By Patita Pavana das Adhikary
Once Prabhupada noted, “When Krishna was here, few could understand that he was the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Maybe a few hundred people, that’s all.” Similarly, when Shri Krishna’s pure devotee moves among the people of the earth–almost as one of them–only those rare and exceptional souls are able to recognize him. Even today, most people fail to see the great impact this empowered shuddha-bhakta has had on society, although His Divine Grace single-handedly re-established a true conception of religion worldwide for the first time in history.
Most people are like tsunami victims who saw that the ocean had receded hundreds of feet, without realizing that tidal wave was coming. Similarly, Shrila Prabhupada appeared as the prophet of the tidal wave of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s worldwide sankirtan, and even today only a handful recognize this fact.
Yet, there is an instance wherein Lord Krishna’s pure representative humbly openly displayed his mystic vision and prophetic potential before one of the most powerful men on earth. From the letter, we can understand that Shrila Prabhupada offered his seriices as Krishna’s representative even before the great leader Indians revered as the Father of their country. Unfortunately the architect of India’s independence, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was not able to listen to Krishna’s mahatma appearing to him as an old friend. Tragically, for M. K. Gandhi, the handwriting was inscribed upon the wall–written in the plainest of language in a letter he either never saw or chose to ignore. Yet the message was nothing less than a voice of prophecy from Shri Krishna’s very own chosen representative.. In the words that follow are found stunning proof of Shrila Prabhupada’s mystic powers of vision a mere six months before Gandhi succumbed to an assassin’s bullet in Delhi::
1947: July 12
CawnporeMahatma Gandhijee
Bhangi Colony
New Delhi.Dear Friend Mahatmajee,
Please accept my respectful Namaskar. I am your unknown friend but I
had to write to you at times and again although you never cared to
reply them. I sent you my papers “Back to Godhead” but your
secretaries told me that you have very little time to read the letters
and much less for reading the magazines. I asked for an interview with
you but your busy secretaries never cared to reply this.Anyway as I am your very old friend although unknown to you I am again
writing to you in order to bring you to the rightful position deserved
by you. As a sincere friend I must not deviate from my duty towards a
friend like your good self..I tell you as a sincere friend that you must immediately retire from
active politics if you do not desire to die an inglorious death. You
have 125 years to live as you have desired to live but you if you die
an inglorious death it is no worth. The honour and prestige that you
have obtained during the course of you present life time, were not
possible to be obtained by any one else within the living memory. But
you must know that all these honours and prestiges were false in as
much as they were created by the Illusory Energy of Godhead called the
maya.By this falsity I do not mean to say that your so many friends were
false to you nor you were false to them. By this falsity I mean
illusion or in other words the false friendship and honours obtained
thereby were but creation of maya and therefore they are always
temporary or false as you may call it. But none of you neither your
friends nor yourself knew this truth.Now by the Grace of God that illusion is going to be cleared and thus
your faithful friends like Acarya Kripalini and others are accusing
you for your inability at the present moment to give them any
practical programme of work as you happened to give them during your
glorious days of non-co-operation movement. So you are also in a
plight to find out a proper solution for the present political tangle
created by your opponents.You should therefore take a note of warning from your insignificant
friend like me, that unless you retire timely from politics and engage
yourself cent per cent in the preaching work of Bhagavad-gita, which
is the real function of the Mahatmas, you shall have to meet with such
inglorious deaths as Mussolini, Hitlers, Tojo, Churchill or Lloyd
Georges met with.You can very easily understand as to how some of your political
enemies in the garb of friends (both Indian and English) have
deliberately cheated you and have broken your heart by doing the same
mischief for which you have struggled so hard for so many years. You
wanted chiefly Hindu-Moslem unity in India and they have tactfully
managed to undo your work, by creation of the Pakistan and India
separately. You wanted freedom for India but they have given permanent
dependence of India.You wanted to do something for the upliftment of the position of the
bhangis but they are still rotting as bhangis even though you are
living in the bhangi colony. They are all therefore illusions and when
these things will be presented to you as they are, you must consider
them as God-sent. God has favored you by dissipating the illusion you
were hovering in, and by the same illusion you were, nursing those
ideas as Truth.You must know that you are in the relative world which is called by
the sages as Dvaita i.e. dual- and nothing is absolute here. Your
Ahimsa is always followed by Himsa as the light is followed by
darkness or the father is followed by the son. Nothing is absolute
truth in this dual world. You did not know this neither you ever cared
