Spiritualবড়-কৃপা ৈকেল কৃѯ অধেমর ϕিত িক লািগয়ািনেল েহথা কর এেব গিত (১)
bara-kṛpā kaile kṛṣṇa adhamera prati ki lāgi ānile hethā kara ebe gati bara-kṛpā—great mercy; kaile—showed; kṛṣṇa—O Lord Kṛṣṇa; adhamera prati—to this fallen soul; ki lāgi—for what reason; ānile— You have brought me; hethā—here; kara—please show; ebe—now; gati—Your purpose.
My dear Lord Kṛṣṇa, You are so kind upon this useless soul, but I do not know why You have brought me here. Now You can do whatever You like with me.
Commentary Śrīla Prabhupāda composed this prayer on September 18, 1965, one day after his arrival in America. Following the order of his spiritual master to preach bhāgavata-dharma to the English-speaking world, he had undertaken an arduous journey across the Atlantic and finally arrived at his destination. One would expect him to be elated and eager to begin his preaching mission at last. However, his mood was grave and somber. On the day of their arrival, the captain of the ship had taken him to the nearby downtown area of Boston, an important metropolis in the United States, situated not far from Harvard University, one of the oldest and most prestigious educational institutions in the world. But Prabhupāda’s first impression of his new preaching field was not at all promising. Although America was considered to be the most advanced country on Earth, as far as technological progress and material facilities were concerned, all the glamor of modern city life, with its fancy cars and massive buildings, did not impress him as something wonderful and admirable. Quite the contrary. Not only was he missing the simple village life of Vṛndāvana, as he had expressed in his diary while still at sea, but he also saw immediately through the glamorous veil of Western civilization. Boston’s atmosphere was surcharged with a relentless spirit of enjoyment, unlike the serene atmosphere of Vṛndāvana that he had left behind. In this mood, he expresses a paradoxical doubt: “My dear Lord, why have You brought me here?” He felt that America did not look at all like a place where the people would be open to receive Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Thus, the first verse sets the tone of the entire poem—a mixture of appreciation, doubt, and selfsurrender. One might wonder why Śrīla Prabhupāda would ask, “Why have You brought me here?” After all, he had not been washed ashore by accident. He had planned to preach in the West for a long time; he had overcome many obstacles and undergone a great deal of trouble before finally being able to embark on this adventure. He had struggled to get a passport, a visa, and a passage on a steamer, and he had prepared 200 sets of books to be shipped. The journey had taken over a month, and along the way, he had suffered seasickness and two heart attacks. Finally, he had arrived. But instead of being overjoyed and eager to begin his mission, his first contact with the New World had caused consternation and uncertainty. Kṛṣṇa had been very kind to him and had saved him from a third heart attack, which would have meant certain death, as he notes in his diary. Naturally, Prabhupāda felt very grateful and recognized the great mercy bestowed upon him: boro-kṛpā. At the same time, seeing the stark reality of a population immersed in blunt materialism, he was wondering what he could accomplish under such adverse circumstances. But as a completely surrendered soul, he concludes his first verse by putting himself into the hands of the Lord: “Now You can do whatever You like with me.” Satsvarupa Dāsa Goswami, one of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s first disciples, who would join him one year latter, in 1966, in New York City, comments on this poem as follows: These are the thoughts of one who was coming, physically and spiritually, from the holiest abode of Kṛṣṇa consciousness into the hellishness of twentieth-century materialism—from Vṛndāvana to Boston. He could immediately see the death, suffering, and illusion, the human beings reduced to animal life—as materialists could never see them. Yet he did not turn away in loathing. He had come to save these people, but now he felt very weak and lowly, unable to do anything on his own. He stood in the American city, a city rich with billions, populated with millions, and determined to stay the way it was. He was but an ‘insignificant beggar’ with no money, an old man who had barely survived two heart attacks at sea, who spoke a different language, and who was dressed strangely—yet he had come to tell people to give up meateating, illicit sex, intoxication, and gambling, and to worship Kṛṣṇa, who to them was an unknown Hindu god. What would he be able to accomplish? Some years latter, Prabhupāda wrote about his feelings upon arriving in America to Hanuman Prasad Poddar, who was the head of Gita Press, a prominent publishing house in India that specialized in religious literature and had printed his set of ŚrīmadBhāgavatam’s First Canto: Someway or other, I reached Boston on 17th September, 1965. I was thinking, while on board the ship Jaladuta, ‘Why Krishna has brought me to this country?’ I knew that Western people are too much addicted to so many forbidden things according to our Vedic conception of life. So out of sentiment I wrote a long poetry addressing Lord Krishna as to what was His purpose in bringing me to this country.” But, as will become clear from the following verses, Prabhupāda had full confidence that Kṛṣṇa did indeed have His purpose in bringing him to Kali’s main stronghold on Earth—the United States of America.