from lecture on Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami Appearance Day, evening February 15, 1971, Gorakhpur:
Prabhupada: Sri Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Maharaja, my spiritual master, his advent day [is] today. In 1922, I was at that time very much engaged in Congress activity. I was very much a devout follower of Mahatma Gandhi, and at that time, I was manager also in a very big chemical concern in Calcutta. Perhaps you may know, Dr. Bose’s laboratory.
One of my friends—he’s still living, Sri Narendranath Mullik—he informed me that “One saintly person has come. Let us go and see.” At that time I was young man, and I did not care for very much about so-called saintly persons. Because in our house, my father used to receive so many sannyasis, but some of them were not very to the standard, and due to my association with college friends, younger days, I lost my faith practically, although I was born in a Vaisnava family.
My father was a pure Vaisnava. From my childhood, he gave me Radha-Krsna Deity for worshiping. A ratha… I was playing with my boyfriends, Ratha-yatra, Dola[-yatra], like that. My father encouraged. So I was trained up in this line, but in my youthful age, when I was college student, gradually, by their bad association or something, gradually I lost my activities.
But when this friend, Mr. Mullik, took me to Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Maharaja, he immediately asked me that “You are educated young boy. Why don’t you take up Lord Caitanya’s message and preach in the Western world?” In the very first sight, he told me. At that time, I argued with him that “We are dependent nation, and who is going to hear about our message?”
So he defeated my argument.
Yes. He defeated my argument. He was a learned scholar. What I was? I was a teeny boy. So I agreed [chuckles] that I was defeated. So after finishing our visit with Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, I got some impression that “Here is a person who has taken Lord Caitanya’s message very seriously. Now it will be preached.” My friend asked my opinion, that “What is your opinion?” So I gave this opinion, that “Here is a person who has taken Lord Caitanya’s movement very seriously, and now it will be preached.”
So that was in 1922. Then, in 1923, I left Calcutta on business account, and I started my business at Allahabad. But I was always thinking of my Guru Maharaja, although I was that time not initiated. But the impression was there. I was thinking, “I met a very nice saintly person.”