Srila Prabhupad’s Vision for ISKCON’s future | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | Skopje, Macedonia | July 22, 2025
And very early in the movement, he had passed that title to his.. let’s just say his name, and he wanted that accompanying his name at all times. So that gave a very special position to the Srila Prabhupada, as far as the movement is concerned. The movement itself wanted to continue for thousands of years in the future. That, of course, is day dreaming in one sense, because we know that movements don’t last too long. We see all the spiritual movements that started in the 1960’s disappeared after 10 years or so [Laughs] . Not many left today. We have maybe the.. what is it.. Yogananda, something going on a little bit. Many of them disappeared completely. Of course, we have TM (Transcendental Meditation) going on a little bit, but not so evident around the world, something is there. So, for spiritual movements, especially to continue, is difficult.
We know even in the material world for companies to continue more than 10 years is also difficult. If they make 20 years, they’re very good. If they’re 50 years, they’re really successful [Laughs]. But, the thing is that, it’s tricky because, of course, companies depend upon the market, and the market keeps changing, and so the company has to keep changing all the time. They have to keep changing their products. So we have, for instance, a company like, Kodak. Kodak was famous for cameras at one time, cameras and film. But now cameras and film are no longer [Laughs] . Film, whoever uses film anymore, it’s all digital. So you really have to start changing. We have camera companies like Nikon and Canon, so, you know, they’re famous for cameras and lenses and film. Now they have to change completely into digital. Digital market. You know? So you have to keep changing according to time. So, that’s okay for business. You change your products, modify your products, change your products, develop new products, etc.
For religion, it’s a little more difficult, more complicated, because there are basic tenets, or philosophical points, theological points, that you don’t want to change [Laughs] . People keep changing, but you don’t want to change the.. it turns out it’s no longer the same religion. You know? And we’ve seen that with most religions, actually. They have to change. And they will change. Christianity changed from point zero to one hundred years after Christ. It changed. Two hundred years, again, three hundred years, it changed. Five hundred years, it changed. Another thousand years, it changes. And you get splits and all sorts of things happening because people want changes. So, in religious movements, of course, change also usually takes place over time, because, you know, times have changed and people respond differently and have different needs. So, yeah, change is necessary. But, again, if we start changing, then the original is no longer there. So that’s the whole problem [Laughs] with the religious movements, especially.
The other problem is that, the movement is established by one person who is, has got some special powers of attraction, at least they call them charismatic leaders, which could be taken in a positive or negative way. We’ll take it in a positive way. So they establish the movement based upon their personal attractive features and whatever, personality, etc. When they disappear, there’s a big problem. There’s a big vacancy and no one can fill that space. So that becomes a problem for any religious society. And that’s why most of the religious ones, they disappear because the leader disappears. So there’s Parmananda, or Paramahamsa Yogananda [Laughs], he disappears, the whole movement, nobody left to lead it anymore. Maharshi Yogi disappears, TM is finished again, like that. Rajneesh disappears [Laughs] , movement disappears, Sai Baba disappears, the movement disappears. So this is a real problem for.. especially for religious movements.
Now, companies, of course, they have a board of directors [Laughs] rather than one person. But still, that one person directing it when he disappears somehow begins to change and Shakti (potency / power) is a little bit less. Anyway, that’s a problem also. How to continue a movement once the leader has disappeared.
In the case of a movement, a conservative movement following the Vedas, it’s not too much of a problem in one sense, because it’s not solely based upon the influence of one person to establish something new. He’s only repeating something that’s already there. So in the case of Srila Prabhupada, he said, I’m not teaching something new, I’m teaching something that’s there from Lord Caitanya’s time, and Lord Caitanya’s teaching was there before. So it’s not introducing anything new. So in that sense, yes, he has his own personal attractive features, but the ideas he’s presenting is not new. So that’s one advantage that even if he does disappear, things can continue.
