A Combination of Friendliness and Heaviness

Was Prabhupada friendly?  Yes, of course.  No one could say he was unfriendly or unconcerned.  But Prabhupada was friendly even to those he never met.  He was friendly to all living entities because he distributed Krishna consciousness.  He gave his life to distribute Krishna consciousness to others.  Prabhupada was friendly in the deepest sense.  He came to the world a true friend of everyone because he had something which would be of great benefit to whoever accepted it.  He didn’t have the kind of friendliness that we associate with “service with a smile,” commercialized cheater – the kind of friendliness you get on the airlines from the stewardesses who help you “fly the friendly skies.”  Prabhupada was sometimes very heavy.  It is incomprehensible, his friendliness.  He worked for everyone’s benefit and that often meant knocking down their illusions and shaking them out of their foolishness.  Yes, Prabhupada was friendly.

Yet, Prabhupada was often heavy, and for a good reason.  He understood devotion to Krishna and wanted to expose the many nonsense frauds, incarnations, scholars and prakrta-sahajiyas, and any other pretentious people.  He was a great devotee of Krishna who wholeheartedly embraced love of God.  We should never allow ourselves to be disturbed by his heaviness.  Prabhupada had to be that way.  He’s entitled to be as soft as a rose or as hard as a thunderbolt.  Prabhupada had Krishna in his fist, and he can Him to us.  He is teaching us love of God.  It is up to us to develop that simple devotion that develops with devotion to guru.  We want to be sheltered by Prabhupada, our Nrsimha-guru.

Prabhupada is perfect.  He is glorious the way he smashes illusions.  He knows Krishna.  He can give us Krishna in the most direct and simple way.  But simplicity is not always so easy.  Devotion means wholehearted surrender to Krishna’s lotus feet.  Only then can we really understand anything.  People who aren’t actually surrendered to Krishna the way Prabhupada was may recite so many things about higher rasas and love of God, but they cannot give you Krishna.