Prabhupada: The moments that made his movement – Part 1
The Man …
“It’s an astonishing story. If someone told you a story like this, you wouldn’t believe it. Here’s this person, he’s seventy years old, he’s going to a country where he’s never been before, he doesn’t know anybody there, he has no money, has no contacts. He has none of the things, you would say, that make for success. He’s going to recruit people not on any systematic basis, but just picking up whomever he comes across and he’s going to give them responsibility for organizing a worldwide movement. You’d say, ‘What kind of program is that?’ There are precedents perhaps. Jesus of Nazareth went around saying, ‘Come follow me. Drop your nets, or leave your tax collecting, and come with me and be my disciple.’ But in his case, he wasn’t an old man in a strange society dealing with people whose backgrounds were totally different from his own. He was dealing with his own community. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s achievement, then, must be seen as unique.”
– Thomas Hopkins in Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna: Five Distinguished Scholars on the Krishna Movement in the West
The Movement …
“Guess again if you think Bollywood, or Indian writing in English, is the country’s biggest cultural export. You may not come across any of these if you visit Cochabamba in Bolivia or Gaborone in Botswana; what you will find instead is a centre of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).”
– The Times of India, Editorial, Jan 6, 2006
The Moments …
Every life has its defining moments. And in the lives of great souls who have inspired millions, such moments become all the more consequential.
Here we will take a look at the defining moments in the life of a great modern-day saint, His Divine Grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
1896: Birth: He was born in Kolkata on Sep 1, 1896. The day itself was significant, being the day of Nandotsava, the day when millennia ago Lord Krishna’s father, Nanda Maharaj, celebrated exuberantly the birth of his son, who had been born the previousmidnight. His appearance on that day was significant too: Just as the day was marked by devotional celebration, he too would bring devotional celebrations to various parts of the world. Named Abhay Charan by his parents Gaur Mohan De and Rajani, he was born in a devout family. One of his earliest childhood memories was waking up to the sound of bells being rung in worship. And he started learning to play mridanga, a kind of drum used in kirtans, in his early childhood when his hands were barely long enough to reach the two sides of the drum. Little did the observers of this gifted child know that he would play the mridanga all over the world – and inspire scores of people from various parts of the world to play it too.
1901: Childhood Ratha-Yatra: Children while playing often mimic their elders. Little Abhay played like other children, but he also had a special play: organizing a Ratha-Yatra festival on the streets in the vicinity of his house. Right from getting a cart of the right size to leading and guiding the procession while playing mridanga, he re-enacted with earnest devotion the spectacular chariot festival that annually attracts millions to Jagannatha Puri. His childhood play signified what he would be doing in future: organize Ratha-Yatra festivals all over the world.
1922: Met his spiritual master: Abhay had grown into a well-educated, articulate young man. Being a concerned citizen, he had joined Gandhiji’s non-cooperation movement that protested against the exploitative policies of the British government. To express non-cooperation, he had boycotted the trendy clothes manufactured in the mills of Manchester and had started wearing clothes made of the local material, khadi – a dress-choice that was a strong political statement. Not only that, he had refused to accept the graduation degree that he had earned after years of diligent study at the respected Scottish Church College. Yet a momentous meeting in 1922 spiritualized his zeal, transforming him from a political activist to a spiritual activist. That meeting was with the saint who would later become Abhay’s spiritual master: Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura, the founder of the Gaudiya Math, a spiritual organization dedicated to sharing the message of divine love. Abhay had seen many sadhus living like parasites on society, so he had been reluctant to meet what he thought would be one more such sadhu. Only at a friend’s unrelenting insistence had he come for the meeting. However, what was to be a ritual offering of respects to a religious teacher became a confrontational discussion about the best way to contribute to India and the world. The saint saw the spiritual potential in the young man and asked him, within moments of their first meeting, to share the bhakti tradition’s message of love with the world. Astonished, Abhay countered that India needed political independence first before its spiritual message would have respectability. The master responded that the greatest need of the world was the raising of human consciousness through spiritual love – without it, no other solution would offer any lasting relief. The project of raising human consciousness was so urgent and so universal that it cut across all worldly considerations, including those of political independence or its absence. As they discussed and debated, the saint impressed on the seeker the primacy of pure consciousness as the foundation for all individual and social change. Though a forceful debater, Abhay accepted defeat with disarming grace, resolving that the one who had mastered him would become his spiritual master.
