Swamiji Gave Our Lives Value

The perfect guru in the person of Srila Prabhupada came to us, the sastras came to us, the Lord came to us.  They told us what we should value above all else.  They didn’t leave us groping in absurdity.  They gave us the nectar of immortality.  What has value compared to that?  What can possibly measure up to the supreme value of serving the all-attractive Supreme Personality of Godhead?

In the beginning Prabhupada asked us to chant—just try it.  When he said that he was asking us to have faith, and based on that faith, assign some value to the chanting.  He wanted us to give ourselves to the chanting long enough for the chanting to justify the faith.  Swamiji showed us we were not living in an absurd universe where we had to give everything to Krishna and He gave nothing in return.  If we gave to Krishna, Krishna would reciprocate with us.  Ye yatha mam prapadyante.  As a matter of fact, even if we didn’t give to Krishna, Krishna was giving to us.  Prabhupada gave us the most valuable of gifts: knowledge that if you want to have access to the nectar of immortality, to spiritual upliftment, to life behind the body and relief from the daily doldrums, you have to pay the price.

It’s interesting how Swamiji induced us—we who were born in the Western, materialistic camp—to accept Srimad-Bhagavatam.  The story is relived every time a Western-born man or woman comes to Krishna consciousness.  Somebody rotating through rock ‘n’ roll consciousness, or free-love consciousness, or nihilistic consciousness, stumbles into the storefront and onto Krishna’s pastimes revealed by the pure devotee.  He stops to listen for awhile.  “What the heck is this?  Are they stories?”  Maybe he’ll begin to wonder…

Prabhupada was able to prove that we should accept everything from authority, from hearing.  Prabhupada’s deliverance of the Bhagavatam dispelled the vagueness people attach to God and presented Him as He is.  Prabhupada came to deliver us.  Only he, a maha-bhagavata Vaikuntha man, set up shop in a storefront on the Lower East Side.  We have only Prabhupada to thank as our savior.