ABOUT THE AUTHOR
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda was born Abhay Charan De on September 1, 1896 in Calcutta. In 1920 he finished his schooling, majoring in philosophy, English and economics at the University of Calcutta. Soon afterward, Abhay Charan De took up the duties of manager of a large chemical concern. Then in 1922, he met His Divine Grace Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāj, the founder of 64 Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Maṭhs in India, Berlin and London. His Divine Grace recently recalled the key to his approaching his spiritual master: "When I first started going to see my Guru Mahārāj, he said of me, 'This boy hears very nicely. He does not go away. So I shall make him a disciple.' That was my qualification, or whatever you may call it. I would simply ask when Guru Mahārāj would speak, then I'd sit down and go on hearing. I would understand, or not understand; others would disperse, I'd not disperse. So he remarked, 'This boy is interested to hear. Because I was serious in hearing, therefore I am now serious about kīrtanam, which means speaking or preaching. If one has heard nicely, then he will speak nicely."
At Allahabad in 1933, Abhay Charan De was formally initiated, and in 1936, just days before Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī's departure from this mortal world, he was specifically ordered to spread Kṛṣṇa Consciousness in the English language to the West.
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda has told us that at first he did not take the mission given to him by his spiritual master with the utmost seriousness. But then he was reading a Bhagavad-gītā commentary by Śrīla Bhaktivinode Ṭhākur, who was the father of Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī and the pioneer of the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement in the modern age. Śrīla Bhaktivinode has written that just as one cannot separate the body from the soul while in this conditioned state, so the disciple cannot separate the spiritual master's order from his very life. Śrīla Prabhupāda took these words seriously, and gradually his whole life became dedicated to carrying out the orders of his Guru Mahārāj. In 1959 he look sannyāsa, the renounced order of spiritual life, and in 1965, at the advanced age of 70, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda arrived in New York City to fulfill his master's sacred mission.
One must try to understand that Śrīla Prabhupāda is neither an Indian author nor Indian culturist nor Hindu sectarian. The first teaching of the Bhagavad-gītā is that no one is Indian, no one is American—our real self is beyond this temporary bodily designation; our permanent identity, eternal, blissful and full of knowledge, is with the Supreme Personality of Godhead as His eternal servant; and our position is to be situated beyond the material universes in the spiritual planets, within the spiritual sky. This is the platform of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.
To think, "I am American," "I am Russian," etc. is our disease, and is due to forgetfulness of our eternal nature as spirit soul. Unfortunately, under the spell of illusion, every embodied creature is satisfied with his present material body. Even the worm in the stool is thinking, "I am all right." Despite so many disadvantages and miseries, all living entities are engaged in satisfying their senses and are thinking it is all right. Therefore when the bona fide guru comes with the transcendental message, calling the souls back to home, back to Godhead, they do not want to come out of material encagement. Often, people prefer to be encouraged in illusion and therefore pay fees to learn that they are God or equal to God in all respects and thus "free" to go on "enjoying" material life of sense gratification. So we see yoga and meditation teachers advertising that they will improve one's material facilities. They overlook the fact that elimination of sense gratification is the first step in the standard yoga or transcendental system. His Divine Grace Śrīla Prabhupāda does not encourage unrestricted sense gratification, or the belief that one is God, or that God is impersonal or void. He is passing on, as it is, the information from Vedic literature, that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is a Person and that devotional service unto Him is the perfection of all purificatory processes. Lord Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad-gītā is recognized as the Supreme Lord, and Śrī Īśopaniṣad confirms the Personality of Godhead as the anti-material Supreme Controller and the only Enjoyer. His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda is teaching surrender to Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Lord.
Śrīla Prabhupāda is the living example of the saintly person pointed to in all Vedic literature who is personally free from all material contamination and active in spiritual understanding. He is the Kṛṣṇa conscious personality who is so dear to Kṛṣṇa, who understands that the highest welfare is not to pose oneself as the friend of humanity, but to teach that God or Kṛṣṇa is the dear-most Friend Who alone is capable of alleviating the misery of each and every living entity. His Divine Grace is teaching what is really common sense to our intelligence, but we are so bewildered by the glitter of the material nature that we are distracted from his message. He is simply canvassing for God on the order of his spiritual master. Once Śrīla Prabhupāda was asked, "Are you an incarnation of God?" "No," he answered, "I am servant of God." Then he paused and went on, "Not exactly servant. To be servant of God is not an ordinary thing." The servants or devotees of Kṛṣṇa are so great that they are beyond the desire to merge with God. Sometimes, in their intimate association and exchange with God, they even become "greater" than Him, as when He allows some devotee to become His mother or lover. Prabhupāda's mission is not less than to distribute this topmost love of God to all persons. It is stated in the Vedic literature that a small man wants to make only himself happy, a somewhat bigger man wants to make his family or his country happy, but the great man wants to make all persons happy.
