thought, better let him continue with the regular series going through the verses of the Bhagavad-gītā in sequence, and I thought I would share with you an experience I had with Srila Prabhupada related to how to properly understand and present the Bhagavad-gītā.

As Srila Prabhupada has often explained, we need to understand the Bhagavad-gītā through paramparā. Lord Krishna Himself says in the Bhagavad-gītā, evam paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ, that this knowledge of the Bhagavad-gītā was handed down through paramparā. Paramparā means literally one after the other, and in the context of the Bhagavad-gītā’s paramparā we are talking about the guru-paramparā. Krishna spoke to Arjuna, what Krishna said to Arjuna was recorded by Vyasa, and Vyasa’s disciple was Madhvacharya, and there is a whole paramparā listed in the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is.

So, in 1976 a prominent industrialist in India named Ramakrishna Bajaj wrote Srila Prabhupada and requested him to attend a Gītā conference. The Bajaj family is very prominent in India, Ramakrishna Bajaj’s father Jamanalal Bajaj had been very closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi and he was the treasurer of Mahatma Gandhi. And the Bajaj industries are very famous in India, Bajaj Electricals, Bajaj Scooters, so many Bajaj, Bajaj Fans. But Srila Prabhupada did not want to attend the conference. The purpose of the conference was to discuss how to preach the message of the Bhagavad-gītā but Srila Prabhupada’s concern was that everyone will have his own interpretation of what the Bhagavad-gītā says, and who will decide what the actual message of the Bhagavad-gītā is? It will just be a free for all. So, he tried to avoid but Mr. Bajaj was very insistent. And then Srila Prabhupada made the point that everyone will have his own interpretation of the Gītā and there will be no conclusion to the discussion. Someone has to be a judge to decide what understanding of the Gītā is correct, but who would be the judge to decide? So, the Bajaj family was also closely connected with Vinoba Bhave who was also a freedom fighter, very respected in India. And Vinoba Bhave had his ashram in Paunar which was just a few miles from Bajaj’s place where the main conference took place which was in Wardha that which in turn was quite close to Nagpur in the center of India. So Srila Prabhupada said, the prime minister Indira Gandhi, she has great respect for Vinoba Bhave so she should come; he should have her come and she can be the judge. She can hear all the different arguments as to the meaning of the Bhagavad-gītā and she can be the judge.

Well that was not taken up. So, Srila Prabhupada decided to send me in his place, and he wrote me a letter, I remember it but I have described this incident in this book Watering the Seed, and what Prabhupada wrote in his letter to me was very powerful and also humorous. In his letter to me, Srila Prabhupada wrote that we must insist that the Bhagavad-gītā be presented as it is and that people not use the words of Krishna simply to make money or promote their own philosophies. “If they have got their own philosophy then let them preach their own philosophy,” he wrote, “But not in the name of the Gītā.” And he gave an example, “Suppose a man wants to smoke ganja,” ganja means marijuana, “Suppose a man wants to smoke ganja, but he does not want to be caught. So he takes a friend’s hand and smokes it in his hand, and then when the authorities come he says, ‘Oh, I have not smoked ganja. See, my hands are clean.’ The idea is that if one wants to preach the Gītā then he must preach it as it is, otherwise, don’t use the Gītā.” So that is all right, everyone has a right to their own philosophy, they can preach their own philosophy, but if they try to present their own philosophy as Krishna’s philosophy in the Bhagavad-gītā that is cheating. It is like the person who is smoking ganja but he doesn’t want to take responsibility. So you see, he is smoking but he is smoking from someone else’s hand, and then when the authorities come he says, “I am not smoking ganja, just see my hands are clean.” So, that is the problem.

