The First Duty of a Leader

Here is a transcript of todays Srimad Bhagavatam class given by Radhanath Maharaj in Sridham Mayapur, on the special occasion of the appearance of Srila Bhakti Tirth Swami. Srila Bhakti Tirtha Swami ki jaya.






Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.12.57

rucaye pradat kardamaya tu madhyamam
daksayadat prasutim akutim ca yata apuritam jagat

TRANSLATION: The father, Manu, handed over his first daughter, Akuti, to the
sage Ruci, the middle daughter, Devahuti, to the sage Kardama, and the
youngest, Prasuti, to Daksa. From them, all the world filled with
population.

PURPORT: The history of the creation of the population of the universe is
given herewith. Brahma is the original living creature in the universe, from
whom were generated the Manu Svayambhuva and his wife Satarupa. From Manu,
two sons and three daughters were born, and from them all the population in
different planets has sprung up until now. Therefore, Brahma is known as the
grandfather of everyone, and the Personality of Godhead, being the father of
Brahma, is known as the great-grandfather of all living beings. This is
confirmed in Bhagavad-gita (11.39) as follows:

vayur yamo 'gnir varunah sasankah
prajapatis tvam prapitamahas ca
namo namas te 'stu sahasra-krtvah
punas ca bhuyo 'pi namo namas te

"You are the Lord of air, the supreme justice Yama, the fire, and the Lord
of rains. You are the moon, and You are the great-grandfather. Therefore I
offer my respectful obeisances unto You again and again."

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta purports of the Third Canto, Twelfth Chapter, of
the Srimad-Bhagavatam, entitled "Creation of the Kumaras and Others."

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HH Radhanath Swami: In Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krsna speaks: aham bija-pradah
pita, that he is the seed-giving father of all living beings.
Acintya-bhedabheda-tattva is an all pervading force that pertains to every
aspect of the material and spiritual workings, the inconceivable nature of
simultaneous oneness and difference. There are eight million, four hundred
thousand species of life, and unlimited living entities who are within these
various species, so much variegatedness, but at the same time, there is
always oneness. In this instance, we are all coming from the same source. We
are factually all brothers and sisters, whether we are mosquitoes, or
whether we are prime ministers.

When Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu gave an order to Haridasa Thakur and Nityananda
Prabhu to preach, this was his message. "Go to everyone, do not discriminate
what is their caste, what is their race, what is their education or economic
condition. Go to everyone and give this simple message: Worship Krsna, chant
the Holy Names of Krsna, speak about Krsna. Krsna is your mother, Krsna is
your father, Krsna is your real wealth, Krsna is your very life and soul. "

Srila Prabhupada emphasized this. We could have our League of Nations or
United Nations or so many other philanthropic, social, and political efforts
to try to create unity in human society, but unless we have realization
about real common connection that spirit souls are part of Krsna, children
of Krsna, there is no possibility of any substantial peace in this world.

In this particular verse, Manu and Satarupa are just born from the body of
Brahma. In the verses to come, Svayambhuva Manu, with folded palms,
approaches Brahma and surrenders to him. He says, "I am yours. Give me any
order and my life is to execute your order." He was sincere.

Brahma was so pleased with him. He said, "Because your respectful to your
superiors, because you are not envious of others, and because you are really
surrendered to execute the order that is given to you by the Supreme Lord
through me, you will be powerful."

Lord Caitanya taught, mahäjano yena gatah sa panthah, that the only way to
perfection is to follow the footsteps of the mahajanas. Svayambhuva Manu was
one of the twelve mahajanas. We should study very carefully this particular
incident from Srimad Bhagavatam. He is surrendering to his guru, his father,
Brahma, knowing him to be the representative of Krsna. Then Brahma gives
him instruction. He said, "You should procreate living being, you should
rule over the world according to the principles of pure devotional service
to the Supreme Lord, and you should perform yajna or sadhana for his
satisfaction." Then a very key instruction here, he said, "The best service
that you or any leader can render is to protect all living beings within the
material world. If you sincerely and honestly act as a protector of others,
you will please the Supreme Personality of Godhead and he will empower you."

