(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 30 June 2013, Vrndavan, India, Student Talk)
After Srila Prabhupada left Vrndavan, he tried to preach in the Western world. It wasn’t easy; it is not just an easy success story. When Prabhupada was anchored with the Jaladuta just on the pier in New York city, at that time Prabhupada was reflecting how difficult it was to bring Krsna consciousness to the Western world.
Imagine that you would have to go all alone to New York to preach this sanatana-dharma from Srimad Bhagavatam!? What would you say!? So Prabhupada also felt like that.
While he was on the ship, the Jaladuta, with which he had come to America, he wrote a song called Mārkine Bhāgavata-dharma. In that song he says, “My dear Lord, I don’t know why you’ve brought me to this place. Here, everyone is engaged in all the sinful activities. I don’t know what I’m going to say to convince them. I can’t think of any word that I could say to convince them. All I can think of is that maybe your words will convince them.” And then he started to quote Srimad Bhagavatam:
srinvatam sva-kathah krishnah
punya-sravana-kirtanah
hridy antah stho hy abhadrani
vidhunoti suhrit satam (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.17)
That by simply hearing about Krsna, all the impurities and all inauspiciousness from the heart will disappear and gradually one becomes purified. So, on the strength of that faith, Prabhupada did it. He had full faith in the holy name.
This morning in the Bhagavatam lecture, I spoke for a moment about the Tompkins Square Park where Prabhupada started kirtan. It’s sort of a symbol, this Tompkins Square Park, of Prabhupada’s first public chanting in the Western world.
In that way, gradually having that faith, that if we just chant Hare Krsna then everything will change. If I send you to America to make everyone devotees, that would not be so easy.
But Prabhupada went alone, without help, but with this great faith that the chanting of the holy name and Srimad Bhagavatam would make the difference.