1925: Visited Vrindavan for the first time: Aspiring to assist his spiritual master’s mission by providing financial support, Abhay busied himself in expanding his pharmaceutical business, the profession he had entered after completing his education. As his business tours took him across the country, he frequently remembered his spiritual master and longed to be in his presence again. On coming to know that the master was leading a pilgrimage tour in Vrindavan, the holy place where Krishna had appeared and sported millennia ago, Abhay joined the tour. He relished the devotional vibrancy of that holiest of all places for the devotees of Krishna. More importantly, he heard his spiritual master’s discourse for hours and found himself enriched and enlivened by the wisdom therein.
1932: Received spiritual initiation: The memories of the life-transforming first encounter with his master would gestate within Abhay for a decade before they manifested in his becoming a formally initiated disciple. While he was being initiated, his master showed him special favor, appreciating his spiritual acumen as evidenced in his eagerness to hear and learn. While granting Abhay a spiritual name, his master added Aravind – thus Abhay Charan became Abhay Charanaarvind, signifying that the fearlessness (abhay) the human heart longs for is found in the lotus (aravind) feet (charan) of the Supreme, who is the source of the ultimate security.
1937: Received the first instruction again as a final instruction: Abhay’s master departed from the world at the start of this year, leaving him afflicted by separation. But just a few days earlier, his master had in a letter to Abhay reiterated the instruction that he had given in their first meeting: share the message of spiritual love with the world. Abhay felt the presence and grace of his master in the parting instruction, and deepened his resolved to make fulfilling that instruction his life-mission.
1939: Is bestowed the title Bhaktivedanta: Abhay had been writing articles and poems in the magazines run by his master’s mission – and the insights in his writings had so pleased the master that he had declared, “Whatever Abhay writes, publish it.” After the master’s departure, Abhay continued and intensified his writing. Appreciating his scholarship and zeal, his godbrothers from the Gaudiya Math gave him the title “Bhaktivedanta” The title meant that love for the divine (bhakti) is the conclusion (anta) of all knowledge (veda) –a truth that Abhay had consistently and convincingly communicated through his writings, and would continue to do so.
1944: Began Back to Godhead magazine: While the world was limping towards the end of the worst war in recent history, World War II, and while Kolkata was still threatened by Japanese bombardment, Abhay felt inspired to address the spiritual bankruptcy that underlay the world’s numerous problems. To make spiritual wisdom accessible to people, he started a magazine called Back to Godhead. Its name conveyed its mission: to re-harmonize human consciousness with the supreme source of all consciousness. He singlehandedly typed, proofread, published and distributed the magazine, approaching people on the hot streets of tropical India. Once, a stray cow knocked him down. Another time, he fell unconscious on the streets due to sunstroke and exhaustion. Still, he never wavered in his determination to keep publishing and distributing the message of spiritual love. The magazine he started continues even today in over a dozen languages with thousands upon thousands of copies distributed worldwide.
1953: Initiated his first disciple and started the League of Devotees – both in Jhansi: Abhay was now less a pharmaceutical businessman and more a traveling spiritual teacher. And his traveling brought him to Jhansi, where several interested people urged him to make his base. A Sanskrit professor at a local college, Acarya Prabhakar, became his first initiated disciple. His local admirers offered him an unused building, which he decided to make the main office of his outreach mission that he named The League of Devotees. Though the results of his outreach in Jhansi had been modest, he had grand plans for expansion. Unfortunately, a clique involving local politicians and businessmen sabotaged his efforts and compelled him to vacate the premises. Disappointed but undaunted, Abhay returned to the life of a traveling teacher.
1956: Moved to Vrindavan: In the course of his travels, Abhay felt driven to settle in Vrindavan. Many pious senior citizens would retire there for investing their sunset years in focused devotion to Krishna, but Abhay’s purpose was different. He wanted to reside there to get the blessings of the great saints who had lived there in the past – and being thus empowered, share Krishna’s message with the world. Living in the premises of one of Vrindavan’s sacred temples, he prayed, worshiped, studied, contemplated and wrote – all in preparation for the great mission that was beckoning him from within.
1959: Received sannyasa: Abhay got recurrent dreams in which his spiritual master urged him to accept the renounced order of life so that he could exclusively focus on outreach. Accordingly, after having shouldered his family responsibilities for four decades, he took the vows of sannyasa in a small temple in Mathura and became A C Bhaktivedanta Swami. In went an elderly man dressed in white and out came a monk holding a renunciate’s staff, wearing saffron robes and carrying within his heart a deepened determination to share spiritual wisdom with the world.