His Divine Grace produces his books by speaking them on a dictaphone. He is presently working on five books at once. These books are a matter of realization. As he has said, "When you become self-realized you automatically write volumes of books." And one of the qualifications of a devotee is that he is poetic. Śrīla Prabhupāda is always immersed in Kṛṣṇa by speaking, dictating, singing about Kṛṣṇa's Glories, preaching formally at meetings or planning the expansion of the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement. In the Seventh Chapter, it is stated that out of thousands of men few seek perfection, and out of the thousands who attain perfection hardly one knows Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa also declares in the Eighteenth Chapter that the dearmost devotee of all is he who spreads the teaching of love of Kṛṣṇa: "Never will there be one dearer to Me."
His Divine Grace's spiritual master, Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī, once drew a picture of a mṛdanga (a drum used on Saṅkīrtan) and, beside it, a printing press. he said that the mṛdanga can be heard for several blocks, but that the press can be heard around the world. He therefore called the printing press "the big mṛdanga." For the purpose of world-wide service to humanity, ISKCON Press has been established, for the exclusive printing of Śrīla Prabhupāda's books.
In 1968, Macmillan published The Bhagavad Gītā As It Is translated with commentary by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda. The Gītā is the gist of the entire Vedic literature. Just this one book can free anyone from the clutches of material nature and fix one in eternal loving service unto Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead. As originally written by Śrīla Prabhupāda, the manuscript of The Bhagavad Gītā As It Is is many times larger than the Macmillan version. Publication of this original expanded version is being undertaken by ISKCON. Another important published literature by Śrīla Prabhupāda is his Teachings of Lord Chaitanya. This book outlines the precepts of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the Golden Avatar Who appeared in India 500 years ago and propagated the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra as the means of God realization for the present age. A book called The Nectar of Devotion, an authorized summary study of Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī's Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, has just been published. Śrīla Prabhupāda is presently, writing a several volume work called Kṛṣṇa, which contains all of the Pastimes of the Supreme Lord when present on this planet 5000 years ago. Translations are also underway of the Vedānta-sūtras, Caitanya-caritāmṛta and his 12 volumes of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The literatures compiled by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda are authorized by the disciplic succession, which is descending from Kṛṣṇa Himself. Śrīla Prabhupāda's whole life mission is to faithfully pass on the original understanding of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness without distortion. According to the Vedic literature this descending process is the only way to realization of the Absolute Truth, since the Absolute Truth is beyond the reach of our mundane speculation.
The author is not a retired personality, despite his prodigious literary output. He personally and very intimately guides his disciples through the most practical problems of daily life. Spiritual life is practical and, due to the predominent material atmosphere of Kali-yuga, often problematic. As spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swāmī Prabhupāda is the last recourse and the ultimate standard of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, and he writes some twenty-five letters a day to leaders and students of his various worldwide centers. He himself resides in no one place but travels from center to center and regularly lectures. The spiritual master is responsible for his devotees; when he accepts a sincere soul as his disciple, he promises to take him back home, back to Godhead. No one should think, "Oh, everyone is taking a spiritual master; let me take one." The spiritual master as a style or as a pet is useless. Rather, his order is to be taken as one's life and soul. By taking shelter at the feet of the bona fide guru and serving him twenty-four hours a day, the fallen soul can be lifted to the spiritual sky. It is said that if the spiritual master is pleased, then one can make great advances in spiritual life. And one pure convinced devotee can make many pure devotees by his example and teachings. Those serious students with an understanding of the absolute value of the spiritual platform of life therefore honor the spiritual master with the honor due to God because the guru is the transparent via medium or representative of God and is distributing unalloyed love of God. The intelligent reader is invited to take to this philosophy with the utmost seriousness.