Last Sunday, after the program here, Tukaram Prabhu had a discussion with a group of people who were students of a person who claimed to be presenting the Bhagavad-gītā. But what they told Tukaram that their teacher told them was the Bhagavad-gītā is quite different from what we know the Bhagavad-gītā to be. Is any of that group here? No. Yes, Tukaram told me, he didn’t tell them because he felt it would have been too heavy for them, but he told me that if you have a teacher who is claiming to present the Bhagavad-gītā but he is not really presenting what is in the Bhagavad-gītā, then there are one of two possibilities. One, he doesn’t know what the Bhagavad-gītā says in which case he is not a guru, or he knows what the Bhagavad-gītā says but he is not telling you, he is deceiving you in other words, and in which case also he is not a guru. So, Srila Prabhupada’s glory is just that he presented the Bhagavad-gītā as it is, as Krishna presented it to Arjuna, and as Arjuna understood it from Krishna. And how did Arjuna understand it? Sarvam etad ṛtaṁ manye, that I accept whatever you say as the truth in total; no additions, no subtractions, no misinterpretations, just as it is. And it is so simple, in that way it is so simple.

So eventually Mr. Bajaj came personally to meet Srila Prabhupada in Juhu and begged him to attend, and Srila Prabhupada agreed. And so in December, we went to Wardha near Nagpur in Maharashtra in the center of India. So, we were staying at the Bajaj estate, and every day we would have prasāda, just Srila Prabhupada and his disciples with Mr. Bajaj on the veranda, a part near the kitchen of the estate, and Mr. Bajaj would point out, “This is where Mahatma Gandhi sat, this is where Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel sat, this is where Jawaharlal Nehru sat, this is where Jamanalal Bajaj sat,” and they were the same places where we were sitting and taking prasāda. So, on the main day of the conference, all the participants went to Vinoba Bhave’s Paunar ashrams. When Srila Prabhupada addressed them his argument was clear and simple. Now listen to this, you would not imagine that this is what Srila Prabhupada would say. I don’t imagine you would imagine. Krishna preached the Bhagavad-gītā to instruct people to become devotees, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto. And how do people become devotees? How do people become devotees? By chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, harer nāmaiva kevalam. Therefore, those who want to preach the message of the Bhagavad-gītā should propagate the chanting of the holy names of Krishna.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama, Hare Hare

And that will fulfill the Lord’s purpose in speaking the Bhagavad-gītā which is that people should become His devotees and always think of Him. Then Srila Prabhupada took his kartals and began to chant Hare Krishna which infused the meeting with tremendous spiritual energy, especially after so many impersonal speculators had spoken. The kirtan wasn’t in the schedule and Srila Prabhupada did not take anyone’s permission. Still, he was very tactful and before the audience could become impatient, it is like a really powerful kirtan, like I said, it just infused the whole meeting with spiritual energy because up until then it was pretty dry and it was really powerful, I mean we felt like we could just go on and on and on and never stop. But after five minutes, seven minutes, Prabhupada just stopped it before anyone could become impatient. So that was very dramatic and very powerful.

So, on the last day, there was going to be a meeting where the delegates would get together and make a list of initiatives that they wanted to ratify how to promote the Bhagavad-gītā. And they began meeting without Srila Prabhupada and time was passing and nobody came to invite Srila Prabhupada. And Srila Prabhupada was weighing the situation in his mind and he said, “Maybe they don’t want to invite me because they know my health is not good and so they don’t want to trouble me or maybe they want to have their meeting without me.” So it became a little tense, then finally someone came and said, “We are ready for you.” So they had met without him and they made a whole list of ideas for presenting the Bhagavad-gītā. They wanted to have the Bhagavad-gītā for farmers; taking relevant parts from the Bhagavad-gītā for farmers. But the real point, receiving the Bhagavad-gītā through paramparā and surrendering to Krishna, that wasn’t part of it. It was like they were thinking of different ways to package the Gītā but without having a clear idea of what should go in the package. It was very superficial.

When Srila Prabhupada entered the meeting room everyone had to take heed of him. Like it or not, they had to because he was the foremost preacher of the Gītā in the world and from every point of view, age, learning, success, he was the natural leader. When he spoke he stuck to one point: paramparā. “Unless you follow the disciplic succession and present the Bhagavad-gītā as it is without personal interpretation you have no right to preach to Bhagavad-gītā.” It was very heavy. “You can preach any philosophy you like,” he told them, “But don’t take the name of Bhagavad-gītā.” Exactly what he wrote me, exactly. And then he explained his success. “There is no interpretation, Krishna says, ‘I am the Supreme, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat, we are presenting here is God, you are searching after God.” This is very prominent Indians; heads of different spiritual organizations in India and some prominent political leaders who are known to be spiritual, that you are searching after God, Krishna, and they, meaning us foreign devotees, are accepting. You see how ironic it was. All the big spiritual leaders, political and spiritual leaders, they are searching, what is God? And these foreigners they are accepting Krishna as God. They know who God is because Prabhupada is presenting it as it is and they are accepting it as it is. How they are accepting? Because it is the real thing, there is no interpretation. So, it is very simple when you accept that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and you are the eternal servant of Krishna. But when you want to be Krishna, and basically, presenting your philosophy in the name of Bhagavad-gītā means you want to be Krishna, then it is very complicated and there is no agreement, there is no conclusion. Of course, no one could really refute what he was saying.

