(H H Kadamba Kanana Swami, 21st June 2012, Govinda’s, Prague, Czech Republic) Lecture: Free Talk
Narottama Das took his birth just shortly after Caitanya Mahaprabhu left the planet. We came on this planet 500 years later, but imagine if you came just a few years later! So it was kind of natural that Narottama Das felt like:
‘Oh no! I took birth too late! I missed the whole thing.’
It is interesting how Narottama felt like that. Sometimes we also feel like that, in the beginning when Prabhupada was here, and the movement was all dynamic. Every moment it was just expanding with more and more devotees. In one of the early ‘Back to Godhead’ magazines, it was practically one article after another dedicated to Prabhupada. One article is simply describing how all the devotees are waiting for Prabhupada. It is 1968 and all the devotees are having kirtan sitting down for a long time and waiting for Prabhupada to come down. The article states that they finally ask Kirtananda (who was the only sannyasi) to speak. So Kirtananda said:
‘What will I speak about? I’m not qualified to speak, but the devotees have asked me to speak so I must speak.’
Usually when someone says that, then after they give a really long lecture. Anyway Kirtananada said:
‘Where were we a few years ago? Where were some of us even one year ago? Even six months ago? And where are we now? We are all sitting here with effulgent faces. Were would we be if it was not for a pure devotee?’
So that was the focus – on the time. There was a pure devotee, and as a pure devotee with a most wonderful personality, and wherever he was there was Krishna Consciousness.
