Gurudasa
Devotee Care
All Glories to the Assembled Devotees!
Radha and Krishna have guided this book, a glorification of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the kindest, wisest, most determined, non-compromising, open-minded personality I have ever come in contact with. This book is also for, and in glorification of, all the devotees who have embarked on the path of Krishna consciousness.
My heart goes out to all devotees—you who have become tender-hearted by hearing ancient, transcendental sounds, and by accepting Sri Sri Radha Krishna’s benediction and effulgence.
We can be compassionate towards one another because we are on the same journey, we have the same goal—to become Krishna conscious. Prabhupada has been our example, guide, inspiration, beacon, and forgiving father. He has left us instructions in his books.
If Prabhupada can forgive us, we can also forgive each other’s mistakes and meanderings. Lord Chaitanya welcomes everyone and sees past any bodily designations. I respect any devotee who has tried in even the smallest way to serve Prabhupada, Krishna, or another devotee. He or she is special—like the sparrow who drank drops of the ocean to rescue her lost eggs from the sea, or like the chipmunk who was tossing pebbles into the sea to help Lord Ramachandra build his bridge to Lanka. The effort itself is success.
I offer my well-wishes to anyone who gets up shivering before sunrise, and, still shivering, takes a cold shower. I offer my well-wishes to those who chant at least 25,000 names of the Lord each day, who consider all others prabhu, who are humble in their practices, who live simply and think of higher goals, and who overcome the tendency for judgmental thinking.
I offer my well-wishes to those who renounce material comforts and are more inspired by the sound of karatals, by the sight of pink lotus feet—to those who are struggling to overcome the unending, albeit temporary, attractions of material nature.
I offer my well-wishes to those who are eager to hear the nectar of divine pastimes and to serve humanity as brothers and sisters, for again, we are all on the same journey.
Let us walk together
Srila Prabhupada has attracted a fine, diverse, international group of people, and the network between us still continues. There are so many personal connections, all due to Prabhupada. If he hadn’t come here, we may never have met.
He changed each and every life he touched. It is his wish for us to be friendly, to cooperate, and help each other in Krishna consciousness.
Devotees and those on spiritual paths are rare, and we must encourage one another rather than criticize and turn others away from the delicate devotional path.
Prabhupada said someone who finds fault is like “a fly on sores,” while someone who sees good, who sees the soul within, is like “a honeybee (madhukara) going from flower to flower, transforming everything it touches into pure sweetness.” Allowing someone to grow, as Prabhupada did for me, is better than fault finding, which creates resentment and rebellion. Since we are a small family, divisive behavior is counterproductive. There are so few Vaishnavas. We must unite, because we have the same goal—love of Krishna.
from Preface By His Example by Gurudasa