Chapter One – Who Was Srila Prabhupada?

---

    Most readers of this book from a Judeo-Christian background are familiar with Biblical stories of God's promise to send a servant who would deliver His chosen people. Some are convinced that that person came two thousand years ago and fulfilled the promise. Others remain unconvinced and still look for the coming of their savior. The religions of the East offer similar promises which give hope to every man and woman who labors with the burdens of life. According to the large body of spiritual wisdom known in India as the Vedas, the Lord regularly arranges for religious principles to be presented to the people at large, and either incarnates in this world Himself for this purpose, or He empowers a uniquely qualified soul for the task. The Vedas describe that His purpose in doing so is to attract the souls of this world to join Him in the spiritual realm once again in loving union, and that this is the very highest goal of human life.

    Such work of The Almighty was entrusted to the man born as Abhay Charan De, later to be honored by the title "Bhaktivedanta" by his peers for his unparalleled qualities of both love (bhakti) and spiritual wisdom (vedanta). He is affectionately known as Srila Prabhupada (Shreela Pra-bhoo-pad), or simply Prabhupada by his followers. It was he who came to give to us the remainder of the teachings which we were too spiritually immature to accept two thousand years ago, because now finally, the time was right, and there were many who were now ready to hear.

    How do we know that Srila Prabhupada was in fact such an ambassador from the spiritual world? Like The Christ, his appearance and activities are foretold in scripture.

    In the Brahma-vaivarta Purana, one of the scriptures of ancient India, the Supreme Lord foretold that 5,000 years into Kali Yuga, His mantra upasaka, the devotee who worships His Holy Names, will appear in this world and spread the chanting of Krishna's name all over the planet. The appearance of this great personality is also predicted in a later holy text, The Shree Chaitanya Mangala, written by Srila Locana Dasa Thakura in 1537. Therein Lord Chaitanya foretells of an empowered personality who would take the chanting of the Holy Names of the Lord everywhere in the world. Lord Chaitanya stated: "I want to flood the whole world with the chanting of the holy names. I will personally preach and flood India with the chanting of the holy names. And my senapati bhakta (great devotee commander) will come, preach in different countries and flood the world with the chanting of Hare Krishna."

    These predictions were fulfilled at the predicted time only by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and it is he who has brought this advanced knowledge of our relationship with the Supreme Lord to all the world.

    Who is God, what is the nature of our relationship to Him, and how can we actually love Him? These are the teachings of Bhaktivedanta Swami. But this was not simply his concoction of some spiritual pabulum which makes us feel good but has no tangible substance. His message was not about pondering the sound of one hand clapping or other mental gymnastics, but was a scholarly as well as devotional presentation of advanced spiritual truths in straightforward language that every person can understand.

    His work included the translation of the Bhagavad-gita (the "Bible" of the East), the Shrimad Bhagavatam (accepted as the fifth Veda, or the essence of all Vedic knowledge), in 32 volumes, the Chaitanya-Charitamrita, in 18 volumes, and other important works. Translating up until just days before his departure from this world he left a legacy of some 80 volumes which have since been translated into more than 60 languages, and distributed around the world by a following which became a household word due to their proselytizing efforts.

    After ten years of preparation, Bhaktivedanta Swami, arrived in New York City in 1965, with a mere seven dollars in his pocket, and a trunk full of his translations. By his single-handed persistent effort he presented his truths to the disaffected youth of the day, and with their help began a spiritual movement. Some youth were calling for revolution, but Srila Prabhupada redirected them to participate in a spiritual revolution, an effort designed to alter the values of a misdirected civilization. While other spiritual groups of the day were named after their leaders, his group was different. His followers became known as the "Hare Krishnas," Krishna being one of the names of God, and "Hare Krishna" being a part of the mantra which they chanted in public in every major city in the world. His society was incorporated as the more formal "International Society for Krishna Consciousness" (ISKCON).

    Prabhupada was a personality of the highest character and demanded no less from his followers. Yet despite the fact that he strictly prohibited his followers from indulging in the order of the day—drugs, illicit sex, eating meat, and gambling—his spiritual movement quickly spread all over the globe. His followers will tell you they readily agreed to these conditions because it was very obvious to them, that at a time when their government was lying to them, when their parents may have been lying to them, and when society was certainly lying to them, he gave them the truth, and did not cheat them by telling them one thing while his behavior spoke of something else. He was the embodiment of his teachings and a powerful example of what we could all become—true lovers of God.

    He was a renunciate to be sure, but he made use of every possible technology to spread his gospel, including automobiles, and most of all jet airplanes, which formerly had been shunned by orthodox swamis who thought that they would become "fallen" by the use of such things. Over the course of twelve years he circled the globe fourteen times and developed a following of hundreds of thousands. He was followed and promoted by many stars, and an inspired George Harrison sung of Lord Krishna in his famous song My Sweet Lord. Such a following gave him power and grandeur, but in his humility he used these not for his aggrandizement or personal pleasure, but to further distribute his message as far as possible. Seeing the results of the preaching work gave him great energy and he worked so hard and fast that it was difficult for his disciples just a third of his age to keep up with him.

