Srila Prabhupada's Disappearance Day

Today here in Riga we are celebrating the disappearance day of our beloved spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder-Acharya of ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. This day commemorates that most painful but yet most glorious day, 14 November 1977, when Srila Prabhupada re-entered the transcendental pastimes of Lord Sri Krishna, which are going on eternally in the most wondrous spiritual sky. He was in his quarters at the Krishna Balarama Mandir in Sri Vrindavan Dhama, India surrounded by a room full of his loving disciples who were intensely chanting the Hare Krishna mahamantra. Srila Prabhupada departed for Lord's abode while uttering the name "Krishna." For his disciples it was the most painful and devastating blow to no longer have our beloved Srila Prabhupada here with us to personally bless, guide, and inspire us. Things in ISKCON are just not the same now as they were when he was here. Now our only shelter is the wonderful wealth of his divine instructions contained in his books, letters, recorded lectures and conversations, and in his divine disciples that he has left behind to guide us and the entire world out of our miserable entanglement in the cycle of birth and death. By holding tightly to his divine instructions without deviation our feelings of separation are relieved, because in his divine instructions we feel how we are being blessed unlimitedly with his divine association.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Germany 1974

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version:

Question: Why All Spiritual Leaders Don't Teach Krishna Consciousness?

If Krishna consciousness is the surest way of reaching God, why all the spiritual leaders and holy scriptures in the world are not spreading this message to common man through their thoughts, words, and deeds? Is it due to Lord's will?

Motwani

Answer: Because They Are Grossly Ignorant

Pure love and devotion for God is indeed the only way to reach God because all other forms of spiritual elevation are self-serving instead of God-serving and thus necessarily keep one away from God. Pure love and devotion for God can be called Krishna consciousness, Christ consciousness, or Allah consciousness, etc. The name does not matter. What is essential is that one is fully surrendered to the will of God. Unfortunately the modern day religious leaders have lost touch with the pure science of God and are thus teaching people to approach God to fulfill their material desires. Such an approach to God is better than atheism because it at least acknowledges God's existence, but because it teaches one to remain attached to material sense gratification it does not qualify the practitioner to enter the spiritual world at the time of death. The world's religious leaders are not teaching pure devotion because they do not have it themselves and they do not even understand what it is. Therefore they are not qualified to be religious leaders. Therefore it is better that they take up some honest position of labor within the society instead of posing as religious leaders and keeping their followers bound up in the cycle of birth and death.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari