the spirit of real cooperation

Due to egoism, everyone thinks, "I can judge others. I am right. You are wrong. If you stand between me and my aspirations for profit, adoration, and distinction, then you become my enemy." Where there is disunity amongst devotees, there cannot be proper sankirtan, we cannot chant together in the proper spirit to please Krsna, we cannot serve together.

When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur saw his own devotees fighting amongst themselves, he was willing to sacrifice everything and anything he had to bring about unity. He knew that unity alone would empower this movement to please Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and thus fulfill The Lord's mission.

For Srila Prabhupada also, this was a great worry. "Show your love for me by how you cooperate." This cooperation is not an ordinary material formula. You cannot cooperate unless you are really trying to follow the essence of Srila Prabhupada and Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's teachings. Without wearing this shloka - trinad api sunicena, taror api sahishnuna, amanina manadena, kirtaniya sada hari - around our necks, strung by the holy name, there can be no real cooperation.

humility alone pleases krishna

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is teaching us how to aspire for trinadapi sunichena: to be humble like a straw in the street. What is its significance? No one cares for it, people step on it, spit on it, ultimately somebody sweeps it away, but the straw on the streets remains very humble. Let us be more tolerant than the tree, ready to offer all respects to others and to expect none in return. These are the qualities that attract Krishna.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu told Sanatana Goswami that it is humility alone that pleases Krishna. Krishna does not care how much money you give Him, Krishna does not care how many beautiful offerings you give Him, Krishna does not care how artistically you dress Him, He does not care how profoundly you can speak His philosophy, He does not care how many delicious preparation you can make for Him in your kitchen. He cares for the humility with which it is being offered because it is this humility that gives flavor and pleasure to the service we are rendering.

If someone goes to a hospital and sees that the doctors and nurses are not even on speaking terms with one another, will they want to lay down their lives in the hands of those doctors and nurses? Similarly, people are frustrated. If they come and see that Krishna Consciousness works with harmony and peace, there is love and cooperation amongst devotees, people will think, yes, I trust them, this is what I want, I will hear what they say.

But if they see that we have our own petty little conflicts, then they will think, what is the difference? What is the difference between this and everything I am reading about in the newspapers?

So we have a great responsibility to cooperate with one another, and the only way we can cooperate in this age of Kali is to take Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s golden rule to heart:

trnad api sunicena

taror api sahisnuna

amanina manadena

kirtaniyah sada harih

To be more humble than a blade of grass; to be more tolerant than a tree; to offer all respect to others and to expect none in return and in this way chant the name of the Lord always. If we strive to live by this, the most important of all the instructions, we can live together peacefully. In that peaceful coexistence we can do great, great things for this world.

the magnanimity of srila prabhupada

Srila Prabhupada was such a devotee; he was an intimate associate of Lord Krishna. How do we understand Srila Prabhupada’s special, special, special position?

Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami said that Lord Chaitanya is the most merciful and is the supreme amongst avatars because of His magnanimity; because He wanted to give Krsna consciousness to everyone and anyone without discrimination through the chanting of the holy names. Of all great personalities, Lord Chaitanya especially selected and empowered Srila Prabhupada to manifest his magnanimity to the highest extent, to travel on every continent in the world, giving Krishna’s name with no consideration of who we are or where we are coming from. Srila Prabhupad saw every living entity potentially as a pure saintly person, just with a little covering of maya over us.

So Srila Prabhupada, without any discrimination, he gave this Hare Krsishna mahamantra. He would sit in a little park in New York City called Tomkins Square Park. This is where Srila Prabhupada started the Hare Krsna movement in Tomkins Square Park. And some of the people in India were saying, "Why is he preaching to these lowest of uncivilised people in the West?"

But those people do not understand what Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami said, that the supreme quality of Lord Chaitanya is His magnanimity and that He makes no discrimination. The Lord would give Krishna consciousness and the holy name to everyone.

So Srila Prabhupada was the manifested representative of that most illustrious quality of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. How dear he is to the Lord, and how fortunate are all of us to have the opportunity to be connected to such a special personality who is revealing the glorious opulences of the Lord in such a merciful and compassionate way.

But Srila Prabhupada explained that this verse; to be more humble than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, to be willing to and ready to offer all respects to everyone and to expect no respect from anyone else - that is the quality that will keep us always under Krsna’s divine protection, that is the quality by which Krsna would be pleased to reciprocate and manifest Himself in His holy name to us.

So we should chant very sincerely and very attentively every day to purify our consciousness, and simultaneously we should sincerely be a humble servant within our life.