Srila Bhakti Siddhanta

All glories to Sri Guru and Gauranga

Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Prabhupad

Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur Prabhupad was the Guru of both Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Maharaj and Srila A.C. Bhaktivendanta Swami Prabhupad. In the 1930's he established sixty-four Gaudiya Maths in India, and preached the ideal of pure Vaishnavism in the line of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Prabhupad preached that the Gaudiya Math stood for the dignity of the entire human race, by teaching wholesale surrender to the Absolute Good. Especially active in the field of publishing transcendental literature, his erudition was profoundly commanding and elaborate. He revolutionized Krishna conscious preaching by giving preference to pure devotional qualifications over lineage, and it was he who set the precedent of Vaishnava Tridanda-Sannyas [the renounced order of devotional life] in accordance with the injunctions of the revealed scriptures.

The deep sense of urgency he felt to propagate the divine teachings of Lord Chaitanya for the benefit of the suffering world of misconception is exemplified in the indomitable conviction of his statement: "If fire burns the whole world, do not waste time trying to put it out. All necessities can be met only by serving Krishna."

Glorification by Srila Sridhar Maharaj

: Although outwardly he was like a lion, inwardly he was very, very sweet - yet it could be traced only in his internal sweetness. Outwardly, the way of love was worshipped by him with grandeur, awe, and reverence, but his object was the simple and beautiful Divine Love of Vrindavan, and his temperament in establishing that in the world was just like a lion's. After his departure I described his life in one sloka:
nikhila-bhuvana-maya-chinnavicchinna-karttri
vibudha-bahula-mrgya-mukti-mohanta-dhattri
sithilita-vidhi-raga-radhya-radhesa-dhani
vilasatu hrdi nityam bhaktisiddhanta-vani
"With his first step, he vigorously cut asunder the whole plane of exploitation, and with his second, he put a stop to all the calculations of the different scholars with their different conceptions of salvation, liberated stages. With his third step, he minimized the hardness and stiffness of the rules and regulations of calculative devotional service, by a touch of the Divine Love: crossing Vaikuntha, he gave us the worship of Sri Sri Radha and Govinda."
Calculation, the rules and regulations, awe, reverence, all these things are minimized, checked, slackened with the softness of Vrindavan within, and with the hardness of a devastator without, he created havoc in the materialistic world, fighting with one and all. Single-handedly fighting against the whole world, and cutting asunder everything - that was his external attitude. And his second attitude was to put a stop to all scholarly researchers and doctorates of different departments, and to stop their boasting research; and third, to minimize, to slacken the grandeur of the worship of Narayan. He caused the domain of love to descend into this plane with the service of Radha-Govinda, establishing the flow of Divine Love from the heart as all in all. With that we come to serve our object of worship, and he represented the service of Radha Govinda as the highest attainment. That was his history. The real existence of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad is in bhaktisiddhanta-vani, his divine teachings. May that bhaktisiddhanta-vani, dance eternally within the core of your heart.