Prabhupada’s Expectations for Us 

Prabhupada is always the instructor for his disciples.  There is usually an edge of chiding in his voice, but it is still gentle and loving.  Of the disciple, Srila Prabhupada writes: “… A disciple cannot disobey the order of his spiritual master, that is the relationship between the disciple and his master.”  He gives the example of Arjuna who surrendered to Krishna “without any vanity regarding his own erudition, and without any reservation.”  If you relax your defenses and allow him to instruct you, even in how to fold a cadar, then your relationship will be smooth.  You will not become aggravated and neither will he become displeased; you will quickly learn how to do things his way.  The spiritual master is to train you to be expert in spiritual activities, including the details of how to fold a cadar.  As soon as you resist, thinking you know how to do something, or that he is too demanding, then there will be trouble. 

Prabhupada wants us to understand the difference between the temporary, material world and the eternal, blissful world of Goloka Vrindavana.  This is the life-work that Prabhupada wants from us, to somehow fill our minds with more and more Krishna and less and less maya.  And Prabhupada is with us in our attempts to hear about Krishna.  It is the basis of our relationship with him.  Srila Prabhupada spoke specifically of Krishna.  He described His flute and the feelings of separation the gopis experienced.  Prabhupada was fully absorbed in Krishna.  He wrote in KRSNA Book, “The spiritual masters should enrich the devotees to the highest devotional perfection.  Feeling constant separation while engaged in the service of the Lord is a perfection of Krishna consciousness.”  (KRSNA, Vol. 1, page 231)

I cannot expect Srila Prabhupada to again come to where I am in the material world.  He expects us to love him enough now to go to Him.  That’s how it should be – the disciple should go to his guru and render service and hear from him.  For now I am doing that by reading his KRSNA Book, but the day will come when I can sit at his lotus feet and hear him speak of Krishna and the gopis, or any number of other transcendental topics.  It will just take time and conscious endeavor, by Prabhupada’s grace.