1960: Published first book, Easy Journey to Other Planets: Tapping into the popular fascination with space travel that had been triggered by the space race among the two Cold War super-powers, America and Russia, A C Bhaktivedanta Swami wrote a timely book that used contemporary scientific terminology and presented the Vedic perspective on space travel. This small book entitled appealingly as “Easy Journey to Other Planets” was the first in what was to be a prodigious literary career that produced over eighty books.
1962: Published the Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto One, Volume One: Demonstrating the spiritual saying that a saint hears the voice of God everywhere, A C Bhaktivedanta Swami saw divine guidance in the suggestion of an acquaintance: Write books instead of magazines – books have a much longer shelf life. He envisioned a multi-volume translation-commentary on one of India’s greatest devotional classics: the Srimad Bhagavatam. Also known as the Bhagavata Purana, this most celebrated of all the Puranas is a spiritual masterpiece with thousands of verses spanning across twelve cantos. It had never before been available in English translation-commentary. Working with the same incredible industry that had characterized his magazine publication, he typed, proofread, solicited sponsorship and published the first volume of the series. His work was appreciated by many eminent people, including the Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, who recommended that libraries across the country stock the series.
Over the next two years, he completed the translation-commentary on the first canto in two more volumes before venturing abroad.
During the next decade, despite a demanding traveling schedule, he continued working on this magnum opus till his last breath. Today the 18-volume 10,000 plus page rendition of the Srimad Bhagavatam has been translated into over 40 languages and distributed in millions all over the world.
1965, Aug 13: Started for America on Jaladuta: A C Bhaktivedanta Swami’s attempts to share spirituality in India had got lukewarm response, primarily because most Indians were enamored with Western notions of progress. He was both a realist and a visionary. As a realist, he recognized that Indians were unlikely to take their spiritual legacy seriously as long as they were enamored with the West. As a visionary, he envisioned that if he could inspire Westerners to take the message of spiritual love seriously, then Indians would do so too. So he resolved to go for sharing spirituality to the West, specifically to America, which had replaced Britain as the Western superpower after World War II.
With the first canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam translated, he felt equipped – he saw the message as the actual illuminator and saw himself as the humble conveyor of that message. Being a mendicant with no money, he had to depend on the support of well-wishers for financing his US trip. One well-wisher arranged for his son who was based in America to act as the sponsor for the visa. But financing the travel proved to be much more difficult. After being turned down by many sponsors, he had to sit for hours on the steps outside the office of a potential patron to get an appointment. Only after earnest persuasion during the meeting could he secure free passage on an America-bound cargo ship.
Still, when he eventually boarded the ship from Kolkata, he had with him only forty rupees – worth just a few hours of subsistence in America. Just as his financial assets were insignificant, so too was his departure inconspicuous – only a handful of acquaintances came to see him off. Yet his departure was far from inconsequential. The ship’s name Jaladuta (the water-messenger) would turn out to be symbolic: it carried a transcendental envoy whose message would attract thousands to India’s treasure of spiritual love.
1965: Darshan of Krishna on Jaladuta: His voyage began ominously. After undergoing bouts of seasickness, he endured two heart attacks on two successive days. And he had to endure them without any medical attention whatsoever, being the lone passenger in a cargo ship with no medical facilities. Fearing that a third successive attack might be fatal, he intensified his prayer to Krishna – and that night instead of a heart attack came the Lord of his heart. Krishna appeared in a mystical vision, offered his blessings and assured that he would personally steer the ship across the ocean and would ensure the success of his devotee’s mission. At the end of their journey, the ship-captain remarked that never before during his forty years of navigation had the Atlantic Ocean been so calm. Prabhupada wrote in his diary that Krishna had taken charge of the ship.
Prabhupada: The moments that made his movement – Part 2
1966: Went to the land of the hippies: When A C Bhaktivedanta Swami first beheld the American shoreline with its impressive skyscrapers, he saw not material prosperity but spiritual bankruptcy. And he prayed fervently to be used as an instrument of divine compassion, beseeching the Lord to make him dance like a puppet. He had come to America not to enjoy its comforts, but to share the spiritual comfort of God’s love. So, as he initially explored the terrain for its spiritual receptivity, he stayed first with his sponsor in Butler and then with a yoga teacher in New York. But once he found a spiritually promising territory, he plunged deep into it, although it was materially inhospitable. That territory was Lower East Side, New York, where hippies from all over America had settled to pursue their experiment in counterculture.
