VYASAPUJA 2013
My dearest Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my humble obeisances in your lotus-foot dust, which still powders the globe with your mercy as you continue to traverse it through the medium of your books and your recorded material.
Yesterday I heard you give a public lecture at Balboa Park in San Diego, California. About three minutes into your lecture a heckler in the audience began to shout something, creating a disturbance. You asked a devotee close to you what the man was saying. He told you, amidst chuckles from the devotees, that the man wanted to have sex more than once a month.
Your response? You turned the lecture on a dime to address the heckler directly with your signature poise, maturity, charm, and vast knowledge, free from compromise but irresistibly clear, simple, and persuasive.
“So, as this man is talking about sex, this world, this material world, is enchanted by sex…” You went on to deliver a classic discourse about the results of sex—licit or illicit, individually and collectively—on every species of life, especially the human society. You didn’t back down at an awkward moment. You fearlessly pointed out the Vedic conclusion: that attachment to the material body becomes complete after sex, and that sex is thus the basic principle of material existence.
You explained the Vedic concession for regulated sex in marriage and its purpose: to produce good progeny with the goal of becoming purified by the austerity of taking full responsibility for one’s offspring and eventually becoming free from sex life altogether and going back to Godhead. You analyzed the subject from every angle, providing convincing arguments to the audience that although sex according to religious principles is sanctioned by Krsna, it is inevitably a cause of unsought complications, and deep attachment for material existence, attachment that binds the conditioned souls to suffer in repeated births and deaths.
All this you spoke openly to an antagonist in a public park of a southern Californian city in the summer of 1972, in the thick of America’s sexual revolution!
And how did the audience respond? They gave you a rousing ovation! You subdued the heckler and captivated the audience with profound realization of Vedic wisdom. In this way you showed us how to preach according to time and circumstance without compromising the truth. It was obvious that the public was willing to acknowledge one with enough courage to speak the plain truth in such a situation.
You define realization in your purport to Srimad-Bhägavatam 1.4.1:
“…Personal realization does not mean that one should, out of vanity, attempt to show one’s own learning by trying to surpass the previous äcärya. He must have full confidence in the previous äcärya, and at the same time he must realize the subject matter so nicely that he can present the matter for the particular circumstances in a suitable manner. The original purpose of the text must be maintained. No obscure meaning should be screwed out of it, yet it should be presented in an interesting manner for the understanding of the audience. This is called realization…”
Srila Prabhupada, you never pander to the public in order to gain popularity or more followers for the movement. In fact, in another conversation you say, “…So everyone may try his best, that’s all. The public may take or not take, it doesn't matter. And if you are, want to please the public, public says that ‘You dance naked, I will be very happy with you, I’ll give you [support].’ So I’ll have to do that. Then what is the use of making a spiritual master? Public, they have got their whims, how to become pleased. So we are to follow all these things? We have to follow our instruction of the spiritual master.”
On this auspicious day of your appearance in this world, Srila Prabhupada, I beg for the spiritual strength to follow in your footsteps, without trying to imitate you—to be as loyal to your example and precepts as you were to those of your guru maharaja.
Your eternal son,
Kesava Bharati Dasa Goswami