Due to the hot weather, Prabhupada had his bed and net set up in the back yard, where he took his rest in the cool night air. Mr. Agarwal took the opportunity to get his association and also had a bed and net set up along side him. They chatted for a while before going to sleep.
March 26th, 1976
Today is Ekadasi.
During his walk out on the front road, PushtaKrishna Swami asked SrilaPrabhupada what would bring him the greatest pleasure. Without any hesitation, SrilaPrabhupada replied, "You all become fully Krishna conscious, cent percent Krishna conscious. People are suffering for want of Krishna consciousness. Let them have this Krishna consciousness and become happy. That's all."
PushtaKrishnaMaharaja also asked about Lord Caitanya's prediction that the holy name will be spread to every town and village. He wondered to what extent that will come true. Does it mean a temple will be established in every town or just that preachers will travel there and tick it off as another place visited?
Prabhupada told him that travel is essential, and if possible there should be centers. He asked, why just village to village? We should go door to door.
Then Prabhupada gave a short class to the few devotees present.
In the verse PrahladaMaharaja expressed the mood that SrilaPrabhupada himself epitomizes. "My dear Lord Nrisimhadeva, I see there are many saintly persons indeed, but they are simply interested for their own deliverance, and thus, without caring for big, big cities and towns, they go to the Himalayan forest for meditating, taking anuvrata, the vow of silence. They are not interested to deliver others. So far I am concerned, I do not wish to be liberated alone and leave aside all these poor fools and rascals. I know that without Krishna consciousness, without taking shelter of Your lotus feet, nobody can be happy, and therefore I wish to bring them to You, to the shelter of Your lotus feet."
SrilaPrabhupada said this is the mood of one who is perfectly convinced of the efficacy of the Krishna consciousness movement. Those who preach must be convinced that without accepting Krishna consciousness no one can be released from the stringent laws of material nature.
Unfortunately the ordinary man is a kripana, a miser, because he fails to use his human form for anything but sex indulgence, eating, and sleeping. So a preacher has to be merciful.
"By the grace of Krishna you have to adopt such means that they may be interested a little about Krishna consciousness. Otherwise they are so dull and miserly, they do not understand that the Krishna consciousness movement is very, very important for them. They have no sense even to understand.
"But the preacher who is Krishna conscious, he knows that without Krishna consciousness these people are condemned. They cannot be happy. They cannot be liberated. They will simply remain within this material world, accepting one body after another. And whichever material body we accept, it is meant for suffering. It is not meant for any happiness."
SrilaPrabhupada stressed the need for preaching and distributing Lord Caitanya's mercy to everyone. "So only the Krishna conscious devotee, he can deliver them. He goes from town to town, village to village, house to house, to bring this message of Krishna and deliver him.
"PrahladaMaharaja is promising, 'I do not wish to go alone. Give me some strength so that I can deliver some of them. It is not possible to deliver all of them.' This is a very important engagement for a Vaishnava.
BhaktivinodaThakura has written in his Caitanya-sikshamrita that we can understand a Vaishnava very nicely when we see that he has converted so many conditioned souls into Vaishnava life. That is the estimation of a Vaishnava. If I simply try for myself, I may be very advanced devotee, that is not very much appreciated by Krishna."
Prabhupada recalled that SrilaBhaktisiddhantaSarasvati would become very pleased if one of his brahmacaris went into Navadvipa and sold a few copies of his daily newspaper. "Therefore we become very much engladdened when we see that some of our books and literatures are sold. They will read and be benefitted. So this is the mission of the high-class Vaishnava, how to preach Krishna consciousness among the suffering humanity, and this is the purport of this verse said by PrahladaMaharaja, and we are following the footprints of PrahladaMaharaja.
"Never mind, even if it is imperfectly done, we must execute the orders of CaitanyaMahaprabhu. I may not be so very expert in delivering the message of Krishna, but my duty is to try to my best capacity how to distribute this knowledge to the suffering humanity."
It is a fact that SrilaPrabhupada is absorbed twenty-four hours a day simply in this mood of trying to liberate as many conditioned souls as possible. His mind never deviates from it. Because of his determination, we are now here, engaged in the practice of Krishna consciousness. And he constantly urges us to pursue this mood of being merciful to others, as our means to perfection.