Speaker: Radhanath Swami
Source: We must cultivate proper desires
Yesterday, at Radha-Rasabihari temple, my dear god-brother, Srutakirti Prabhu, who was Srila Prabhupada’s longest standing personal servant, gave a class. He cited a particular incident that is so essentially instructive to all of us. He was talking about a morning walk. I believe it was in Los Angeles. During these morning walks, it was usually only the very senior devotees that were allowed to go on walks with Srila Prabhupada and usually, all the senior devotees had so many questions they wanted to ask. But one particular devotee, he didn’t say a word or ask a single question the entire walk. At the end, Srila Prabhupada got into his car and he was about to close the door and this devotee ran up to him before the door could close, and put himself in between Prabhupada and the door, and with folded hands, he asked a question, “What is required to become Krishna conscious”? Srila Prabhupada answered the question with one word. This is the power of a great Vaishnava acharya. He could speak to the whole world for all time to come, the most essential of all knowledge and change our lives with one word, not the sloka, not even a sutra, a two syllable word and that word was – “Desire”. Many of you may have been thinking that he would say chant. That’s the obvious thing. Prabhupada was going deeper – desire. Everything is based on our desire. Krishna orchestrates our entire life and reciprocates with us according to our desire.