So, Srila Prabhupada realized that he was not going to last forever. He would also leave his body, and then ISKCON would be there, and then what’s going to happen? Because he wants the movement to continue for thousands of years. What are we going to do? So that’s why he spent a lot of time writing books [Laughs] . He was traveling everywhere, but he was also dictating on his typewriter or whatever, writing books all the time, half his day in doing that. Why? Because the teachings which are traditional and cannot change from the time of Lord Caitanya, he wanted those to continue as they were. So at least, I would say, the theological and philosophical basis of the movement would stay there. So that he wanted to preserve.
Furthermore, he saw that Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati Thakura had the same idea, he was printing books, distributing books, and opening temples, etc., but his movement fell apart after 10 or 15 years after his disappearance. Which would mean, for Srila Prabhupada, the movement should have disintegrated in 1990 or so [Laughs]. It should have, if it was to follow the history of Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, it would end up with that type of thing, many, many different little temples everywhere with individual Gurus. So Prabhupada was aware of that problem also. So that’s why, he didn’t want to appoint any particular leader to replace him and instead, he made a body, that is a Governing Body Commission (GBC) to take that place.
So, ISKCON continues now since Prabhupada’s disappearance for how many years now? Almost 50 years now. So that’s kind of surprising [Laughs]. Even scholars, religious scholars of the West, they’re a little surprised also that it’s continued. They’ve been observing the movement since the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and they’re quite surprised that it’s continued for 50 years, even after the disappearance of their leader. But it’s quite a feat. And part of that, of course, is due to the fact that Prabhupada instructed not one leader, because everybody fights for leadership, they divide it up [Laughs]. So instead, we do have this Governing body commission, that’s another factor that has kept it together in the future. So in any case, Prabhupada wanted to keep the movement together somehow or other. And he worked his life to do that. He gave himself this title – ‘Founder Acharya’, which puts him in a founding position of a movement. So he has a very special position. And this helps to keep the whole movement together.
And then, as I said, he wrote all of these books so that the philosophical foundation could not be challenged. We can’t invent a new philosophy that Krishna’s not God, or the Jiva becomes God, or we can mix Bhakti with Karma and get the same results. Everything is very, very clear [Laughs]. So that’s why, he’s written all these books. So therefore, that was one safeguard for him as well. Of course, he was so careful about preserving the books that he didn’t even keep it in ISKCON. He made a separate trust called the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. So if anything happened to ISKCON, at least the trust would remain separate and would not be affected by that. So that was another way in which the books would get preserved, even if something happened to the movement and divided it up. Still, the book trust would be there, and the books would be protected and not altered or whatever like that. So that’s another way of helping to preserve by preserving the texts, the books.
So in this way, Prabhupada wanted to have this movement continue into the future. So that is actually part of his greatness. Yes, he spread the movement everywhere around the world in let’s say 10 years or so, maximum 10, 12, 13 years or so. He was able to inspire people to take up bhakti, follow the path of Krishna consciousness all over the world in such a short period of time.
Nowadays it is not so difficult, because people know the word Krishna. They know the word yoga, they know the word meditation, they know the word vegetarian. In my time, in 1970s, vegetarians were freaks, like real freaks, like from ETs [Laughs] or extraterrestrials [Laughs] or something. Nobody would be a vegetarian. It is kind of a weird thing, you are really on the fringe. But now it is very popular. Vegan restaurants, high class type of diet or whatever is there. So it is not so difficult now. Previously, introducing Krishna consciousness and bhakti yoga was much more difficult, because there was no foundation or familiarity. Now at least the word mantra is a common word in the English language. At that time, it was something very exotic and esoteric or whatever.
So but nevertheless, Prabhupada, within 10 years managed to inspire people to take up this movement. It was not just a philosophical or theological change. It was also a whole lifestyle change, which is more difficult [Laughs]. No meat, no intoxication, it is more difficult to follow. Yet, he got people committed to that also. So this is quite surprising. You will find that there are many other religious Hindu movements and yoga movements, etc., they don’t have that type of standard. You can or you can’t, it doesn’t matter. It is optional [Laughs]. So this is quite a high standard.
