Letters from Srila Prabhupada Vol.1 1947-1969 (in pdf) - Krishna Path

638 Letters from Srfla Prabhupiida
if you have got time to do so. But Mongol
aratrik is essential (morning arati), and
Sandharatrik (evening aratri) is essential,
and offering of Prasadam to Deity is essential.
And nice dress, decorating the
Deity with sweet-smelling flowers, colorful
and very opulent dresses, jewels, incense,
etc, to make Them very brilliant
and attractive, that is real Deity worship.
I hope you are all well there, and happy
in Krishna Consciousness,
Your ever well-wisher,
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
68-1 2-36
London
Los Angeles
14th December, 1968
My Dear Gurudas,
Please accept my blessings . I am in
due receipt of your nice letter of Dec. 9,
1968, and I thank you very much for it. It
is very much encouraging to me to hear of
so many activities of performing kirtan
there. Kirtan is the universal principle,
therefore, if you chant Hare Krishna offenslessly,
that is to say, avoiding the 10
kinds of offenses, the vibration is sure to
act. And anywhere this vibration is made,
it will be liked bcause it is done on the
spiritual platform. And on the spiritual
platform, there will be certainly agreement.
So long one is on the material platform,
there is no agreement. So our
movement is directly taken to the spiritual
platform. So do it nicely, offenselessly,
and it will be successful anywhere.
It is just like that in the milk, there is
butter, but if you want concentrated butter,
you have to churn milk and take out
the butter. Similarly, Krishna is spread
everywhere by different potencies but
when there is question of love, we have to
be in direct touch with Krishna. That is
personalism. The heat of the impersonalist
sunshine and the heat in the sunglobe is
far different. One who is in personal touch
with Krishna, their spiritual bliss is incomparable.
The spiritual bliss derived
from impersonalist realization is just like
a drop of water in the presence of the Atlantic
Ocean. That is the difference between
personalism and impersonalism.
Your question, "How did Prakasananda
Saraswati see or think that Lord
Chaitanya was the Lord Narayan Himself
when he only realized Brahman?"-by
personal audience of Lord Chaitanya they
could realize Him as Narayan because
they were sincere in searching out the Absolute
Truth. As it is confirmed in the
Bhagavad Gita, that an impersonalist, if
he is sincere in searching out the Absolute
Truth, then ultimately such impersonalist
can reach to the point of the Personality of
Godhead. So Prakasananda Saraswati
was submissive to Lord Chaitanya, because
he begged Lord Chaitanya to occupy
superior seat, while Chaitanya
Mahaprabhu out of His extreme humbleness,
was sitting in a place where they
were washing their feet. A Vaishnava is always
humble, and if a person does not
misuse this humbleness of a Vaishnava, he
gets a chance to be elevated. But if somebody
misunderstands the humbleness of a
Vaishnava then he is doomed. Just like in
the Chaitanya Charitamrita, the author
Kaviraj Goswami says that he is lower
than the stool, and Sanatan Goswami says
that he is born and associated with most
degraded persons. If such humbleness of
Vaishnavas are taken verbatim, then we
are misled. Prakasananda Saraswati appreciated
the greatness of Lord Chaitanya,
even though He was humble, and therefore
Lord Chaitanya 's Mercy was bestowed
upon him, and thus he could
accept Him as He is.
The Mayavadi philosophers even they
do not follow Shankaracharya because
their philosophy itself is offensive .
Shankaracharya has accepted Krishna as