Then Srila Prabhupada agreed to hear the group’s proposals. The committee wanted to agree on a list of specific initiatives to promote the teachings of the Gītā. As soon as they presented their first proposal, Srila Prabhupada again insisted on the point of paramparā and surrender. “First you must surrender in paramparā as Arjuna surrendered to Krishna as guru and then you can preach the Bhagavad-gītā.” In other words, he was telling them, which was the truth, that they were unqualified to present the Bhagavad-gītā because they hadn’t surrendered as Arjuna surrendered to Krishna through paramparā. And Srila Prabhupada was not ready to proceed to the next proposal until the group accepted the basic principle for understanding, and thus properly presenting the actual teachings of the Bhagavad-gītā. So they had their list and they just wanted to go through, and they wanted Prabhupada to rubber stamp—okay, okay, okay, okay, very good, very good, very good, okay, business finished. He wouldn’t get off the point of surrender, paramparā and surrender, and he wouldn’t go on to the second proposal, he wanted them to accept that you have to surrender to Krishna as Arjuna did. Of course, in the absence of Krishna’s personal presence, we surrender to Krishna’s devotee, Krishna’s representative in paramparā. Otherwise, you have no right to present the Bhagavad-gītā. You don’t have access to the true understanding of the Bhagavad-gītā. So he was just immovable, unshakable. And one of the delegates got a little annoyed, “We have a list here, we have to go through our list.” But Prabhupada just would not budge because unless they accept the basic principle of surrender and paramparā, they don’t know the Bhagavad-gītā, they are in no position to tell anyone about the Bhagavad-gītā.

So that went on for a while, then all right, let us hear the second one, and it was pretty much the same thing. And that was basically how it went. Then afterwards Srila Prabhupada said to me in confidence, “We have injected our poison and now it will act.” So, there was a little story here, not directly related, but I will mention it because it was interesting. They were very much into Mahatma Gandhi and the freedom movement, so after the meetings one day Srila Prabhupada accepted an invitation to Gandhi’s ashram in Sevagram. And there, as the sun was setting and the stars were appearing in the sky we chanted Hare Krishna. It is quite nice and it was very rural, peaceful, and it was like that, it was dusk, and the sun was setting, and the stars were rising, and we did kirtan. And then they had a visitor’s book, so they wanted Srila Prabhupada to sign the visitor’s book, and he wrote, “I was fortunate to come to the Gandhi ashram Sevagram today. It is so quiet and serene. I have requested them to chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.” So, it is like it is the same thing, chant Hare Krishna, become a devotee of Krishna, think of Krishna, fulfill the purpose of the Bhagavad-gītā. So wherever Srila Prabhupada went he was the same person and he presented the same message.

So, at the end of the conference we went from Wardha to Nagpur to catch a flight to Bombay. Coming to Nagpur we came by train. Our group came from Mumbai by train, and Srila Prabhupada happened to be in Hyderabad, he came from Hyderabad by train. But then afterwards we went by plane to Bombay. And Srila Prabhupada was a little ahead of me and then I was maybe one row behind, one or two rows behind, and just across the aisle from me was Ramkrishna Bajaj and then there was Vyas Bhave who was the chairman of the Legislative Council of Maharashtra, was supposed to be spiritual, religious, and some of the other delegates. So, I said to Ramakrishna Bajaj that Srila Prabhupada had commented that we have injected our poison and now it will act. And Srila Prabhupada when he heard that he turned around and looked at me and glared at me like, “You weren’t supposed to say that to him, I said that to you, you weren’t supposed to repeat that.” But I was a bit naive. But in a way, everything worked out well, even though Srila Prabhupada was so strong and relentless, but he had so much integrity and was so pure that Mr. Bajaj maintained great respect for him, and soon thereafter he gave a very sizable donation for a farm project of Srila Prabhupada. And then the next year when they wanted to have the next Gītā Pratishthan conference, out of respect for Srila Prabhupada, they had it at the Krishna-Balarama temple in Vrindavan because by then this was already December of ‘76 and then I think they had it October of ‘77, just a little before Srila Prabhupada left; so they had it at the Krishna-Balarama temple.