Prabhupada managed to establish temples everywhere. So this is very, very remarkable. Of course, it is due to his personality itself. It is not personality, because personalities are material. Because of his spiritual shakti [Laughs]. His personal spiritual shakti and his conviction that he was able to convince people to follow this particular path. So he did this. He established centers around the world. But as I said, the real test is, how the movement continues into the future, that’s is a very major question that all movements have to handle. And Prabhupada is very skillful at doing that. It is very astonishing [Laughs] to see his insight onto how to make a movement last into the future. All the different things he did. It is quite astonishing. Yet it has been very, very successful. So that is to his credit. He had the foresight to see what would actually happen in the modern world.
Of course, expansion and absence of the Acharya, founder Acharya, and a world which changes radically more quickly than ever before is a big challenge. It is a challenge for any movement. It is even a challenge for material businesses. It is a challenge for countries. Because the population, psychology keeps changing every five years. And the youth are completely different from the parents [Laughs]. Their youth are going to be completely different from those parents [Laughs]. It is really, really a peculiar phenomenon. The whole social structure even changes radically, within ten years or so, everything changes.
Communication changes more rapidly than anything else. We see that Prabhupada, he was in his New York typing on his little typewriter. And he was in India and he was saving paper by opening envelopes and typing [Laughs] on envelopes.. whatever like that. And you go to the press. The press was a letter press where you had these little metal things [Laughs] and you stick them like this. A, B, C, like this, you stick them together and then you roll it off. So he printed the first Bhagavatam like that and printed his Bhagavatam, Back to Godhead like that. So a very tedious process, Prabhupada started. But then when he went to America and then they got him a dictaphone. But the dictaphone is a huge thing like this and he had to carry it around. He had a servant carrying this around on the airplane and the dictaphone you turn it on, you say something, you turn it off. But it was very difficult to correct whatever you said. So you couldn’t really edit. So nowadays you just type in the computer, you look at it, you can erase things. You can copy things, paste things, do all things. You could not do that at that time. And so Prabhupada was doing it with that dictaphone. That was the latest thing. But then since that time, then they developed smaller tape recorders and things like that. So the thing was we had little tape recorders like this [Laughs]. Well that was there for about 10 years. But then that was finished also [Laughs]. And they developed other things. So they developed computers and they developed CDs. First they had floppy disks I think Floppy disks [Laughs]. That was also cumbersome. Then they got CDs and then finally you got little pen drives. Everything was a huge amount of information, the pen drive itself. And you know then we have internet going around everywhere. So now we have classes on Zoom instead of in person. And that’s also very effective. So many things have changed in the modern world. Just in terms of electronics and communications.
What to speak of everything else.. Food processing, all these things. Genetically modified foods and fast foods and artificial things [Laughs], all these things have crept up. So that countries like America, the whole basis is artificial food actually, very very artificial, you go to the store, everything is artificial. So and then of course we have the whole social movements keep changing. Societies keep changing, countries change. The idea of gender equality rose up like this. Gender equality and mixing genders and transgender. All these things come up in the modern world. So it’s very very different from 20 years ago or 30 years ago or 40 years ago or 50 years ago.
So how do the devotees face that? We’re from 1970, now we’re 50 years, three or four generations later and it’s a completely different society. So how do we handle that? And how does, how do we apply the teachings of Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavatam which is largely also Varnashram in terms of social behavior? How do we apply that to such a society that changes, now in modern world how much we can follow? So obviously you can’t keep everything exactly the same. Something has to change. Otherwise, you can’t even communicate with people. What to change and what not to change, that becomes the whole problem as you go on.
So when Prabhupada came to America, then he relaxed standards. He knew that people couldn’t follow so strictly. He said chant 64 rounds and he said okay, now chant 16 rounds okay like that [Laughs]. So he lowered the standards, because people couldn’t follow. So but he still.. he kept some standards there. Okay, you could have sex life but it’s in marriage. No intoxications, because everybody was taking drugs and all that [Laughs]. So he did set some standards. So of course in the modern world, people say well maybe we should change those standards also it’s not so difficult for people. You know, they’re all intoxicated or whatever, maybe we should lessen the standards, less, three regulative principles, two regulative principles, whatever. So change or not change. So questions like that come up. Anyway, of course, as far as GBC says NO, we can’t change principles. That would just stick like that. 16 rounds, we can’t lower it, keep it at that. At a certain standard. Of course, if you want, you can do less than that. It’s no problem. But if you want to get initiated then you have to have that standard, that’s all.