A C Bhaktivedanta Swami had arrived in America at a turbulent phase in its cultural history – the phase of the counterculture when its youth were rejecting the materialism that was the fuel and the goal of the mainstream culture. Not knowing where to find a satisfactory alternative, many of these well-intentioned but uninformed youth were seeking spirituality through psychedelic drugs. And tragically they were ending up not as spiritualists but as drug-addicts.
Into this confusion and degradation, where thievery was commonplace, where trigger-happy kids roamed unfettered, where drug-induced babble was seen as spiritual revelation, came A C Bhaktivedanta Swami. A greater cultural mismatch would be difficult to imagine: an elderly, scholarly monk who had never drunk even tea during his life was living amidst college dropouts whose lives centered on sex and drugs. And yet the spiritual music and message he brought united hearts together in divine love, transcending the cultural incompatibility.
Fearlessly and compassionately, the Swami, as he came to be known in America, invited those troubled youths to replace the chemical high of drugs with the spiritual high of the holy names of God. Initially, the invitation seemed to boomerang. The first youth who showed some serious interest and who came to live with the Swami to learn from him turned violent under a drug-induced mania. When he charged to attack the Swami, the elderly teacher had to flee – and found himself homeless in a foreign land.
But his spirit was indomitable – he quickly regrouped and soon relocated to a storefront aptly titled “Matchless Gifts” and reissued his invitation to the hippies, who started coming regularly. Soon, he was conducting programs on three evenings every week. During the programs, he spoke on the Bhagavad-gita and sandwiched his talk between long kirtans. These kirtans featured dancing in tune with the responsive singing of the maha-mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. The hippies were into music and they came to love the Swami’s spiritual music.
1966: Did first public kirtan at Tompkins Square Park, New York:
Appreciating the positive response to the storefront kirtans, the Swami decided to take the kirtan to the place where the hippies hung out. He went to a prominent local park, the Tompkins Square Park, and started singing under a tree while some of his followers started dancing. Intrigued, a few onlookers joined till eventually hundreds were singing and dancing in a two-hour jubilant celebration of spiritual love – the first of its kind outside the Indian subcontinent. After that first success, there was no looking back; public kirtans soon became one of the Swami’s principal outreach methods. Today, kirtan processions are a familiar sight on the streets of the world’s major cities and kirtan festivals are celebrated in numerous parts of the world. In fact, kirtan has become such a popular and influential genre in music that there’s an increasing demand to make it a new category for Grammy awards.
The elm tree under which the Swami led the first kirtan still exists in Tompkins Square Park. Called the Hare Krishna tree, it bears a plaque commemorating this historic event.
1966: Incorporated ISKCON: As the Swami attracted a small but significant group of dedicated followers, people started calling his storefront the temple. And amidst the Lower East Side hubbub, the temple became a spiritual happening place. But the Swami’s vision went far beyond the small storefront to encompass the whole world: Just as this small group had become enlivened by spiritual love, so too could the whole world. To actualize his vision, he established on August 8, 1966, in New York the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Though some of his followers signed as members and a few well-wishers signed as trustees, hardly anyone thought that the movement would go beyond the Lower East Side. However, the Swami saw the storefront success as just the first stage in a multi-stage divine plan that would spiritually enrich the whole world – a divine plan that ISKCON would implement.
1967, Jan: Took his first flight to San Francisco: Some of the Swami’s enterprising followers went to San Francisco, attracted people there to the spiritual chant of the holy names and invited him to come there. They sent a flight ticket and thus he flew for the first time in his life – from New York to San Francisco. On disembarking, he was welcomed by an enthusiastic group of young people chanting the holy names. When asked how his flight had been, the Swami’s reply revealed his constant absorption in Krishna. He said that on noting how small the giant buildings looked from the airplane, he had contemplated how small everything would look from Krishna’s perspective.
1967, July 9: Inspired the first Ratha-Yatra in the West (San Francisco): The Swami constantly meditated on how to make the sweetness of bhakti more accessible to his Western audience. Once, when he saw a flatbed truck going along the road, he got the divine inspiration to utilize it as a vehicle for replicating the Ratha-Yatra festival. One of his disciples had coincidentally found in a nearby antique shop small images of Jagannatha, Baldeva and Subhadra. Seeing the coincidence as a divine arrangement, the Swami asked a disciple who had some experience in sculpting to fashion larger replicas of those images. And thus manifested the first Ratha-Yatra festival outside the Indian subcontinent. Jagannath rode atop his improvised chariot through the streets of San Francisco with people who had never before heard of him beholding, cheering, clapping, singing, dancing, receiving prasad and being blessed.