This is the first duty, according to Lord Brahma, who is the first guru
after Krsna in our parampara, of a leader, to protect one's subordinates.
Protection can in a simple way be classified as physical protection,
emotional protection, spiritual protection. Srila Prabhupada, as our acarya,
has exemplified this for all of us to learn from, and to try to put in
practice by trying to follow in his footsteps. Here in Sri Mayapur Dham, we
have been told by devotees who were here for the first Gaura Purnima
festival, there were very simple facility. At night, when devotees were
sleeping, Prabhupada was going around to see that everyone had their
mosquito nets and everyone was fed nicely. He was so worried about the
comforts of the devotees. He writes in his purports that he built temples
and guesthouses in Vrindavan and Mayapur especially so that the devotees
from all other the world could come to India to these holy places and feel
comfortable, feel protected.

One of the first temples in ISKCON was Bury Place in London. It began with
just a few devotees, but soon, the Hare Krsna explosion took place and
Prabhupada came to Bury Place, Radha Londonisvara's temple and he saw
devotees sleeping on the stairways, sleeping in the hallways. It was so
overcrowded. So he approached George Harrison, "My devotees are suffering.
They don't have proper accommodation. They have given up so much. Can you
find a spacious place for them?" On the basis of Srila Prabhupada's concern
for the physical condition of his devotees, Bhaktivedanta Manor was
purchased and developed.

Emotional care, Srila Prabhupada made every devotee feel so valuable. He was
so encouraging. Even by a glance or a smile or by some kind words or by
chastisement, even when he chastised devotees, the devotees felt. . . I
don't know their minds, but their hearts were feeling ecstatic because they
knew, "He is chastising me because he really cares about me. He is trying to
help me. He is protecting me." If you chastise someone and it breaks their
heart, then we're not really following Prabhupada's footsteps. Prabhupada
was melting people's hearts by his chastisement. They felt he was protecting
them.

I remember one time, I was a very insignificant - I still am a very
insignificant devotee - doing some deity worship, milking some cows. I
handed Srila Prabhupada a little rose, a wild rose that I just picked from
the forest as I was going to see him. He smiled at me with such gratitude
and he said, "Thank you very much" in such a way that I felt like I just
built a temple [laughter], I felt like I just distributed a million books.
Prabhupada protected us by encouraging us and making us feel valued and
appreciated for whatever efforts we made sincerely to serve Krsna.

And of course spiritual protection, Srila Prabhupada would stay up most of
the night translating his books and writing purports. He spoke on so many
occasions, "If devotees are not reading these books, if they are not reading
their sixteen rounds attentively every day, at anytime they can fall victim
to maya. " Prabhupada was writing these books and pleading with us to read
them, pleading with us to distribute them to others, pleading with us to
chant the Holy Names.

He personally, by his own example, was such an inspiration to protect us
because if devotees are not protected, whatever else we do is like building
a house with out a foundation. Everything will fall. If we feel protected,
we can feel empowered. By Srila Prabhupada doing that, devotees felt so
protected by Srila Prabhupada physically, emotionally, and spiritually that
they were willing to take any risk, even risks of death, suffering, poverty.
That's how the Hare Krsna movement started - because devotees took such
immense risks. How were they able to take such risks? Because in their heart
of hearts they felt so protected by Srila Prabhupada: "If I please you it
doesn't matter, life or death, I'll go back to Godhead."

Earlier in this chapter, Srila Prabhupada writes in a purport to text
twenty-two that the whole process of creation, maintenance, and disillusion
of the cosmic manifestation is simply for the purpose of giving the
conditioned souls an opportunity to go back home, back to Godhead. That is
the only purpose of the material world. And when devotees really feel
protected, they feel empowered to continue on with their sadhana, continue
on with their fearless preaching endeavors, but we have seen historically
within our own society when devotees lose that sense of protection, how so
many survival modes come in for our economic situation, for our social
situation, for our positions. People lose their sadhana, they lose their
taste for the Holy Name, quarrels between devotees over superficial
subjects. But what does it mean to protect, to maintain? It is the
foundation of our society.

Today is the appearance day of His Holiness Srila Bhakti-tirtha Swami
Maharaja. His beloved disciples specially requested me, I don't know why,
but they requested me to give class and speak something about this very,
very dear, beloved disciple of Srila Prabhupada. Srila Bhakti-tirtha Swami
Maharaja, especially in the later years, it was his passion and purpose in
life to encourage and protect the devotees in Srila Prabhupada's society.