So anyway, it allows, the process of bhakti is, such that it is so flexible. It is the most flexible of all the Vedic spiritual processes. And Harinam is the most flexible in bhakti. So therefore, you can adapt to any situation at any time, in any society, in Kali Yuga, now or 100,000 years [Laughs] in the future or in the next day of Brahma or whatever, it doesn’t matter. On Svargaloka or on the hellish planets. It can continue somehow or other. So it definitely can do that, it can survive all of that in those conditions. So we should not become bewildered by the changes, the demand for more changes and whatever like that. Yeah, we can change many things but at least we do have some foundational principles and we don’t change the process from chanting the holy name to something else [Laughs]. So and it’s available to all people at all times and all conditions. So that should be our principle.
So anyway, Prabhupada wanted the movement to continue in the future and he wanted to preserve certain things. And as I said, it may be a challenge for us to say, well, you know, following the basic principle that you do have to change according to the times. And you do have to see who’s your audience [Laughs]. And if you’re just speaking something they don’t understand, it’s completely useless. So you do have to take into consideration your particular population. If there’s China, you have to speak to the Chinese. If it’s here in Macedonia, you have to speak to the Macedonians. If it’s in India, then you speak to the Indians. And it’s going to be slightly different how we approach, because the culture is different, standards are different, language is different, whatever. At the same time, we do have, we’re presenting something, which is unchangeable [Laughs]. So the method of communicating may change, but the basic principles of what we follow must stay the same. Yeah, so it’s a delicate type of position. So somehow that has to remain. So that’s the challenge for us, always to see how much we can change and how much we cannot change or whatever and there’s always also disagreements.
So some people will say, okay, don’t change anything. So whatever we did in 1970, we should do now. So in 1970, we were doing book distribution, Nama sankirtan on the street. Let’s do that now. Only that. Finished [Laughs]. You can do it. It’s not you can’t do it, but is it going to be effective for everybody? Is that the most effective way of doing things? So now we say, well, books are there, streets there, but actually internet is a much more effective way [Laughs], quicker way, cheaper way of giving it to more people. So, of course, even BBT now has everything on digital form also. They’ve converted everything digital and have digital books, etc. So this may be the future of book distribution, not you go out in the street and it’s like, you can do that, but there may be other ways of doing that through Internet, whatever, and preaching like that, and maybe more effective even. So that’s one thing that’s come up. Of course, even that may be obsolete in 10 years [Laughs]. We’ll have virtual books instead [Laughs]. Virtual Prasadam [Laughs], I don’t know [Laughs]. Eat online [Laughs]. Eat through your computer [Laughs]. I don’t know [Laughs]. But there’s so many possibilities coming up in the future, how to preach. So anyway, we have to be flexible in that regard, but nevertheless, the content of Prabhupada’s.. say has to be there somehow or other so that we have to preserve. So that’s interesting, how we progress into the future.
So Prabhupada, our understanding should be since Prabhupada was the founder of the movement, we should try as much as we can to read Prabhupada’s books and through that, understand actually what he wanted to convey to everyone. What are the basic things that we cannot change like that? And then, of course, we base our preaching on that. So that should be our understanding. And if we do that, then we’re fulfilling the mission of Srila Prabhupada.
So as I said, Prabhupada gave that particular title, ‘Founder Acharya’. So he is a central figure within the movement. We see that there are other Vaishnava movements that continued for a thousand years or so. So that’s also quite phenomenal. So Ramanuja established a movement about a thousand years ago and Madhvacharya shortly after that began. And those movements have continued into the present time. So they were able to preserve those teachings without fail. Of course, modern world is they’re also having to adapt to the modern world and it is also a little difficult for them also. And of course, their following is not really increasing as such. In some cases, maybe dwindling. So it’s not that they are so successful in one sense. But nevertheless, they at least preserve their following, whatever they had after the uncertain increase.