to know this from the right sources and therefore all your attempts to
create unity were followed by disunity and Ahimsa. Ahimsa was followed
by Himsa.But it is better late than never. You must know now something about
the Absolute Truth. The Truth with which you have been experimenting
so long is relative. The relative truths are creations of the daivi
maya qualified by the three modes of Nature. They are all
insurmountable as is explained in the Bhagavad-gita (7.14). The
Absolute Truth is the Absolute Godhead.In the Katha Upanisad it is ordered that one must approach the
bona fide Guru who is not only well versed in all the scriptures of the
world but is also the realised soul in Brahman the Absolute–in order
to learn the science of Absolute Truth. So also it is instructed in
the Bhagavad-gita as follows:–tad viddhi pranipatena
pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti tad jnanam
jnaninas tattvadarsinah
(4.34)But I know that you never underwent such transcendental training
except some severe penances which you invented for your purpose as you
have invented so many things in the course of experimenting with the
relative truths. You might have easily avoided them if you had
approached the Guru as abovementioned. But your sincere efforts to
attain some Godly qualities by austerities etc surely have raised you
to some higher position which you can better utilize for the purpose
of the Absolute Truth. If you, however, remain satisfied with such
temporary position only and do not try to know the Absolute Truth,
then surely you are to fall down from the artificially exalted
position under the laws of Nature.But if you really want to approach the Absolute Truth and want to do
some real good to the people in general all over the world, which
shall include your ideas of unity, peace and non-violence, then you
must give up the rotten politics immediately and rise up for the
preaching work of the philosophy and religion of “Bhagavad-gita”
without offering unnecessary and dogmatic interpretations on them. I
had occasionally discussed this subject in my paper “Back to Godhead”
and a leaf from the same is enclosed herewith for your reference.I would only request you to retire from politics at least for a month
only and let us have discussion on the Bhagavad-gita. I am sure,
thereby, that you shall get a new light from the result of such
discussions not only for your benefit but for the benefit of the world
at large–as I know that you are sincere, honest and moralist.Awaiting your early reply with interest..
Yours sincerely,
Abhay Charan De.
I recall that in his autobiography “The Story of My Experiments With Truth”, Gandhi wrote at one point that he considered that yogis traditionally accepted a guru and perhaps he should do so too, but he never did.
Here, Srila Prabhupada was very mercifully offering to study Bhagavad Gita with him and become his guru. It is unfortunate for Gandhi (and the world) that he never was able to take Srila Prabhupada up the offer, if he ever even got the opportunity to read Srila Prabhupadas letter.
Prabhupada’s letter to Gandhi is indeed remarkable from so many angles yet there is one strange anomaly, and that is that Churchill did not die until 1965, yet Prabhupada wrote to Gandhi in 1947. I wonder if anyone has any explanation?
Your servant,
Paradhyeya Das
i can think of many present day activists & politicians who would greatly benefit from this wise counsul , to the benefit of the world.
Paradheya Prabhu writes: “Prabhupada’s letter to Gandhi is indeed remarkable from so many angles yet there is one strange anomaly, and that is that Churchill did not die until 1965, yet Prabhupada wrote to Gandhi in 1947. I wonder if anyone has any explanation?”
Assuming that we are dealing with a correct translation or transcription of this letter, I take it as a reference to multiple attempted assasinations of Winston Churchill. According to most sources, Churchill survived four assassination attempts: Sinn Fein in 1921, an Indian extremist in Chicago in 1931, Germans at the Duke of Windsor’s House in 1939, and Germans in Cairo in 1943.
It can also be argued that there was nothing ‘inglorious’ in the death of Lloyd George, who died of natural causes at age 81. In that case Prabhupada was perhaps referring to his somewhat disgraced political status at the end of his lifetime, contrasted with his previous political glory days.
Paradhyeya Prabhu, good question. I do not know why Prabhupada seemed to be suggesting that Churchill had already died, either. I can only suggest that even by 1947 it was obvious to Srila Prabhupada that Churchill’s eventual death would not be glorious.
Obviously at the time most notable thing about Churchill was that he has lost his 1945 election held just months after VE Day. It is clearly a case of nothing glorious as far as death is concerned. So I would not limit it to a list of people who were already dead in 1947; certainly the list of very prominent politicians that were ether dead or disgraced. Churchill was both shocked and personally devastated by his defeat. A recurrence of what Churchill called his ‘black dog’ of depression descended on him with a vengeance, a case of Ashvatthama’s death is a parallel. It was ‘public death’ and humiliation – Chuchil himself said in 1945, ‘I declare that the vote of the nation at the General Election was one of the greatest disasters that has smitten us in our long and chequered history’. Shameful end (from 1947 point of view, for sure) for a politician who just won a war, so better be warned Mr. Gandhiji.