Worship of Srila Prabhupada by Listening

Srila Prabhupada’s lectures were the main opportunity for everyone to associate with him in person.  His lectures were intimate forums for the spiritual master to speak and for the disciple to hear.  Prabhupada didn’t invite pomp, but he behaved with formality in the class.  Those who attended knew that it was a serious happening.  Devotees made sure that nothing disturbed this sacred function.  In a sense, it was the major reason that Prabhupada had come here.  

Srila Prabhupada personally felt that lecturing was an important way for him to associate with us.  He took it as the duty of the Vaisnava acarya.  Prabhupada lectured even when his health was not good, and he was always enthusiastic.  When he lectured, you were aware that you were not hearing just one person, but you were in the presence of a living parampara.  I remember feeling that from the very first times I heard Srila Prabhupada speak.  Once I tried to convey it to one of my Lower East Side friends.  I said, “He’s not just sitting here now, but what he says is connected and it’s going back thousands of years through all the different teachers and gurus.  It’s actually going back to Lord Krishna when He first spoke the message, and in fact, it’s eternal.”

As with many things about Krishna consciousness, I have now come to accept this doctrine as matter-of-fact.  But in the beginning it was a fascinating mystery, and an important reason to go and hear from Swamiji.  He was with us at 26 Second Avenue, and yet he was repeating an ageless message.  All the persons he spoke of, Lord Krishna, Narada Muni, Lord Brahma and so on, were all living when he spoke.  And because of his faithfulness to the parampara, the truth that Prabhupada spoke had not changed with the fashions and speculations of philosophers over the centuries.  When Srila Prabhupada spoke authoritatively and with devotion about Sukadeva Gosvami and Maharaja Pariksit, or Arjuna and Krishna, it would actually be happening.  By his words he bridged time, and the ancient past became a present reality.

Prabhupada’s presentation was so real that it immediately worked.  By lecturing first in America and then worldwide, he single-handedly spread the Krishna Consciousness Movement.  He sometimes said, “Whatever change you see in my disciples, it has all come about by hearing.”  Although young people coming to hear Srila Prabhupada in the ’60s and ’70s had been through many trips and disappointments, when they came in contact with Srila Prabhupada they sat like sages at his lotus feet and became satisfied.  We thought, “Whatever else is going on in this phony, crazy world, Prabhupada is real and I’m going to be his devotee and serve Krishna.”

Prabhupada didn’t intend that the parampara of speaking should stop with him.  When a guest asked Prabhupada, “How does one achieve this divine consciousness that you’re speaking of?”, Prabhupada replied, “Come and hear from us.  We are having classes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  Come and participate with the others.”  Srila Prabhupada offered himself in that way.  And because he is transcendental, he continues to live in sound.