Today, his appearance day, we think back of the inconceivable way he was
born. A vaisnava, who was to be a great spiritual leader of Caitanya
Mahaprabhu's mission, was born in such a simple way. Christians cry when
they think of Jesus being born in a little goshalla. [Laughter]Bhakti-tirtha
Swami Maharaja was born in a violent, poverty stricken ghetto in one of the
downtrodden cities of America, Cleveland. Practically didn't even have
clothes to wear. He would just have one or two sets of clothes at a time.
His mother would give away anything else.

Being an African American born in 1950, before the civil rights movement
actually developed, it meant the African American people were very, very
downtrodden and persecuted. You were destined, almost guaranteed to born,
live, and die in poverty and violence. Plus he had a speech defect. He told
me, even before he was a teenager, the neighborhood he lived in, you had to
carry a gun. If you didn't carry a gun with you every time you walked out of
your house, you were subjected to being beaten or exploited. That was the
law of the land. Someone tries to exploit you, you show him your gun, then
he shows you his gun, then you have some respect for each other. [Laughter]
You leave each other alone because you know that if you try to do something
to the other, one of you are going to die.

How would you like to grow up in a situation like that? But he struggled,
and ultimately, he was given a scholarship to Princeton University. Even
there, people hated African-Americans, practically the whole of college.
Even there, he went out with a gun every day - and he was a completely
non-violent person. He was a local leader of the civil rights movement,
fighting for the justice of his downtrodden people. But all his life, he was
looking for something deeply spiritual, beyond all these material miseries
and conflicts.

By Krsna's grace, he found everything he was looking for in Srila
Prabhupada. He surrendered his life. We know the stories of how Prabhupada
was putting so much emphasis on book distribution. At that time, his name
was Ghanasyama. He joined the library party to distribute books, but he
wasn't ordinary. He was doing such unbelievable services. He volunteered to
go behind the Iron Curtain in communist countries. He was so fearless, so
amazingly creative in how he was selling entire sets of books of Srila
Prabhupada in universities, libraries, homes , all these different places.

He would regularly send his reports to Srila Prabhupada. At that time,
Prabhupada was going though his pastime of gradually departing from this
world. He was bedridden. Tamal Krsna Goswami Maharaja, as his personal
secretary, would read the reports of Bhakti-tirtha Swami, or Ghanasyama Das.
Srila Prabhupada would rejoice hearing them. He said, "The reports of
Ghanasyama, his fearless enthusiasm to give my books out, risking his life",
he said, "This is the medicine that is sustaining my life." Tamal Krsna
Goswami Maharaja said that whenever those reports came, it was a highlight
for everyone to read those to Srila Prabhupada because it brought him so
much happiness.

When Prabhupada went to London, Ghanasyama Prabhu was given a personal
meeting with Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada embraced him with tears
filling his eyes, embraced him with such love and spoke the words, "Thank
you very much. Your life is perfect." He won the heart of his Guru Maharaja.
For those of you have ever heard of reports, although we don't have time to
speak them, every day was amazing miracles. He would put himself in the most
inconceivable situations, just leaving it up to Krsna to save him. Krsna
always saved him.

Some years later, he went to West Africa. His life was very much in danger,
especially in the beginning days: diseases, voodoo curses, so many things.
He was persistent. He developed temples, farm communities, book
distribution, communities, traveled around the world. Prabhupada so much
encouraged his creative ways of distributing books, but he also had creative
ways of preaching Krsna consciousness because somehow or other, in his
heart, he had such a deep passion to reach people's hearts and somehow or
other inject Prabhupada's mercy as it is.

Sometimes his techniques were like some sort of anesthesia and people didn't
really know what was going on, but once they got that injection, we see the
result. They became full fledged Gaudiya Vaisnavas, loyal, devoted followers
of Srila Prabhupada. People that were very difficult and hardly anyone else
could reach were becoming devotees.

But as time went on, he did see how devotees within our movement were going
through so many struggles and sometimes those struggles were making them
spiritually weak, sometimes even making their faith weak. Again, there as a
deep passion in his heart to somehow reach them. Some people may agree with
how he did it, some may not agree, but what he was trying to give them, what
his motivation was, was something very deep. In the eighth canto of Srimad
Bhagavatam, in regard to the story of Lord Siva drinking poison to protect
the living entities, Srila Prabhupada, Sukadeva Goswami, they both say that
the greatest service that pleases Lord Krsna is to make sacrifices in your
own life for the welfare of others. That is compassion. He really did have
that compassion.

