Srila Prabhupada (1896-1977 CE) is the Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and its scientific & educational division, the Bhaktivedanta Institute (Mumbai/Berkeley). He is the greatest modern-day-presenter of the ancient Vaishanava tradition, re-established for the present age by Lord Sri Krishna Chaitanya in the sixteenth Century India.
One can get a very good taste of the fantastic quality and originality of the presentations of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada by reading his Bhagavad Gita As It Is, as well as the 18-volume Translation and Commentary of Srimad Bhagavatam, both published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust available from www.krishna.com or www.bbti.org. The book titled “Planting the Seed”, the second volume of the multi-volume biography of Srila Prabhupada, available at the same sites above, is also a great read, describing how he started the ISKCON movement single-handedly from scratch in the USA in mid-60s.
Another of the many amazing aspects of Srila Prabhupada is that he went to the USA in 1965 at the age 69, aboard a cargo ship, using the free passage provided by Srimati Sumati Morarjee, the owner of the Scindia Shipping company. In twelve short years, out of nothing he built an amazing world-wide movement of ISKCON. He circled the globe 14 times in those twelve years. He built over 100 beautiful Radha-Krishna temples in various countries of the planet. That translates to building nine temples per year for twelve years non-stop. He wrote eighty books during this period, all translations of authorized Vedic literatures. That is about 7 books a year for twelve years; more than one book every two months, non-stop for twelve years. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year (in 1976) said that Prabhupada “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.” He also made 10,000 disciples, all young and dedicated, from around the world during this same twelve years. That is about 1000 disciples a year, or three disciples every day non-stop for twelve years!
Such was his great productivity through tireless work, at what be an advanced age and time of retirement for most others. He once said, if at all I have credit, I was never lazy. He is a rare, pure devotee of the Lord, a Mahabhagavata, who came from the spiritual sky only to present the teachings of Lord Chaitanya to the world at large in this very materialistic age, called Kali yuga. It is his vast compassion for the materially absorbed people of this age, and his magnanimous desire to deliver all the conditioned living entities that has manifest in the form of his above productivity.
Every follower of His Divine Grace has tasted the treasure of the spiritual wisdom in his books, and has thus embraced his teachings, and tries to follow them. Most also have come in touch with him personally and internally, as a result of reading his books and attempting to follow his instructions, even after his disappearance from external vision in November, 1977. Therefore, all of his followers desire intensely that the whole planet should come in touch with His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada through his books. Thus, every one of his followers wishes to expand the distribution of his books all over the world. Indeed, the very purpose of ISKCON is to distribute his books as much as possible, and then some more! His books have been translated in over 94 languages and have sold over half a billion copies.
Srila Prabhupada also has many thousands of lectures, morning walk conversations, and room conversations (both audio and video) which are also available at the above web sites. We invite everybody to listen to them, read his books, associate with the local temples and come ever increasingly in touch with His Divine Grace.
All his followers also humbly try to present the message of Krishna Consciousness that he presented to their best extent, following in his footsteps. But our presentations as his followers have no other purpose than to lead the listeners to in turn to come in touch with and/or increase their hearing of Srila Prabhupada, from his books, lectures etc.
It is the conviction of the undersigned that apart from achieving this result, our lectures have no other value.
The material presented at this website – lectures and blog notes of the undersigned – also have no other purpose or value. But they are a little specialized presentation of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings in that they often focus on the scientific content of Krishna Consciousness philosophy, as presented by Srila Prabhupada. In this website we also present selected lectures of Srila Prabhupada himself, on the same important topic.
Thank you.
Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada
Rasaraja dasa
