Invidious

Take Advantage of And Appreciate The Association of Devotees

Over the last few days, I had the opportunity to talk to a couple of senior Godbrothers. One of them was Śyāmasundara Prabhu from the early days of the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness Movement. And another was Yogeśvara Prabhu, also from the early days. And I was considering how rare it is to be able to talk to somebody who was with Prabhupāda on the planet, who served at His lotus feet directly and saw Him in various moods and circumstances. And as we were reading in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta recently, Śrīla Prabhupāda was talking about how we should take advantage of and relish the association of senior devotees. He said in a paragraph, it's not just the spiritual master that one takes association of, but said practically, senior godbrothers and godsisters, who are steadily engaged in devotional service and advanced, are a great source of inspiration, and should be treated almost on the level of one's spiritual master, because the Vaiṣṇava is the carrier of Kṛṣṇa's mercy.

Śyāmasundara Prabhu told me that he's getting ready to give a talk at Harvard, and he had two points he wanted to make, because the topic was about how to thrive in times of calamity. Should I tell you the two points he made? First point, he said, there's always times of calamity. There's not a time when there wasn't a calamity happening. He said, it's only a trick of the mind to think that, "Oh, there was some time in the past when everything was peaceful," but if you just think back to your history lessons, they're all marked by World Wars and calamitous situations. There's never a time when the material world is absolutely peaceful. Even in Satya Yuga, Hiraṇyakaśipu shows up and wrecks it for everybody. So you can count on that. And the second thing he said, it was very heartfelt, and it's from his personal experience, he said that you have to get guru-kṛpā, the mercy of the guru. And I know for devotees from that era, who specifically became attached to Prabhupāda, it was a special setting. It was family-like, and they worked very hard to please Prabhupāda. There was a sense of how everything was dependent on the mercy of the guru. So he was saying, one has to receive that special mercy.

And when I talked to Yogeśvara Prabhu, he just called to talk, and he said, "Life is so busy. We're all doing so many things." He just wanted to talk to another Godbrother and see how I was doing, see what I was doing, and so forth. So the song "Ohe Vaiṣṇava Ṭhākura" is a reminder of how dependent we are on the Vaiṣṇavas, all of them. And if we take advantage in a mood of service and appreciation to the devotees, then we can attain all benefits. And that's why we say the mantra vāñchā-kalpa-tarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca, that devotees are literally like desire trees, and they can fulfill all of our desires.

(excerpt from the event on 21 Mar 2025, ISV https://youtu.be/Yngdj2kdsV4?t=249)