So our movement also, under Prabhupada, but should also continue into the future. And as I said, their movement, of course, always goes back to their founder and they always give special recognition to that founder. So Ramanuja is the central figure within that Sampradaya and Madhvacharya in his Sampradaya. So they, of course, wrote the foundational books for their philosophies of Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita philosophy and that’s continued down with later persons, etc. So similarly, we have our, of course Lord Caitanya was there and then the Goswamis he commissioned to write books. So those books became the basis – philosophical and theological basis of our movement. And then Srila Prabhupada as the founder of ISKCON has written his translated and written purports on Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam. These become the foundation for our movement into the future. So hopefully we’ll continue for thousands of years into the future.
So we should appreciate Srila Prabhupada and we should try to understand that his intention was for that continuity into the future and whatever we can do to continue that continuity, keep it going into the future, very, very good, then he would be very, very pleased. So, of course, we sing every morning by the mercy of Guru, we get the mercy of Krishna. If we want the mercy of Srila Prabhupada, then we should try to understand this message of how to preserve and continue, not distort the main message that he’s given and take it into the future. That much we should try to do. And we’ll do that. Just as Prabhupada said, I followed the order of my Guru, that’s my success. So we do that, that’s our success. Somehow or other we try to do that. So at once, we’re conservative in one sense, because we want to keep the same message. At the same time, we’re also free to experiment [Laughs]. We can do many things. We can try many things. And there’s so much opportunity in the modern world because there’s so many choices [Laughs]. So we can try many things without diluting the principles upon which we stand. So we do have to read and study and learn the books in order to get those principles properly as our foundation. And then we can continue into the future.
So Srila Prabhupada acts as the foundational Acharya. The Acharya is the teacher who set an example by his actions and by his teachings. So for the followers of ISKCON, Prabhupada is the founder and he’s also the foundational Guru. So though we talk about Diksha Guru, Diksha, etc. We do have Siksha Gurus and the Siksha Guru is actually equal to the Diksha Guru and in some cases could be superior to the Diksha Guru. And from the Bhagavad Gita introduction, we have tracing, Sampradaya is traced. And it’s not traced by Diksha at all [Laughs]. So Bhakti Siddhantha Saraswati Thakur, Srila Prabhupada didn’t give so much regard for Diksha as they did for Siksha. So the Siksha is more important. So that Siksha can take two forms. One, of course, is you get a, just like we have a Diksha Guru in person, so we get a Siksha Guru or many Siksha Gurus in person. But then we also have the other Siksha Guru, that is, Prabhupada, who is the Siksha Guru for everybody in the future also.
So we also have a direct relationship with Prabhupada. We should not think only, I got a Guru, so I have to have this Guru or that Guru right now. We also have Prabhupada as the Guru. So we can establish a direct relationship with him, even though he is not present. So, that is the right of all followers in ISKCON they have the direct relationship with Srila Prabhupada. And if you can’t find a Diksha Guru or a Siksha Guru, then you surrender to Prabhupada, no problem, that is also good. Of course, what happens is, we read Prabhupada’s books, and Prabhupada, of course, has tried to explain everything very clearly, but even when we take Prabhupada’s books, people start interpreting, and they come up with all sorts of [Laughs] strange interpretations of that also. So that is why, we also need a living Siksha Guru to say, no, that is not right, this is the actual meaning of this. We do also need personal teaching of persons to straighten out whatever is in Prabhupada’s books also. Nevertheless, Prabhupada’s books are the basis of that, so we can also take him as the main Siksha Guru as well. So this also creates some unity within ISKCON, even though we have many different types of people with different languages and different cultures, etc. At least we have Prabhupada as the center of everything.
Q & A
1.) You mentioned Prabhupada as the foundation of Siksha. And we can read that there are some changes nowadays, which were…
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Editorial changes. Yes. Actually, I’m on the committee that’s [Laughs] supervising the changes [Laughs]. Or reversing the changes backwards if we need to, like that [Laughs]. We have a little committee doing that for Bhagavad Gita at least. Almost finished. We’re on chapter 16, going on to 17 next and 18. We’re almost finished. So, yeah, that is a problem. Now Prabhupada did have editors and he also approved editors. So Prabhupada wrote, but English was not perfect, grammar was not perfect, words were not perfect, sentences were not perfect, things were skipped out or whatever like that.
