Grateful

Rupa Gosvami gives the following definition of grateful: “Any person who is conscious of his friend’s beneficent activities and never forgets his service is called grateful.” (NOD, p. 166)  I want to be grateful to Srila Prabhupada and carry out that sentiment in my actions.  For example, I may think of his pranam-mantra: “My obeisances unto you, O Spiritual Master, servant of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura.  You are so kindly teaching the message of Lord Caitanya and delivering these Western countries which are filled with voidism and impersonalism.”  Thanks to Prabhupada, now whenever I meet with the Mayavada philosophy (which is frequently), I appreciate that I’ve been trained to avoid their snares and to see through their word jugglery.

I am grateful to Lord Krishna for sending Srila Prabhupada. I feel fortunate to have contacted him.  And therefore, remembrances of personal association with Srila Prabhupada—not allowing those times to be forgotten—are themselves acts of gratitude.

The concept of guru-daksina is meant to prevent the disciple from lapsing into ingratitude.  We don’t think that we can ever repay Srila Prabhupada for what he has given, but we should make the attempt.  “As you have learned this knowledge from me, now you should be kind and give it to others.”  It is not enough to feel thankful while I keep the gift for myself.  Since I have received blessings, I am obliged to give them to others.

Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the perfect example of a grateful person.  He never forgets even the smallest favorable service rendered to Him.  Srila Prabhupada writes, “Anyone who addresses the Lord immediately attracts the attention of the Lord, who always remains obliged to him.”  (NOD, p. 166)

As the Lord is the epitome of gratefulness, so is His pure devotee.  Srila Prabhupada often expressed deep appreciation to his disciples for the services they were rendering to spread the Krishna consciousness movement.  The fact is that Prabhupada’s disciples were carrying out his vision in an attempt to reciprocate with him and to please him.  This dynamic relationship was observed by the scholar Larry Shinn in his foreword to Srila Prabhupada-lilamrta: “What springs from page after page is the willing devotion of young men and women to a man whom they admire for his deep faith and humility, not his autocratic or forceful demands.”

Srila Prabhupada also set the best example of a grateful disciple in his own devotion for Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura.  Whatever success he accomplished, Prabhupada said, was all due to the mercy of his spiritual master.  Srila Prabhupada saw Krishna’s mercy upon him in many ways.  He once expressed gratitude to the United States of America as the place where his mission first flourished.  Prabhupada said, “America has been so good to me to give money, men, everything.  I have no designation that ‘this is my country’, but because they have given me so much facility, I cannot forget my obligation to them.  I want to make them happy, and through them, the world.”

We should not be so dull as to ask, “What should I thank him for?”  We thank him for teaching us the invaluable art of offering food first to the Lord, and then eating spiritual remnants.  We thank him for uplifting us from an animal-like life to a life of refined, hopeful humanity.  I thank him for allowing me to write praises of Prabhupada and Krishna.  We thank him for making us satisfied and happy.  “Many of our students were dry and morose previous to their coming to Krishna consciousness,” Srila Prabhupada writes, “but having come into contact with devotees, they are now dancing like jubilant peacocks.”