Dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my most humble obeisances at your lotus feet. All glories to Your Divine Grace!
You strongly condemned the modern civilization, which is completely misdirected by scientific materialism, and you declared that there was an urgent need to introduce the spiritual knowledge and wisdom of the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam to the scientist, philosophers, and scholars, as well as the general masses of the world. The very last public lecture series you delivered, at Mumbai in 1977, was entitled “Modern Civilization Is A Total Failure – The Only Alternative Is Krsna Consciousness.” I was there among the thousands to witness you destroy all materialistic misconceptions with the sharp sword of knowledge. In an exchange with your disciples in Fiji, you said: “People are being misled into accepting ignorance as knowledge. Take, for example, Darwin’s theory: somehow matter, which is dull and dead, has produced us, who are conscious and living. This is simply speculation based on ignorance. And yet people are accepting it as knowledge….Is all this really science and philosophy? Find this verse in Bhagavad-gita , thirteenth chapter: one of the phrases is tattva-jnanartha-darsanam.”
Disciple:“Here it is,Srila Prabhupada. Adhyatma-jnananityatvam tattva-jnanartha-darsanam etaj jnanam iti proktam ajnanam yad ato ’nyatha. The Lord says, ’Accepting the importance of self- realization, and philosophical search for the Absolute Truth-this I declare to be knowledge. And besides this, whatever there may be is ignorance.’ “[Back to Godhead, Vol. 32, No. 6, Nov-Dec, 1998, “Srila Prabhupada Speaks Out.”]
An American scientist once commented, ”Every now and again I guess somebody comes up with some little interesting idea that takes a little while for people to prove wrong. But before they do that it’s fine, and people talk about it a lot until somebody comes with a different idea.”
In the above –cited conversation you gave your assessment of such cynical so-called scientists. You said: “These rascals are passing as big scientists and philosophers. This is the situation, the whole world over. So how important this Krsna consciousness movement is. Just imagine.”
I was trying to further imagine the importance of your Krsna consciousness movement during my recent visit to the holy forest ofNaimisaranya with more than 300 ISKCON devotees. There we recited Srimad-Bhagavatam in the very spot where Srila Suta Goswami had narrated it to 88,000 assembled sages. We felt that even to this day the atmosphere is surcharged with the sound of theBhagavatam, the literary incarnation of the Lord.
I was contemplating the following statement a lot : “ On the other hand , that literature which is full with descriptions of the transcendental glories of the name, fame, form, and pastimes of the unlimited Supreme Lord is a transcendental creation meant to bring about a revolution in the impious life of a misdirected civilization. Such transcendental literatures, even though irregularly composed, are heard, sung, and accepted by purified men who are thoroughly honest.” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.5.11]
The sages had strategically selected Naimisaranya as a spot for performing sacrifices and reciting the Bhagavatam, with the aim of minimizing the worldwide effects of Kala-yuga, the age of darkness. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, the foremost exponent of the philosophy of bhagavata–dharma in his day, visited Naimisaranya in 1926 in connection with starting a new the branch of the Gaudiya Matha there. You have continued to work for the complete welfare of humanity at large on behalf of the sages and your guru maharaja by translating the Vedic texts, especially the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-bhagavatam, into English, and later by instructing your disciples to translate your books into as many languages as possible. So you have amplified the sravanam-kirtanam of Suta Goswami and the sages of Naimisaranya by beating the brahatmrdanga of transcendental book distribution.
May persons who have lost their vision due to the dense darkness of ignorance in the Age of Kali get light from Bhagavat-gita As It Is and the Bhagavata Purana.
Your Servant,
Lokanath Swami.