The original Bhagavad Gita was the typed manuscript and then they had to start going over that. So it went through several changes already like that. And then we have Prabhupada’s original manuscript with corrections on that. Then we have 1972 Macmillan edition, that was the abridged edition that came out. Edited by, I think, Hayagriva and somebody else before that. Then later on, 1982 or 1983, Jayadvaita Swami was commissioned by BBT to edit again and we came up with another version. So, and of course after that’s come out, not too many changes after that. So controversy arises, because there are differences between 1972 and the 1983. Some people will say, well it’s not big differences, it’s small differences, word changes here, grammatical changes there, whatever. So that’s actually allowed in editing. And now of course sometimes the editor may go a little further and may add something. I can add anything [Laughs]. So Jayadvaita sometimes added things. Why? Because it was there in the Sanskrit. It didn’t come out in the English. So the word for word was there, but those words didn’t come out into the translation of the verse. In a few cases, he added those things in. And then in the purports, of course, sometimes he clarified things and there were mistakes in the verses.
Anyway, so there were some differences between 1972 and 1983 or whatever. But then the question will come, well Prabhupada approved the 1972 edition, so that’s the one we should have and we shouldn’t change anything. So that’s the argument given. But then of course, the counter-argument could be, well, if there are spelling mistakes or grammatical mistakes, shouldn’t we correct them? But Prabhupada wanted the book to be available for educated people. So, if you have obvious spelling mistakes and grammatical mistakes, obviously you have to correct them [Laughs]. So definitely some of those things can go on. But then of course then we have other things, that maybe people don’t want to change. So for instance, we have ‘Sri Bhagavan Uvaca’. So it’s that simple in Sanskrit. The Lord said. So Hayagriva put it, the Blessed Lord said. Which is actually very Christian, I guess. Has a very Christian connotation to it. And people got used to that. So I think Jayadvaita saw him, maybe we said, well, better to put ‘Supreme Personality of Godhead said’ because, Prabhupada uses that so much [Laughs].
But then people say, NO! 1972 was approved by Prabhupada. You can’t change that. So, ‘Blessed Lord’ should remain there. Shouldn’t put ‘Supreme Personality of Godhead’. So you could do either, because Prabhupada did approve it. At the same time, ‘Supreme Personality of Godhead’ is the most common expression. I don’t think, ‘Blessed Lord’ Prabhupada used it much, anywhere else. It only got in there, because Hayagriva put it in there [Laughs] and Prabhupada approved it. So you have arguments like this. Is it a change? Is it a valid change or not [Laughs]? So you can argue either way. You go on like that. Ultimately it doesn’t change the essence of the meaning. It means the ‘Supreme Lord’ in any case and we know the Supreme Lord is Krishna. So when you say ‘Blessed Lord’ and ‘Supreme Personality of Godhead’ it doesn’t really matter [Laughs]. So it doesn’t really change the meaning.
But people say, well, the potency of Prabhupada is in ‘Blessed Lord’. So you can say that. Anyway, that’s some of the controversy that has arisen. It’s not that, intentionally Jaya advaita Swami was trying to change [Laughs] the meaning. In other cases, Jayadvaita Swami went back to the original manuscript and he said, Hayagriva made changes, which didn’t look proper [Laughs] or he omitted things which should have been there. So then he added those things also and he changed again. So then can we change that? Because Prabhupada didn’t put it in the 1972 edition, but it was there in the original. But did he approve the 1972 edition? Yes. Can we add it later on and make it like the original one of Prabhupada? It’s a little bit of controversy. Yes or no? You go either way [Laughs]. So that’s the problem with editing. How to make it more true to Srila Prabhupada? Go back to the OT (Original Text) and not accept Hayagriva’s 1972 edition? or like that [Laughs], that’s an argument. In either case, it doesn’t change the basic philosophy. It’s not just suddenly Jayadvaita swami will say, okay, we’re going to merge into Brahman and that’s the ultimate issue [Laughs] or Krishna has no form. It’s not radically changing our philosophy. It’s subtle, you know, maybe the mood is slightly changed by changing the words or whatever to that extent for some change. But there’s no gross philosophical or theological errors introduced.