And Ramakrishna Bajaj came to meet Srila Prabhupada. He was pretty much just confined to his room, and he brought up the point of who would succeed Srila Prabhupada. And Srila Prabhupada made the same point that he made all along about paramparā. He said, “I will not choose someone that he will be a leader, anyone who follows the previous leader he can become leader. You can also become leader but you have to follow.” So it was the same message in a little different context, but it was the same message. And yes, Mr. Bajaj accepted it. I wouldn’t say he followed because surrender is not so easy. I mean it is. In fact, it is easier to surrender than not to surrender. In fact,

Jaya Sri Pancha-tattva ki jaya

Sri Guru-paramparā ki jaya!

Sri Jagannatha Baladeva Subhadra ki jaya!

In one sense we are always surrendered because our nature is to be surrendered, we cannot be independent, we are not meant to be independent. So it is a question of where to surrender, either we surrendered to Krishna or to maya. And we are in the habit of being surrendered to maya, but being surrendered to maya we suffer, and when we surrender to Krishna we become relieved of our suffering and we become happy. So it is really easier to surrender to Krishna but because of that causeless unwillingness, that envy, people find so many excuses not to surrender to Krishna.

When Srila Prabhupada gave a talk in America in 1968 he was making the point of surrender to Krishna, and one young man, he raised his hand and he said, “I don’t feel like I should have to bow down to anyone.” And Srila Prabhupada replied that, “You may not want to bow down but you are forced to bow down because you are meant to bow down.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “When you go to work don’t you have to bow down to your boss?” He said, “Yes, but that is material, I don’t think I have to bow down to anyone spiritually, we are all the same spiritually.” And Srila Prabhupada said that, “Whatever it may be you have to bow down. So the question is not whether to bow down or not, you will bow down, you are forced to bow down. The question is where to be happy even while bowing down. And that is Krishna. If you don’t bow down to Krishna, then you will bow down to maya. You will bow down to death, birth, disease, old age, you will bow down to the miseries of material existence. So the question is where to bow down and be happy, and that is Krishna.”

Now, there is a singer named Boy George, you have heard of Boy George? I got the name right? And he wrote a song called Bow Down Mister. Boy George was influenced by Srila Prabhupada and Krishna consciousness, and he went to Vrindavan to the ISKCON temple, Krishna-Balarama temple. And he had seen in all the ISKCON temples when people come in front of the deity they bow down, but in the Vrindavan temple a lot of visitors were coming in the mood of tourists who were sightseeing and they were not bowing down. So he wrote that song from his experience in Vrindavan, Bow Down Mister, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. I actually heard the song later, it is quite catchy. So, we have to bow down. It is our nature to bow down, and if we don’t bow down to Krishna we bow down to maya, we bow down to the repetition of birth, death, disease, and old age. So it is really easier to surrender to Krishna, it is much harder not to. But we do have that causeless unwillingness. Srila Prabhupada used to quote a cartoon from a newspaper magazine. An old man and an old woman were sitting across from each other, and the wife said to the husband, “Chant, chant, chant.” And the husband replied, “Can’t, can’t, can’t.” So that is our causeless unwillingness. With the same effort that it would take to chant he will argue and say can’t. So that is the difficulty. Srila Prabhupada told, it is everywhere, I mean that was New York, the same thing in Calcutta, he told a story and I haven’t memorized the Bengali, but basically, the old lady was on her death bed and her sons were telling her, “Chant, chant the holy names, chant, you are going to be leaving your body, chant Hare Krishna.” And she was listening, listening, listening, she didn’t want to chant, and then finally Prabhupada came out with this whole Bengali thing and he didn’t translate it, actually I should get someone who knows Bengali did listen, but the idea is she was very annoyed that he was insisting that, “You should chant the holy names.” But instead of chanting she came out with this whole thing in Bengali, “Keep quiet and stop disturbing me,” or whatever it was.