The Ratha-Yatra, or the Chariot Festival as it came to be known, became immensely popular. The hippies loved the public dancing and singing – while earlier they would have been arrested for dancing on the streets, now they were being escorted by the police.
Since that beginning in San Francisco, Ratha-Yatra has gone on to become a global cultural phenomenon. It is celebrated in scores of countries and hundreds of cities, from Boston to Belfast to Brisbane; and from Dublin to Dubai to Dnepropetrovsk.
1967: Got third heart attack and returned to India for treatment:
The strain of the Swami’s relentless outreach efforts took a heavy toll on his seventy-year-old body. One fateful night in San Francisco, he got a heart attack – his third – and it was nearly fatal. By his determination to carry on his master’s mission and by the fervent prayers of his followers, he pulled through. But the convalescence took time and the cold American weather didn’t help. So, he decided to return to India for its healing warmth and its holistic Ayurvedic treatment. His disciples, who were in their physical youth and in their spiritual infancy, were forced to grow up rapidly as the responsibility for carrying on their master’s mission was thrust on them. During his absence, they were nourished by his regular affection-filled letters – a mode of communication that the Swami would use extensively to guide his followers. Their love for him grew in separation. And a year later, they welcomed their beloved Swami, now recovered and rejuvenated, back to America.
They recognized that their master had saved them from directionless and meaningless lives. In gratitude and reverence, they longed to address him with a title more special than “the Swami.” Accordingly, after consulting him, they started addressing him with the honorific “Prabhupada.” The title refers to one who has taken shelter of the feet (pada) of God (prabhu). Abhay Charan thus metamorphosed through Abhay Charanaarvind, A C Bhaktivedanta, AC Bhaktivedanta Swami to Srila Prabhupada, the last being the name by which he would be lovingly addressed by millions the world over.
1968: Inspired ISKCON’s first eco-friendly spiritual community in New Vrindavan, West Virginia: Srila Prabhupada repeatedly stressed simple living and high thinking as the most conducive lifestyle for cultivating spiritual love. To demonstrate this, he inspired and guided his followers to establish self-sufficient communities that featured God-centered eco-friendly living. When some of his dedicated followers started developing such a community New Vrindavan, West Virginia, he stayed with them for months, demonstrating the simple spiritual lifestyle that he taught in his books. This was the lifestyle that devotees had lived for millennia in India, that Krishna himself had demonstrated during his stay in Vrindavan.During his stay at New Vrindavan, his disciples were amazed to see the breadth of his knowledge – it extended from the topmost transcendental subjects about esoteric spiritual love to the down-to-earth details of fashioning a cart that wouldn’t sink in the marshy terrain.
New Vrindavan has now become a Western place of pilgrimage for devotees and seekers. It features a magnificent Prabhupada Palace of Gold that when inaugurated was called by the New York Times the “Taj Mahal of the West.”
Over the decades, many similar communities have been developed in various parts of the world. They serve as not just serene spiritual sanctuaries but also as crucibles of ecological research – they demonstrate prosperity through living in harmony with nature as a viable, even preferable, alternative to prosperity by exploiting nature.
1968: Macmillan published his Bhagavad-gita commentary: The Bhagavad-gita is among the best known philosophical classics from the Indian wisdom-tradition. Though many commentaries had been written on it, few if any focused on the transformational power of love that is its underlying, unifying essence. Srila Prabhupada brought that essence out in his commentary titled Bhagavad Gita As It Is. He finished writing this commentary in America in 1967 and wanted to publish it there.
But as he was relatively unknown in America and as his book was seen as the religious book of a minority religion that would not attract many readers, no publisher was forthcoming. Nonetheless, through a miraculous series of events, the respected publishing house, MacMillan, published his commentary, albeit in an abridged edition. Exceeding expectations, the commentary was widely appreciated and soon re-printed repeatedly. Eventually, Prabhupada published the unabridged edition through his own publishing house.
Over the last five decades, his Gita commentary has become the world’s most widely read English commentary. Millions of copies have been distributed all over the world in over sixty languages.
1969: Established ISKCON’s first Radha-Krishna temple in Los Angeles: As his followers became increasingly devoted to Krishna, Srila Prabhupada decided that the time was right to unveil the next phase in his spiritual transplantation of the bhakti culture: introducing Deity Worship. In Los Angeles, where he had attracted a substantial following and which had thus become the de facto Western headquarters of his movement, he installed ISKCON’s first Radha-Krishna Deities. For worshiping those Deities, he trained and initiated some of his dedicated disciples, making them ordained priests. That temple was to become the first among hundreds all over the world – temples that offer spiritual retreat and rejuvenation to millions.