Devotee : Thank you Maharaj. Thank you very much. That was an awesome answer. I wanted to ask in context about this.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Oh, by the way, as our little group that was doing the editing, we had to make a whole set of principles to follow. So generally, we try to be conservative and not change things, you know. We can change grammatical punctuation, spelling. Okay, we can change that.
Devotee : You mean the palm leaf stuff? Word by word Sanskrit?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: No, even the purports or in the translation, so if the word is spelled wrong or punctuation, okay, there’s no problem with all that. So you could do that. A little conservative on changing things, but then, the whole problem comes in 1972 or the original manuscript of the word, which one do we want to choose [Laughs]? That becomes a little bit difficult sometimes, you know, to agree. So that’s where our problem comes from.
Devotee : In the context of this talk lesson, I wanted to ask, what’s the communication between ISKCON and Gaudiya matt now? Is there any kind of communication? On what level or something?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah. We have what is called the Siddhanta Saraswati, there’s a committee [Laughs] Jayapataka Maharaj is in, kind of a group, he made a special group to unite the followers of Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. Yeah, at every meeting, every year they have a meeting, I think, sometime, Bhakti Siddhanta’s disappearance day. Just before Gaura purnima, sometime two weeks ahead, there’s a special meeting and they invite all the different Gaudiya matt heads to come and they have discussions on how to preach together and if there’s any difficulties or any common enemies, so to speak [Laughs]. They have to unify in a unified way, they have to act together and they try to do that also.
Devotee : I mean, my humble opinion is that ISKCON and Gaudiya matt should unite in the future for a bigger purpose.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Devotee : It should be a very nice thing to happen. Because times are… you can see what is going on.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: [Laughs]
Devotee : The age of Aquarius is stumbling.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: I don’t think ISKCON really has a problem with that.
Devotee : Yeah. It should be somehow settled.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah.
Devotee : Prabhupada His place in so to say Bhakti Siddhanta’s Gaudiya matt.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah.
Devotee : His rightful place in the biggest success international Gaudiya matt.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Oh yeah, yeah.
Devotee : That’s a fact. I mean okay [Not clear] Maharaj I hear also his mapped in Germany starts to flourish [Not clear].
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Now? Oh really [Laughs]?
Devotee : Ok. Also one of his disciples that went to Spain. I don’t exactly remember his name, Nithyananda das or something. He went to Spain before the war also. But Prabhupada is Prabhupada.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: [Laughs]
Devotee : He practically saved the world. He practically saved the hippie movement. He’s the crown jewel.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah, yeah. I was in Mayapur in 1971. That was when Prabhupada first… before he purchased the land in Mayapur, the first land. So we went out there for Gaura purnima. I was just new bhakta. I didn’t even know it was Gaura purnima. We just got on a train from Calcutta and went out there to this place. OK, this is the birthplace of Lord Caitanya [Laughs]. So we went to Navadvip. We crossed the river on the ferry. We got to Mayapur and then we went to one of the matts. OK. It was a very lonely place. There was maybe two rickshaws on the road. This was Gaura purnima. It was empty, 1971. There was nobody there. It was… [Laughs] Lord Caitanya’s appearance day [Laughs]. Nobody was there. You know all the matts there. We went to this one and went to that one. Fine and we went back to Navadvip and took Prasadam. Ekadesi Prasadam and went back to [Not clear]. But that was, you know Gaura purnima and you know there was nobody there in 1971. If you go there now, this whole place is crowded with people [Laughs]. At that time, no. So even the Matts were there, but there was not much happening in India.
So if Prabhupada had not come and established that temple there, then it probably would be like that even today. Nobody would know about it. Lord Caitanya’s movement would be there, but not really known too well, even in India, which is the king of the world [Laughs]. So somehow Prabhupada was able to revive it not only around the world, but even in India.
