OUR BASIS OF FAITH....PRABHUPADA
KKS Lecture 25th Ari 2008 , Leicester, UK
I used to teach a course on faith, and what faith in Krishna Consciousness is is very important and of course you know blind faith is really not sufficient.
If everything we do rests on blind faith where will we go? So we must investigate, we must ask the questions and Prabhupada said to his western disciples and you are proof hungry, they had endless questions and they wanted to know everything ..but what about this, what about that?. But Prabhupada was firm: They didn’t go to the moon! They didn’t go to the moon! No? It was difficult to them all, Prabhupada wouldn’t budge and like that Prabhupada was sometimes saying things that were outrageous and they didn’t go to the moon is in one sense is an outrageous thing to say, you get crucified for that and Prabhupada said they didn’t go to the moon? No they didn’t go to the moon….. so of course we can ask many questions about Krishna consciousness, about everything. But there is one thing in faith and that is this is that we have Srila Prabhupada and Srila Prabhupada is the shortcut…How do we know that Krishna is the Supreme Lord. Please tell me, how do you Know?
1st Devotee speaks : I don’t
2nd Devotee speaks : I’m not sure
3rd Devotee speaks: Bhagavada gita
Maharaja: That’s a good answer. So one of the basis of this faith is Bhagavad Gita. Accepting bhagavad Gita, that is something, that is something but then of course some nerd of a professor will come and say (in a posh arrogant voice) “ How do you know about the Bhagavada Gita, How do you know? Iit has been found that India is a very unreliable source of information, the historical data coming out of India are very difficult to verify therefore after dating the Bhgavad Gita we have approximately dated it to be about seventeen hundred years old, and we see that it heavily leans on Christianity , if i do say so myself, so I really appreciate this faith of the Hindu young man in his tradition and his scripture, that he believes that Krishna is God, but of couse No…really really young chap.. I mean there is no evidence, there is no true evidence”
Ok so why do you believe that Krishna is God?
Devotee speaks
Maharaja: Oh that’s nice, so why do you believe in Prabhupada?
Devotee speaks
Maharaja: I mean I like your answer because that is also my answer, my answer is also is Prabhupada. Although we do investigate this Krishna consciousness and although we need to take it back to Vedic scriptures and say we accept Krishna as the Supreme Lord because it is mentioned as such in the ancient scriptures such as Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhagavad gita, Upanisads like so many others…he is established as the Supreme Lord, so that is one fact, then beyond scriptures we see that there is tradition, for thousands of years Krishna has been worshipped, there is a huge culture of Worshipping Krishsna, it’s like an ancient tradition, many great personalities have followed the direction of Krishna and become self realised souls….we have that kind of proof and beyond all that we have our shortcut, we have a shortcut, we don’t have to read all the Vedas to collect all the proof we have a shortcut…. Prabhupada, Prabhupada there is one thing there for sure… Prabhupada was not an ordinary Jo Blo, he was not an ordinary man, he is definatley not an ordinary man, Prabhupada was by all means a perfect example of what he taught, he lived this, never was there a moment he was caught and he was caught out of his role, you know usually some one is caught with his pants down, pyjamas they say, this is what they said of a head of state, head of state usually there is a scandal, usually there is a scandal…. Nothing was ever found not just, what to speak of no scandal, not even the slightest contradiction in his behaviour and the prescribed behaviour in the scriptures, no contradiction in anything that he taught, with the scriptures, totally consistent until the very last moment so even at the last moment…. So even at the last ultimate moment , the moment of truth one might say, the moment of death, then you can no longer keep up a show, through out life it may be there…. There’s no business like showbusiness! But you know at the end of life it’s over, then if you have a fear of death, it will show, but Prabhupada, that was not an issue, Prabhupada is not worrying about death, Prabhupada just continued to teach and he was in his last moments, he was just translating the Srimad Bhagavatam as he had been doing in his life, he didn’t stop, he went on with his service, to Krishna, till the very end,……………….. so Prabhupada is the living proof, to us, he is the living proof that to it is all true. ……contd tomo