    Certain of his leading followers however, close to the center of his aura, and thereby caught up in the heady rush of adoration and outpourings of love, were enamored by all of the attention he received. He was the biggest guru known in the modern age, and they, his spiritual sons, would soon inherit this property of the father when he passed away. As his lieutenants they already had considerable power and influence within the society he created, and he was training them to take the lead when he was gone. Some were too anxious for the opportunity, and aware of this he said of one of them: "he is simply waiting for me to die." Others were not content to wait however, they thought they knew better than the old man and wanted their comeuppance now!

    Bhaktivedanta Swami went to an early grave, passing on to the spiritual realm on November 14, 1977, surrounded by dozens of his followers. Until recently his death was thought to have been by natural causes . The evidence presented here however, shows that there was a conspiracy to remove the saint from the center of his movement. Everyone who participated had their own motive, as all conspirators do. Yet how it could happen in the circumstance of a religious movement is a mystery to some, and to others sufficient proof that it could not have happened at all. Who would attempt to kill such an elderly man. After all, his death was already fait accompli, at such and elderly age it was nothing more than a matter of time before he would be dead and gone. But it is not unusual at all for spiritual teachers and leaders to be killed. After all, I had just been reading about the assassination of a Pope. Jesus and Mohammed were also killed for their efforts.

    The fact is that, like Jesus the Christ, who he was and what he stood for represented a considerable threat to the established order, although, like Christ, he never politicized his message. He was certainly attracting some of the best and brightest, and what he promoted did not bode well for the "sin" industries, what to speak of other aspects of modern life. Were there "others" who also wanted him removed? It is known that the establishment had penetrated to the highest levels of ISKCON toward the middle of the seventies and they perhaps thought that, as the establishment during Christ's time thought, that they would be better off with him out of the picture. It was Prabhupada's clear intention to effect a significant change in the direction of modern society and he was no pollyanna about the power brokers of the world. He is rumored to have said of them: "If they really knew what I was doing they would kill me." Perhaps they did know.

    Political intrigue of the world's power brokers is understandable, but what confounds some is the alleged involvement of Prabhupada's closest disciples. How would any person sufficiently close to him attempt to kill their spiritual teacher, their guru? After all, it wasn't just anybody that got close to Prabhupada. First of all it was only his first line lieutenants that had much close association with him. In order to achieve that status most had adopted the "renounced order" of sannyasa, giving up any intention of marriage or connection with the opposite sex. Few young men were willing to do that. Even at that, in order to obtain sannyasa initiation one had to demonstrate their understanding of the spiritual philosophy he was presenting from the Vedas, and then generally be accomplished in the field of preaching. It was not an easy position to come by. That is why it is puzzling to think that anyone with such qualification could have such a paucity of understanding to try to kill him. Killing your guru means is the greatest sin. It means nothing less than going straight to hell after this life. No it doesn't make sense. But, come to think of it, how many murders throughout history have made sense? Well, actually, all of them, to the murderer. To understand this murder we must enter into the mind of the murderer, and the door to that most secret of all places will be opened by listening to the murderer himself—backwards.

    After dealing emotionally with all of the implications of this work I have been able understand what is seemingly incomprehensible—how those who participated in this crime did so, and I can understand how the wonderful spiritual movement which Prabhupada began, which I was so happy to be a part of as a solution to the problems of the world, was usurped, sidetracked, and derailed. I can understand how all of us lost a great deal, being deceived by wolves in sheep's clothing, rather, gross materialists, even demons, in renunciates clothing, and how like the bull in the fight being confused by the red cape and carefully selected words, we were pacified by, and even gave our power to those who were the enemy of Prabhupada and his movement.

    Srila Prabhupada led us into the most intimate accounts of the one true love relationship that we all have, love with God. Had we had more tutelage from him the world would perhaps be a very different place, because he may have been able to carry his important message to so many more people. Indeed, even his teaching aside, my opinion is that his very presence and personal spiritual potency was of sufficient strength to uplift this world and bring social change. While Srila Prabhupada was actively preaching, from 1965 to 1977, the United States witnessed massive shift in social consciousness. The civil rights movement, women's rights, the anti-war movement, LBJ's Great Society, and more were all having a tremendous impact on the status quo. Western Society was shuddering from the greatest social rising in hundreds of years. But after Prabhupada's passing all of these movements quietly faded away. In the Bhagavad-gita Lord Krishna states "everything rests upon Me as pearls are strung on a thread." In my opinion at least, it was alone Srila Prabhupada's purity that raised the consciousness of the entire world during the 60's and 70's, and with his passing the consciousness of the world slipped back to sleep, being preoccupied with getting and spending, the social movements somehow being co-opted and pacified with a few crumbs of "success." This, as much as anything else, tells us what the impact of the Krishna Consciousness movement can be on the world scene if we, his followers can take up his cause with purity. The entire world lost when Srila Prabhupada passed early on to the spiritual realm, but the entire world can gain immeasurably if we remain his serious followers and put into practice what he taught us.