During the last seven and a half weeks of his life, he requested me to be
with him. I stayed at Gita Nagari during those weeks. Actually, I had so
many other pressing emergency obligations, but when he looked at me with
such affectionate eyes and said, "Please stay."

I said, "I'm here, I'm here." How could I refuse? I'd like to share with you
a few things I saw in this regard about his real concern and how his concern
empowered him to inspire Vaisnavas. He was sitting in his room, one of his
legs were amputated, some of his bones were disintegrating, there were
tumors all over his body, big tumors, he was physically emaciated, just
being plundered by this most aggressive form of cancer. Usually for such
people, you come to try to cheer them up, that's why people came, but the
result was completely different.

There was a festival in New Vrindavan, Festival of Inspiration, and on the
last day, he felt, and his doctors felt, within a couple of days, he would
die. So probably a hundred devotees, I don't know what happened in New
Vrindavan at the festival, but a hundred devotees went to Gita Nagari to
hear his last talk. Afterward, probably fifty godbrothers and godsisters
came into his room. It was amazing. He was just so concerned that each and
every one of them, everyone was weeping, weeping in gratitude. Everyone in
that room, ask them today, will declare that it was a totally
life-transforming experience. They felt so connected to Srila Prabhupada and
to Krsna's love just by hearing him.

The next day, a group of very disgruntled godbrothers came to see him. These
are people who don't really want anything to do with a leader of ISKCON. For
whatever justified or unjustified reason, they are bitter. They sat with him
for about an hour. The whole time, they were weeping in gratitude. I saw
before my eyes, a total transformation. I knew these men, I knew their
attitude. After that meeting, some of them who gave up chanting, started
chanting again. Some of them who would never go to the temple, started
coming to the temple, doing service again. They came out of that room, they
all just sat down weeping. They had such a deep spiritual experience.

On another day, there were some gurukulis that came. Some of them had been
abused. Some of them had gone to other maths to look for shelter. What I was
seeing was unbelievable, their hearts were totally melting. Maharaja was
just speaking Prabhupada's words to them, in such a way, they were all
crying from their hearts. They all said, "We never had such a spiritual
experience. We never have met such a spiritually advanced person. "

After all these meetings, because I was watching, when everyone left and I
was alone with Maharaja, I said, "Maharaja, what are you doing? I've known
you for thirty years, you've always been compassionate, you've always been
dynamic with powerful lectures and amazing kirtans and always really
concerned about the welfare of others, but I've never seen you affect people
like this. The only thing I can think of is that Srila Prabhupada is really
empowering you.

He smiled, he said, "Actually, I don't even know what I'm doing or saying.
These people come in, people have to pick me up and carry me, all this pain,
I have a missing limb, but I just pray to Prabhupada and I can feel
Prabhupada showing his love to these people through me." Then he said to me,
"This is perhaps the greatest blessing I've ever had in my life, to have
this cancer, because in this situation, in this helpless, painful situation,
I can feel Prabhupada's love and compassion coming through me to help
devotees like I've never been able to do before in my whole life. This
cancer is only a small price to render such a valuable service to Srila
Prabhupada."

Tat te 'nukampam su-samiksamano , one of the most often quoted verses from
Srimad Bhagavatam by our beloved Guru Maharaja, Srila Prabhupada. "Who is
rightful to attain the supreme liberation, going back home, back to Godhead?
One who even in the most painful, difficult situations can fold their hands
and bow down to Krsna with gratitude thinking, 'I deserve worse, Krsna." It
is easy to talk about, but to see it is something that is something so
beautiful.

Toward the end of Bhakti-tirtha Swami Maharaja's life in this world, the
cancer was ravaging his body. I've never seen anything like this. Every day
I would spend some hours with him reading from Srila Prabhupada's books,
discussing Lord Caitanya, Lord Krsna, Vrindavan. He made a rule that during
my time with him there were no other words to be discussed but glorification
of Krsna, Lord Caitanya, Srila Prabhupada, and the Vaisnavas, no other
talks. I have never experienced such intimacy with another human being than
when the focus on our attention is to lovingly try to help each other
remember Krsna, lovingly trying to enthuse each other to serve Srila
Prabhupada. Try it, it's not of this world.