1969: Established Radha-Londonishvara temple in London: Srila Prabhupada had sent three couples to England to share the message of spiritual love there. After an initial period of intense struggle – struggle that they weathered by the strength of Srila Prabhupada’s encouraging and guiding letters – they got a major breakthrough when they met the “spiritual” Beatle, George Harrison. The legendary musician had already heard an album of Srila Prabhupada’s singing the Hare Krishna mantra – and had found it spiritually fascinating. With his assistance, the devotees moved forward much faster in setting up an ISKCON center in London. At their invitation, Srila Prabhupada came to London and installed Radha-Krishna deities.
Five decades ago, Srila Prabhupada had been an Indian political activist against English colonial rule. Now, he was in London as a spiritual teacher, initiating as his disciples descendants of those colonist English, and establishing in London a temple that was a part of the same culture that the English had subjugated for two centuries. Geopolitical realities had changed, but the sovereignty of the one God whom different religions addressed by different names remained unchanged. Enshrining this eternal reality in a transcendental neologism, Srila Prabhupada named the Deities Radha-Londonishvara, thus conveying God’s sovereignty over everything, including London.
1969: Inspired George Harrison to spiritualize his music:
During Srila Prabhupada’s stay in London, the famed Beatle George Harrison came to meet him on several occasions. The saint encouraged the musician to compose devotional songs with lyrics that included the holy names. Inspired by this guideline, George Harrison produced several devotional songs such as the celebrated “My Sweet Lord,” a composition in praise of Krishna. The Rolling Stone magazine ranked it 460th among the 500 greatest songs of all time. He also teamed with the devotees to produce albums such as the Radha Krishna Temple. The song “Hare Krishna mantra” from that album became a global bestseller. The devotees performed it twice on BBC-TV’s Top of the Pops and in multiple concerts across Europe, thus introducing the holy names of Krishna to millions.
1970: Did first Indian tour with his Western disciples: This tour across India gave his Western disciples a fuller experience of the bhakti culture that was still widespread in India; and it showed Indians how Westerners had so diligently embraced the very culture that they themselves were neglecting or rejecting. His tour created a spiritual sensation with Indians astonished to see young Westerners adopting traditional Indian practices and principles: Young Western women wearing sarees; and young Western men with shaven heads wearing dhoti-kurtas. His tour won the hearts of thousands of Indians, many of whom went on to become his ardent supporters .
1971: Established ISKCON’s first temple in India at Kolkata:
When Srila Prabhupada came to Kolkata with his Western disciples, his pandal programs were attended by twenty to thirty thousand people, with some programs being among the biggest the city had ever seen. Soon, Kolkata warmed up to the achievements of its illustrious son.
But not everyone was pleased. Anti-social elements threatened him with “Fly or Die” notes. Unfazed, he continued his outreach. When one evening, some rowdy youths came to disrupt the program, he fearlessly led from the front and diffused the volatile situation by his saintliness and his presence of mind.
It was in Kolkata that Srila Prabhupada established ISKCON’s first temple in India. While growing up as a child there, he had worshiped the Deities of Radha-Govinda in a neighborhood temple – and now, expressing his gratitude and his resolve to preserve and propagate the bhakti heritage, he installed Radha-Govinda Deities in that same city.
Prabhupada: The moments that made his movement – Part 3
1971, May: Visited Australia for the first time:
As a part of his vision to share spiritual love with the whole world, Srila Prabhupada had sent his disciples to Australia. They had initially faced suspicion and opposition, even being arrested for dancing on the streets. But gradually their spiritual sincerity shone through and they attracted many interested people. When Srila Prabhupada came to Sydney, Australia, at their invitation, he inspired both followers and visitors by his words and actions.
Given his age, he knew that he didn’t have much time for sharing the bhakti movement in Australia. Still, wanting to give it a strong fillip in the available time he came up with a transcendentally bold move. Though the devotees in Australia were young and not adequately trained, he still installed Radha-Krishna Deities and prayed to their Lordships to guide the novice devotees from within their hearts about how to render devotional service properly.
His faith in the devotee’s sincerity was well-placed, as he saw during his next annual visit. The devotees had learnt proper devotional principles and practices – and were maintaining high standards of Deity Worship, standards that are being continued even now.