And yes, it is just a misfortune, Kali-yuga, mandāḥ sumanda-matayomanda-bhāgyā hy upadrutāḥ. It is just a misfortune we don’t chant Hare Krishna. And chanting Hare Krishna is actually a gift. It is easy and probably all of you who are here do chant to some extent, but it is actually a gift. At a program recently, a lady was asking for my blessings and to surrender. I think she chants sixteen rounds, and what I realized was happening was that she was trying but she couldn’t really do it. She was trying in a way; she was trying but she couldn’t do it. And we may have that experience, we want to chant sixteen rounds, we want to get up early in the morning, there may be something we want to do, we know it will be good for us, we know that we will benefit if we do it, and we feel bad when we don’t do it. We feel bad because we don’t get that spiritual encouragement, and we feel bad about ourselves because we are so weak, we are so undisciplined, we are so worthless, we can’t even do what we want to do. So, it is a matter of mercy, it is a combination of our efforts but there is also an element of mercy. And one of my spiritual friends, godbrothers, His Holiness Ṛtadhvaja Swami, he chants and it is not really a vow but he pretty much, everyday chants sixty-four rounds, and he said it is like chanting sixteen rounds. It is not that after chanting sixty-four rounds he feels he did something great, it is just like he chanted sixteen rounds. But he is aware that his chanting and anything we do really, but his chanting is due to the mercy he gets from the superior authorities. So the first thing he does before he begins to chant is he gets down and offers prostrated obeisances and prays, recites the praṇāma mantras, prays to Srila Prabhupada, to the six Gosvamis, to Gaura-Nitai, to Radha and Krishna, whoever the deities are because without their mercy you can’t chant. And at the end he does the same thing. He gets down, offer prostrated obeisances, again recites the praṇāma mantras, and I would imagine he thanks them for enabling him to do what he did.

So, if we want to make progress, and we are here because we do want to make progress, we have to make our effort and also we have to understand that we are dependent, that nothing is mechanical, nothing is automatic, everything depends on mercy. And so we pray to be able to chant, be able to chant and hear with attention, and always know that we are dependent. And even if it is a little hard because in the beginning, we don’t have taste or we may have some taste sometimes but then other times we don’t have taste, but Rupa Gosvami says that you have to keep chanting, even if you don’t have taste keep chanting. And it is a matter of effort, both mercy, and effort, it is also a matter of effort, and we make that effort by always chanting, always trying to chant. Okay, there is a certain time we pick up our beads, “Okay, I am going to chant my four rounds or sixteen rounds or sixty-four rounds.” Well, we can chant all the time; yes when we are not talking or reading, we can chant. In the morning when I get up and bathe I usually listen to a tape, or when I honor prasāda I listen to a tape, but sometimes there is no facility to listen to tapes so you chant. Yes, you might have to stop when you are brushing your teeth, you can still chant in your mind, and then after you wash your mouth out you can chant with your mouth. So it is a matter of practice, it is the more you chant the more it helps. And pray, chant and pray, chant and pray. And it has effect, and gradually it becomes easier and easier; you develop more and more taste. But there are ups and downs, it is always ups and downs and we have to expect that. But our activities should be the same. I mean if we have taste and we are chanting that is very good, but even if we don’t have taste still we have to chant and pray; pray for taste, or pray to be able to chant with attention and then when you chant with attention then taste comes. And that will fulfill the purpose of our study of the Bhagavad-gītā, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto.

Just today I heard a talk in which a devotee asked Srila Prabhupada, “How long it takes to get free from sinful reactions? How many lifetimes?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “You can become free in one minute.” And he said, “A number of questions in this session, a number of questions,” he said, “Aren’t you reading the Bhagavad-gītā?” He said, “You can be free in a minute, aren’t you reading the Bhagavad-gītā? Krishna says,

sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ

That if you surrender to Me I free you from all sinful reactions. So how long does it take to surrender? You can surrender in a moment, you just have to approach Krishna that, ‘For so long I have turned away from you, now I am coming back to you, I surrender, please accept me.’” So it was very interesting, so many questions, he said, “Aren’t you reading the Bhagavad-gītā? Because all the answers were in the Bhagavad-gītā.”

