attaining the presence of srila prabhupad

When we chant Srila Prabhupada's pranama prayer, we are praying to him and offering our obeisances because he is very dear to Krishna. How dear Srila Prabhupada is... only Krishna can know. We can only, like a dwarf trying to touch the moon, aspire to understand the glories of Srila Prabhupada. And the more we can somehow or other try to understand, the more our lives will be enriched with the causeless mercy of Sri Sri Radha Krishna.

But how to understand Srila Prabhupada? He has given us the means by which we can do so. We can only understand Krishna by the mercy of the pure devotee and we can only understand the pure devotee by the mercy of Krishna. By purifying our hearts, Krishna will reveal the glories and beauty of Srila Prabhupada’s life. We can be purified by reading Prabhupada's books very carefully, with an attentive desire to learn what he is saying. Srila Prabhupada told us that when he was translating his books, he was individually, personally speaking to every devotee who sits at his lotus feet to read it. Srila Prabhupada’s books are non-different than his lotus feet. When we are reading his books, we are sitting in his divine presence.

And when we follow what is in the books, we get realisations - to associate with devotees, to chant our minimum 16 rounds very carefully everyday, to follow the 4 regulative principles, and to help in every way possible that we can, whoever we may be, in expanding the message of Lord Chaitanya throughout the entire world.

the king of education

The self by nature is part of the Supreme Self, or God. In essence, you are eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss, saccidananada. Happiness is your nature. You suffer when you are not full of bliss, not full of knowledge, or if you are not in realization of your eternity. 

This means that you are in a diseased condition. You are in an unhealthy condition. You have forgotten the essence of your own being; the realization of you. Who are you? The consciousness within. Who is seeing me, right now? Your eyes, or your soul? Are you seeing through an eye, or  are you an eye? Are you your ear, or are you hearing me through your ear? So who are you? You don’t even know! Some mysterious Consciousness is witnessing this world through your body. But you think you are the body. You are flesh, or are you feeling through your flesh, but we don’t even know who that person is who is witnessing, that’s experiencing. There is a science of Physics to understand the flesh, right? There is science of psychiatry to understand the mind. 

Similarly, there is also a science of self-realization to understand the soul, the consciousness. It is a science. Today religion has become so degraded that everyone, simply says “I believe this, you believe that, whatever I believe is all right. Whatever you believe is all right. I think this and I think that”. And it is so unscientific and ridiculous that most of the educated class of people say, “Forget religion. It is so dogmatic and ritualistic."

But if you read the Vedas, religion is approached as a great science, raja vidya raja guhyam pavitram idam utamam - Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, that this is the king of education, the supreme science, because it gives one the direct perception of you, the self, through realization. 

So let us approach self-realization for what it is: it is a science. It must be understood systematically, in a scientific manner with our intelligence. Let us kick out all of this dogmatic, unscientific, un-philosophical belief system that goes in the name of religion. The nature of Consciousness is that it is eternal, it is full of knowledge and full of bliss. It is part of God, therefore all of the godly qualities are your inherent nature. But why are we not enjoying the very facilities that are our right to enjoy? Because we have forgotten, due to ignorance, our true nature.

apply the knowledge

So it is a very important factor of our devotional service to try to deeply understand with our intelligence the philosophy of Krishna consciousness; to carefully study our scriptures.

But we shouldn’t think that by purely studying the scripture, this will give us realisation; it is not what is going to really give us faith. Ultimately, the knowledge that we receive, we must apply it to the spirit of humble service to the spiritual master, to the Vaishnavas and our parampara (spiritual lineage). We must chant offenselessly. That is what is going to bring about true faith and realisation.

Srila Prabhupada quotes how mystical the process of Krsna consciousness is, in the sense of how it transforms people’s hearts. The qualities of God and the demigods all manifest within the body of one who surrenders to Krsna.

Prabhupada gives an example of the hunter who surrendered to Narada Muni. What was his qualification? Was he very deeply learned and renounced? No. But because he just followed the instruction of Narada Muni, what a transformation of the heart, from a ruthless murderer to the most gentle loving sage.