1971 June: Visited Moscow: Having shared spirituality successfully in the Western super-power America, Srila Prabhupada had set his sights on the other superpower: Soviet Russia. But that country’s communist government and underlying atheistic ideology made it much more difficult to penetrate spiritually. But even the Iron Curtain couldn’t hold Srila Prabhupada back. Finally, through his correspondence with a respected Russian professor of religion, he was able to visit USSR for five days. But he wasn’t allowed to do any public programs, and he had to spend most of those days in a small hotel room. Nonetheless, his spiritual potency couldn’t be suppressed by anything material. Through a series of transcendental coincidences, one sincere Russian seeker, Anatoly Pinyayev, came to meet him in his hotel room. Anatoly heard from him like a starving man getting a feast. Srila Prabhupada blessed and empowered him, granting him the initiated name Ananta Shanti das.
Through this first Russian Krishna devotee, the message of spiritual love spread gradually but unstoppably to thousands. Unfortunately, the devotees faced severe persecution from the KGB. The devotees were nonviolent and tolerant – and wanted to do nothing more than simply follow their heart’s calling to love Krishna, and share that love with others. Yet the KGB deemed Hare Krishna one of the three main threats to the Soviet Union, the other two being pop music, Western culture, and Hare Krishna. Decades of persecution resulted, till finally communism fell. Thereafter, devotees were able to follow their heart’s calling much more freely and with amazing results – the Newsweek magazine (1994) noted that the Hare Krishna movement was the fastest growing religion in Russia.
1971, Nov: Visited Africa for the first time:
Srila Prabhupada had sent his followers to Africa, but they hadn’t been able to make much headway with the native African population. So they had focused on cultivating the Indian diaspora there. But Srila Prabhupada’s vision was universal – he saw the message of spiritual love not as the property of any particular religion, but as the ultimate destiny of all people. So when he came to Nariobi, he told his followers to perform kirtans in a centrally located Hindu temple and open the doors for everyone. The joyous singing and dancing attracted Africans to enter and join the celebration. As the joy of spiritual love linked them all together, centuries of racial stereotypes and prejudices were swept away in the flood of devotion.
Later, while addressing two thousand students at the University of Nairobi, he urged them to avoid the path of uni-dimensional material development that the West had followed, for it led only to disappointment and frustration, as seen in the hippie culture emerging in the West. Instead, he urged them to give due time to spiritual growth and thus achieve balanced progress.
By his inspiration, the bhakti legacy is going strong in Africa, with the Hare Krishnas being among the most rapidly growing religious groups in Ghana.
1972, Feb 29: Conducted ground-breaking ceremony for a magnificent temple in Mayapur: Srila Prabhupada represented and presented a spiritual lineage coming from Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a medieval saint who had spread the culture of sankirtan throughout India. Lord Chaitanya is revealed in esoteric bhakti texts to be an hidden incarnation of God descended for propagating the yuga-dharma, the recommended spiritual practice for this age: the congregational chanting of the holy names. Since Lord Chaitanya had appeared in Mayapur, Srila Prabhupada desired to establish the spiritual headquarters of his movement in this sacred place. The project that started with a deserted patch of land surrounded by overgrown fields and forests has now become a vibrant community, indeed a spiritual township wherein people from various parts of the world live in devotional harmony. A beautiful temple there attracts millions of pilgrims annually. And under construction is what will become the biggest Hindu temple in the world with a height of 340 feet, a covered area of 6,750,00 square feet – and a 75-feet domed planetarium theater, the only one of its kind in India.
1974: Established Food for Life: When Srila Prabhupada was in Mayapur in 1974, once he saw local village children struggling with stray animals for scraps of food. Moved to tears, he called his followers and told them that no one should go hungry for ten miles around a temple. That compassionate pronouncement became the rallying call of ISKCON Food for Life, which has gone on to become the world’s biggest vegetarian food relief program. Its activists have distributed food in many of the world’s most destitute areas and in the world’s worst disaster-hit areas. The New York Times (December 12, 1995) stated that Food for Life volunteers in Chechnya were having “a reputation like the one Mother Teresa has in Calcutta: it’s not hard finding people to swear they are saints.”
Food for Life, through its projects in over 60 countries distributes two million free meals every day, that is, 23 free meals every second. Its Indian wing, ISKCON Food Relief Foundation, distributes free meals to 1.2 million school children daily.
1974: Published Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita in 17 volumes. This Bengali biography-cum-theological treatise on the life and teachings of Lord Chaitanya is a storehouse of exalted insights on spiritual love. Wanting to make its wisdom available to the world, Srila Prabhupada worked on his translation-commentary with phenomenal speed, as if on a literary marathon. He completed all the seventeen volumes of his translation-commentary in just two years.