So, I am glad you are coming to these classes and studying and chanting and doing everything. My only request is go deeper, don’t waste time. Whenever you have time chant or read, somehow be engaged in Krishna consciousness. Whatever life we have is time so we should use our time wisely for Krishna consciousness and not waste time. But always chant or read or do some service to help Krishna consciousness, and then life is very happy.

Hare Krishna.

So, are there any questions or comments? Yes.

Devotee: I was reading Bhagavad-gītā written by Mayavadi, do they [Unintelligible 00:54:21] they don’t write your translations, they jump to their [Unintelligible 00:54:44].

Giriraj Swami: Why are you asking this question? I am not understanding.

Devotee: Actually, what I want to say [Unintelligible 00:55:10] and they talk about them, more about the philosophy than the text itself or the translation itself.

Giriraj Swami: So they interpret, they interpret. One of my godbrothers told a story. A lady told her husband, maybe she was Muslim, anyway, she told her husband to go to the market and buy a chicken. So he went to the market and there was one vendor that said, “My chickens have more fat than any other chickens.” So he thought, “Oh, well, fat must be better than chicken so I will just get fat.” So he went to the place where they sold the fat and the fat vendor was saying that, “My fat is as pure as oil.” He thought, “Oh, oil must be better than fat so let me get oil.” So then he went to the oil market and the vendor there said, “My oil is as clear as water.” Then, “Oh, water must be better than oil.” So he came home with water. So, that is how they interpret. Krishna, Krishna means black, Krishna means black, black means unknown, unknown means unknowable, and then eventually there is nothing left, everything is gone, no Krishna, nothing, it just all disappeared. Yes, so it is like that.

Prabhupada talked about different editions and I looked at some, and it is just what Prabhupada said. There is one, satataṁ kīrtayanto mām, always engage in kirtan. So the commentator, he says, “This does not refer to the boisterous kirtan of singing with symbols and drums. This refers to the silent kirtan within.” And another famous; infamous is Krishna says, “Surrender to Me,” because it is not to the person Krishna that we must surrender but it is to the unknown, unborn, who is speaking through Krishna. So they interpret, and they come to a completely different conclusion than Krishna and Arjuna. So it really is like that. With that famous one or infamous one where he says, “It is not the person Krishna that we must surrender but to the unborn,” Prabhupada said, “It is as if I would say, ‘Bring me a glass of water,’ and someone else says, ‘No, no, no, don’t give Swamiji the glass of water but throw it on the wall behind him.’” Krishna says, “Surrender to Me,” “No, no, not to Krishna, not to Krishna, but something behind Krishna.” So that is why it is such an issue. Your brother is reading three Bhagavad-gītās?

Devotee: Not me.

Giriraj Swami: No, I didn’t say you, I know you wouldn’t. But was it your brother?

Devotee: Yes.

Giriraj Swami: Brother-in-law?

Devotee: Yes, [Unintelligible 01:00:15].

Giriraj Swami: Brother, yes, he is reading three Bhagavad-gītās, but has he surrendered to Krishna? So what is he getting from that reading?

Devotee: [Unintelligible 01:00:31].

Giriraj Swami: Yes, anything but surrender. There is one, I should end, I think 8:30, it is time, but there was a famous speaker on Bhagavad-gītā, he gave a series in Bombay, and one lady, she was a doctor, quite a nice person, she and her husband. So one morning after attending the Swami’s lecture she was walking on Juhu beach and Srila Prabhupada was walking on Juhu beach, and they met and she said, “Oh, last night I heard Swami so-and-so speak on the Bhagavad-gītā, it was so wonderful, just so marvelous.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “What did he say?” And she tried to remember what he said and she said, “You know, I am so unfortunate I can’t actually tell you what he said.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Not only you are unfortunate, everyone who went is unfortunate.”

So, that is the problem. They take the name of the Bhagavad-gītā and they come up with anything and everything according to their motivation. But Prabhupada had no personal motivation, just present Bhagavad-gītā as it is, present Krishna as He is, and yes, surrender to Krishna through paramparā. So simple.

Hare Krishna.