One day as we were talking, we were just lying down, he started crying. He
said, "Maharaja, we are in the spiritual world, we are in Vrindavan, can't
you feel it?"

I said, "No." [Laughter]

He said, "Can't your feel it? We are in Vrindavan! What is Vrindavan? Where
there is loving exchanges of glorifying exchanges, that is Vrindavan." Then
he said, "We have achieved the ultimate goal of life. He said it with such
conviction that I actually believed I was in Vrindavan. [Laughter] It was
amazing, it was the spiritual world.

Another time, Ekavira Prabhu picked him up and put him on a chair and I
would read to him, talk about Krsna with him and he would always be in rapt
attention. Usually he was like a great general, just leading the forces,
preaching. Remember that time in Mayapur when he gave that, such an
empowered lecture, he was so emotionally surcharged that as he was speaking,
his hat just flew off his head [Laughter] and everyone went, "Wow!"

But when we would discuss Krsna, he was just like an innocent little boy
just gazing with such simplicity and love in his eyes, but on this one day,
the cancer was so intense that his entire body was trembling. The cancer was
literally making his body tremble with pain. I never saw him cry due to
pain, but the pain was so immense, I could see he couldn't concentrate on
what I was speaking, so I stopped speaking and just chanted the Holy Names:

Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama
Hare Hare.

His body was still trembling, just an emaciated little person, all these
tumors all over his body. [Devotee hands Maharaja a note.] Everyone knows
what this is. [Laughter]

When I chanted the Holy Names, as soon as I chanted, he chanted along with
me. We were chanting together. Tears literally poured from his eyes. The
most effulgent, blissful, almost ear to ear smile manifested on his face.
His eyes were twinkling. He looked at me and said, Maharaja, "This is it."

I said, "This is what?" [Laughter]

He said, "It doesn't get any better than this." He said, "We are together
chanting the Holy Names of Krsna, tasting the sweet nectar of the Holy Name.
It doesn't get any better than this." Then, blissful, right from the core of
his heart, he said "I would not trade the condition I am in today for
anything else or anyone else in the creation because today I am in the
association of a devotee tasting the sweet nectar of the Holy Name. It
doesn't get any better than this."

From the time Caitanya-Caritamrta came out, his idol, of course, Srila
Prabhupada, and also, Vasudeva Datta because Vasudeva Datta was willing to
suffer for the welfare of others so that they would attain Krsna. For years
and years, we would talk about Vasudeva Datta. He meditated on that mood,
which Srila Prabhupada so much relished, of Vasudeva Datta. Sri Caitanya
Mahaprabhu, when he spoke about Vasudeva Datta, he glorified him as if he
had a thousand mouths, because of his compassion to others.

One day when he was lying there, just towards the end, I told him,
"Maharaja, today is the disappearance day of Mukunda Datta, the brother of
Vasudeva Datta.

He just started weeping, he became blissful. He said, "This would be the
perfect day to leave this world." He kept saying, "Vasudeva Datta! Vasudeva
Datta! Prabhupada loved him so much!" He called all the devotees to his room
in Gita Nagari and requested, "I think today I am going to leave, it is
Vasudeva Datta's brother's disappearance day." He had them all doing kirtan
and he was really in a very, very difficult situation physically. They did
kirtan for several hours. He was disappointed. He stopped the kirtan. He
said, "You can go, Krsna is not letting me go today." [Laughter] He said, "I
thought he would let me go on Vasudeva Datta's brother's disappearance day,
but I guess he's not letting me go today."

But Bhakti-tirtha Maharaja really, what he sincerely gave his heart, life,
and soul for is to create community, to inspire loving relationships and
care amongst the Vaisnavas because he knew where there are loving
relationships, where there is sincere care amongst the devotees for each
others' welfare, where there is really a spirit of servant of the servant of
the servant, the devotees feel protected, and in that protection, they are
inspired, they are empowered to spread this mission and to chant the Holy
Names of the Lord:

Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama
Hare Hare

On this very auspicious day, we offer our sincerest gratitude and obeisances
to this effulgent, beloved disciple of Srila Prabhupada who gave his life
and soul to inspiring us in the essence of bhakti, chanting the Holy Name in
a spirit of loving relationships with Vaisnavas and spreading that culture
to the world. Let us bow down at the feet of Srila Bhakti-tirtha Swami
Maharaja in gratitude.

Thank you very much.