1975, Feb: Visited South America for the first time:
Having shared spiritual love on four continents, Srila Prabhupada came to Caracas, Venezuela, South America to enrich spiritually this last among the inhabited continents. His followers had already established a vibrant center there, and they welcomed him with a jubilant kirtan. Seeing their enthusiastic devotion as the mercy of the Lord whom he had strived lifelong to glorify, Srila Prabhupada broke into tears during a rare public display of spiritual emotion. In a choked voice, he urged all the assembled devotees and newcomers to treasure the gift of spiritual love – it was life’s only eternal treasure.
His words and actions created a lasting spiritual impression among all present. The inspiration and wisdom he provided powers the bhakti legacy’s ongoing expansion in South America.
1975, April 20: Conducted grand opening of temple in Vrindavan:
Returning to the place where he had lived and prayed and written, Srila Prabhupada envisioned an elegant temple that would showcase the beauty of Krishna and Vrindavan for the whole world to relish. And in 1975 on Rama Navmi day manifested a marvelous temple, the Krishna-Balarama Mandir. While the temple has Radha-Krishna Deities, as to most temples in Vrindavan, its distinctive feature is that the central altar features Deities of Krishna-Balarama. This special feature reflects the significance of its location: it is situated in the part of Vrindavan where Krishna and Balarama played during their descent to this world.
1975: Established ISKCON’s scientific wing: Recognizing the enormous influence that science had on the modern mind, Srila Prabhupada inspired his scientist-followers to form a special wing for scientific outreach: Bhaktivedanta Institute. Drawing insights from the Vedic literature, this wing would counter the atheism that had hijacked contemporary science and reinstate the spiritual paradigm. Today, many of his followers carry on the legacy of scientific outreach by presenting papers, arranging conferences and writing books.
1977: Went to Krishna: In his life, especially in his last decade, Srila Prabhupada had, by Krishna’s grace, achieved far more than what most people could achieve or even dream of achieving. And at the end of his life he also achieved what is the cherished aspiration of a devotee of Krishna: to leave the world remembering Krishna in Vrindavan. After having taught how to live in devotion, he taught through his death how to leave in devotion. Despite suffering from a prolonged and debilitating illness, he remained absorbed in Krishna, dictating his commentary to the Bhagavatam with the final reserves of his energy. Even when his lips could barely produce any sound, he remained fixed in sharing spiritual wisdom. Surrounded by loving devotees singing the holy names, he uttered the name of Krishna with his last breath on Nov 14, 1977, and went to the abode of his beloved Lord.
His legacy
Though he left the world in 1977, he left for the world an enduring legacy that continues to spiritually enrich millions even today.
Among his most significant gifts are his books, temples and followers. When he was still an unknown Swami taking walks on the streets of New York, he could envision scores of temples and thousands of devotees – and he declared that time alone separated him from them. His vision was astonishingly prophetic. In little over a decade after he took his first step outside India, he had circumnavigated the globe fourteen times, built hundred and eight temples, and inspired millions to take up the path of spiritual love.
From 1965 to 1977, he wrote eighty books, all based on India’s spiritual wisdom-literature. That worked out to be about 7 books every year, or more than one book every two months continuously for twelve years. Such was his literary proficiency that the Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year in 1976 noted, “[ Bhaktivedanta Swami] astonished academic and literary communities worldwide by writing and publishing fifty-two books on the ancient Vedic culture . . . in the period from October 1968 to November 1975.”
Similar appreciation had been expressed by the CNN in an article on 16th May, 2010, which deemed him one of the ten most successful people in the world who launched their careers after 50.
Appreciating the magnitude and significance of his legacy, the renowned scholar on Indian history and culture, A L Basham, author of The Wonder that was India, wrote, “The Hare Krishna movement arose out of next to nothing in less than twenty years and has become known all over the West. This is an important fact in the history of the Western world.”
A momentous step for humanity
Though the first forty years of his outreach efforts in India met with only a lukewarm response, Srila Prabhupada was not one to take no for an answer. With an indefatigable determination that stemmed from his transcendental love for Krishna, he pressed on and decided to go to America, despite being in his late sixties, despite having no reliable contacts, despite having no money worth mentioning and despite having no organizational backing. Given these crippling disadvantages, his stepping on the Jaladuta to embark on an outreach mission to America could well be seen as one of the most courageous steps in human history. What was one small step for a man was to become a giant leap for humanity in its spiritual evolution – an evolution that we all have an opportunity to participate in and carry forward.