Devotee : [Not Audible]
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Well, as I said previously somebody asked that question, I was there, and but because I was a new devotee, then I didn’t get that much close association. Of course, some were more unfortunate in one sense because the closest they got to Prabhupada was they would see him, I think they saw him once, I think it was Mahanidhi swami, that he saw him once from a distance in L.A. when he walked [Laughs] from the car into the temple. That’s his only association with Srila Prabhupada [Laughs] , you know. And other devotees, maybe they just got initiated by a mail or something like that. So that was their association with Srila Prabhupada. So I was a little bit more fortunate than that [Laughs] . So I got to meet real Prabhupada in person. I spoke to him a few times also in person. Of course, I couldn’t say much because I was ignorant [Laughs]. I didn’t know what to say. But at least he was very merciful [Laughs] . So I met Prabhupada in Japan. And then later on through another devotee, Sudama, he invited me to come to India with that group, even though I wasn’t a real devotee at the time [Laughs]. So I came to India with Prabhupada at that time. So that’s how I became a devotee. And then traveled throughout India with the group, with Prabhupada. But as I said, because I wasn’t senior, I was kind of on the edges [Laughs]. So that was my extent on the edge at that time.
2.) In the context of that, I would like to ask you, do you know some moments, maybe, when Srila Prabhupada did comment something or act on Jyotish Sastra, for example?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Oh, did he act on it? Yeah. When he was getting sick in Vrindavan, then he called the astrologer. And then the astrologer, of course, gave some advice. One of the advice is, well, you should wear a six-carat blue sapphire ring [Laughs]. So we bought in Hong Kong, a group of people bought him a six-carat sapphire ring and gave it to him [Laughs] . So that he did follow some astrology there.
Devotee : I know, I read about him, in his youth, he used a lot of and he made, he was a pharmaceutical. So he made a lot of elixirs.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah, medicines.
Devotee : Medicines from precious stones.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah.
Devotee : So that’s a very interesting topic. Also about his youth and moments when he invested some Lakshmi in some project or something so important. I know he knew that.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: He would also not travel on Thursday afternoons [Laughs]. Because that was, there was like a Rahukala, Barbela, it was called in Bengali, so that was like an inauspicious time from 12 to 2. So he would not start projects or travel at that time [Laughs] . Following the Muhurta system.
Devotee : Because he mentions Srila Prabhupada [Not clear]. But I also have read that one, his disciple, somewhere in India, had stolen some stone. It was going through some bad period of Rahukala. And they [Not clear]. Just as this devotee said, with my tip of my toe of the Guru, this millions of Rahus can be driven away.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah, that’s also true [Laughs].
Devotee : [Not clear]
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah, so, according to our philosophy, yes, the process of Bhakti and the chanting of the Holy Name and even the devotees, just by their association, drive away karmas much more effectively than any atonements or any astrology or anything. Yeah, like Ajamila got all of his karmas instantly destroyed by saying the name Narayana. So, definitely that’s there.
At the same time, we see that it’s just like medicine. Okay, so, generally, yeah, if we don’t have any karma, we shouldn’t take any medicine, just chant Haribhol [Laughs], that’s the best medicine. But then, of course, most people take medicine anyway [Laughs] . Even Prabhupada took medicine. So, he had all these Ayurvedic medicines he was taking or whatever like that. So, for the body, yes, we can just rely on the Holy Name and very advanced devotees sometimes do that, especially the very renounced ones or whatever. They may do that. But others will also take advantage of whatever is there. So, Ayurveda is one type of medicine you could use, or Western medicine, or astrology is another medicine you could use like that just to help, keep the body in shape so that we can continue a few more lives to preach [Laughs] . So, it’s a practical measure only for extending the body so that you can carry out the will of Krishna or whatever. And, of course, if Krishna doesn’t want it, okay, fine. We’re also detached [Laughs]. We don’t really care. We just try to take precautions like that so we don’t unnecessarily end our body too soon if we got some opportunity to extend it for some time.
Devotees : HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai !!! Srila Prabhupada ki jai !!!